Chapter 123

Arik

Another bastard. We could've made another bastard this night. Jessalyn had talked about choosing life, which was all very nice in a forest with pseudo-mystical beasts standing in attendance, but once we stepped free of it? I'd have a war council to face and a coronation to plan and a queen to marry.

All while she was possibly pregnant to my pack.

The elders assured me that the gods directed every step we took towards our mate, but how could that be true? How could they want any child of ours to experience the same hell I had. People inspecting our baby from the moment it was born, looking to see if it resembled me and Jessalyn or had Silas dark hair, Roan's red or Creed's brown. No, worse, looking to see if it had any sign of a wolf. A son that was a wolf shifter or a daughter? I couldn't work out which would cause my child more strife and as if summoned to answer that, the ghost of my father appeared.

"A child is a blessing," he said.

I'd heard that plenty of times before because that was what he told me as I sobbed into my pillow when I was still small enough for Magnus to batter. In a fit of childish passion, I'd questioned why I had been born and for what purpose. I could almost feel his hand on my shoulder giving it a squeeze as he reached for me right now. I had to move out of his reach, shaking my head sharply because I was not a child anymore.

"Soft words won't get us out of this, Father, and neither will you." My gaze hardened in ways I hadn't dared when he was still alive. I needed his love back then, but it hadn't been especially useful to me since his death, allowing me to reject it. "You're the one that got me into this mess in the first place."

I stared back across the clearing, the four of them shadowy shapes that sought pleasure, more pleasure, but I was never going to be allowed that luxury. Who knew the pain of indulging in indiscriminate lust better than me.

"You have to have known a child could come from this union," Father said.

"I wasn't thinking with my head," I replied bitterly, walking farther and farther into the forest. "I was thinking with my cock."

"Your heart," he corrected. "That was what made clear to me that you were my son and Magnus was not."

"And what good did that do me, Father? What good did it do for any of the people Magnus hurt?" I stopped then and stared, pleading for him to see it. "What good would it do my child? I can't protect him or her from the attention of the court. This is why I never wanted to take the throne. As a common soldier, no one cares who fathered my child but me. I'd end anyone who dared make comment, but as king…"

Magnus sent me to the army to die, but instead I learned about the rest of the world, one where struggles for power were a lot less dramatic and harmful. I wanted to go back to that, to being the Bastard and his band. That man could keep his pack safe, installing Jessalyn and her baby into a house we'd build on packlands—

"Perhaps not as king." I stared at the ghost, remembering that he was not real, that I wasn't actually having a conversation with him. This was just an echo of the man, summoned by my pain. "But a queen?"

"A queen?"

I frowned at that but got no answer as he led me deeper into the forest.

This was obviously some ceremonial site sacred to our ancestors. The states, the stone paved clearing all indicated it had served some purpose, but none more than this place. I'd roamed the forest most of my childhood, glad to be away from sneering courtiers and Magnus, but I'd never seen this before. The ruins of a temple perhaps, I caught sight of broken archways and walls covered in carvings. Father came to stand under what remained of the vaulted ceiling and then stared at me expectantly. I got the same treatment after he'd given me a passage to read or a map to pour over, indicating that he wanted my thoughts, so I stepped forward and scanned the walls.

A stag rearing on the walls of a Kheanian temple came as no surprise. The grand nave had the same in the form of stained glass windows beautiful enough to make you weep. I'd stood underneath them, letting the jewel coloured light bathe me, but this was different. This was either a representation of a stag in winter, because it had no antlers or…

It was a doe.

The stylised image of a woman was carved into the stone. Her long waves of hair were transformed into blonde tresses in my mind, her dress turquoise blue like Jessalyn often liked to wear. So when she was depicted bent over and reaching over to touch the doe, I saw Jessalyn doing the same.

Just as she had when we were in Fallspire.

"What…?"

I was ready to ask a ghost for assistance in interpreting the frieze, but my mind started to race as I saw the other figures. Men with the heads of wolves or not, simply wearing pelts hung over their shoulders. They surrounded the woman, kneeling at her feet. Not penitents or worshippers, somehow I knew, but…

Her mates.

My body moved to take on the same stance as the one closest to her, my hands feeling weighted, even though I held nothing other than air, because he? He offered her an object I knew well. I'd felt its weight on my brow, the antlers cool against my skin. The figure offered the woman the crown of antlers. Footsteps had my eyes jerking up, my hand going to my knife, but it wasn't needed. The golden stag stood above the rise behind the broken wall, staring down at me. The doe and her two fawns appeared beside him, each one staring down at me with huge eyes, willing me to understand.

It's a wise child that knows his own father, I'd heard that often enough, but his mother? Every child knew without a doubt who she was. No baby born from between Jessalyn's thighs could ever be considered illegitimate, not if its mother was queen.

"Arik…?" She appeared then on the outskirts of the temple, looking muddied and tousled and utterly glorious. "I'm sorry. We shouldn't—"

"No." I marched towards her, my feet moving faster the closer I got.

"I'm sorry. I didn't—"

"No."

"But I—"

"No." I emphasised that point by hauling her up into my arms and pressing my mouth to hers, kissing her with all of the open-mouthed hunger I held back. "No, you did nothing wrong. Nothing at all."

"So that night at the inn…?" A tiny little twist of a smile had my lips moving into the same shape.

"Was madness. And if you think I spanked you hard before, you won't sit down for a week if you ever do anything like that again."

"So…?"

She didn't press, seeming to know I had to get this out at my own pace.

"So I think you are so perfect that I'm prepared to make you queen," I replied.

"I would hope so"—she pushed my shoulder—"if you had another woman in mind to become your wife—"

"No, you don't understand." I took her hand and held it over my heart. "Not as my wife, but as my mate and…" I sucked in a breath, seeing the opposition that would come from all of the members of the war council. This I would fight them on, that I swore. They'd see the wisdom of it in time. The fact my madman brother had thought to marry Jessalyn, thinking her Ariel all over again, would work in my favour because I'd made sure to include a clause in Jessalyn's marriage contract.

If Magnus died when Jessalyn was married to him, she became Queen Regent. She would stay in that role until a suitable contender was named, and in my mind, none would come forward, not until our son or daughter was grown.

"Just so, Son. Just so."

My father's voice was little more than a sigh, his form fraying then fracturing until there was nothing left of him but the golden deer standing there. The stag pawed at the ground and something came tumbling down the small rise as a result.

"What…?"

She drifted forward as if in a dream, picking her way through the ruins only to bend over and pick up this. My hands covered hers, knowing already what it was. I'd tossed my crown in the fire, hoping to turn it to ashes, but now. I brushed the dirt and smut from the crown and then held it out.

"Arik."

Her hands went around my wrists, holding me still, but I just grinned.

"Jessalyn?"

The others came running towards us then skidded to a halt, but it was Silas who saw what I was about to do first.

"Jessalyn is to become—?"

"Queen Jessalyn, ruler of the Kheanian Empire," I said. "Lady of the Northern Reaches, mistress of the Iridescent Seas." Once the crown was on her head, I dropped down to one knee and so did the others. "We live to serve you, Your Majesty."