Chapter Seventeen

Since their meeting that morning, someone had transformed the formal dining space into exactly that: a war room. Maps covered one end of the table, while an enormous model of the midrealms covered the other, complete with mountainous terrain and colour-coded climates. Markers had been positioned all over the model to indicate the various forces throughout the kingdoms: from units of Guardians stationed in outer villages to King Artos' considerable armies.

Wilder noted the thick black Xs that had been marked in the far reaches of the model. ‘What are those?'

‘Suspected reaper lairs,' Anya answered, folding her arms over her chest and surveying the replica before them with a critical eye. ‘Ideally, if Artos wasn't forcing our hand, we would have opted for a three-pronged attack. One to the lairs, one to Artos' main army, and one to the Heart of Harenth.'

Wilder raised a brow. ‘His palace?'

‘It's a symbol of his strength,' Adrienne said from across the table. ‘To bring it down would weaken not only his position, but his image.'

‘But he is forcing our hand, by marching on Aveum,' Thea countered. ‘We're compelled to address that attack first, lest he defeat Queen Reyna's armies and bring them to heel. If he manages to swallow her forces, we don't stand a chance.' She pointed to the markers stationed in the winter kingdom, signifying the main army there. ‘If he takes those numbers and turns them into howlers or worse, we may as well pack up now.'

Wilder looked to Torj. ‘How long until the army reaches Aveum?'

‘From what I learnt, they're advancing on foot, with a small unit of cavalry. No shadow wraiths in the mix yet. If it remains that way, I'd wager it'll be no more than two weeks until they reach the foothills of the mountains.' Torj pointed to the spot on the replica where the terrain became uneven.

Cal let out a low whistle. ‘This takes apprentice training to a whole new level.'

‘Hate to break it to you, Callahan,' Kipp retorted, ‘but I think we're well past training now.'

Torj gave a rough laugh. ‘He's not wrong, Apprentice… Consider this graduation.'

‘Focus,' Anya cut in. ‘So, what I'm hearing is that we need to go to Aveum. We need to convince Reyna to take up arms against Artos, not roll over for him.'

‘How do you propose we do that?' Wilder asked. ‘Between the Daughter of Darkness and her Delmirian heir accomplices? Not to mention a company of supposed fallen Warswords and an army of shadow-touched that the world will only see as half-wraiths?'

Thea squeezed his arm. ‘Do we have any proof that the arachne attack on Aveum during the eclipse was by Artos' hand?' she asked the others, scanning the strained faces around the war table.

‘Actually, yes,' Wren replied, stepping forward, a small, familiar vial in her hands.

Seeing it, Wilder remembered that Torj had given it to her in the Singing Hare. It was the gift of Harenth to a newly forged Warsword, a poison none of them had ever used. Torj had landed himself in hot water by declaring it a ‘woman's weapon'.

The alchemist glanced at the Bear Slayer before she spoke again. ‘Farissa and I made a study of this after we left Aveum,' she told them. ‘It's not poison, not in the way that you mean. It can't be used to kill or incapacitate, not directly. But because of that, most Warswords have deemed it useless in the past.'

‘What is it, then?' Thea pressed. Wilder was keenly aware that it was another one of the Warsword gifts she was yet to obtain because of him.

‘Simply put, it's bottled empath magic,' Wren told them. ‘And its properties match those that were used to meddle with the Pools of Purity in Aveum after the arachne attack. This little vial here directly links Artos to the horrific consequences of that attack, including King Elkan's death.'

‘How does it do that?' Anya asked, brow furrowed.

‘Farissa reached out to the Master Alchemist at Vios. Empath magic was found in King Elkan's system post-mortem… Artos told Reyna he'd done it to ease the king's suffering in his final moments, but with the link to the pools as well, there's no denying that Artos was responsible for the attack.'

Torj let out a whistle. ‘So in other words, his handprints are all over this?'

‘Exactly,' Farissa concluded at Wren's side. ‘We discovered that for a brief time, a few drops of this elixir will give the user control over their target's emotions. Not quite poisonous, but just as powerful, just as dangerous in the wrong hands.'

‘How did you uncover that?'

Farissa gave Wren a sideways glance. ‘We experimented.'

‘On each other?' Audra gaped. ‘Farissa, you're telling me you experimented with a drug you know nothing about, on a princess of Delmira?'

‘It was my idea!' Wren interjected.

Audra shook her head.

‘You didn't care so much when it was your ward flinging herself off cliffs in initiation tests,' Farissa said defensively. ‘Or pitting herself against wraiths in the midst of battle. Or are you forgetting that Althea is also a princess of Delmira?'

‘There's plenty of us to go round,' Anya said, silencing them both.

‘For now,' Thea muttered beside Wilder, only loud enough for him to hear. He nudged her with his elbow, hating how quickly those words left her lips.

Kipp cleared his throat from where he surveyed the model at the end of the table. ‘And what of Esyllt?'

‘What do you suggest?' Torj asked him. ‘As the weapons master, he's under substantial guard in the dungeons.'

‘We need him,' Kipp argued, bracing his weight on the table's edge, clearly agitated. ‘Not only as another strategic mind to plan the battles to come. Without him, we won't have the loyalty of the Guardians stationed throughout the realms. Regardless of Artos and Osiris, our warriors will answer to him. Without the Guardians rallying to his call, we'll be vastly outnumbered.' He glanced around the room. ‘If you want the military term, it's: fucked.'

‘I'm still waiting for your suggestion,' Torj replied. ‘Something tells me you know the underbelly of Thezmarr better than anyone. Can he be rescued?'

‘We broke Wilder out of the Scarlet Tower,' Thea declared. ‘Thezmarr's dungeons should be child's play.'

Kipp nodded. ‘I'll go,' he said. ‘I'll get Esyllt out, and take any willing shieldbearers with us.'

‘I'll go with you,' Cal declared.

‘I'll take one of the shadow-touched with me,' Kipp told him. ‘Your archery skills serve our cause better here – not just in the territory's defence like today, but in training anyone who shows a lick of promise with long-range weaponry.'

Wilder was impressed. With the life of his mentor on the line, Kipp had dropped the joker act and descended into full-blown strategy mode. No one argued with him.

‘Who goes to parley with Queen Reyna?' Wilder asked, searching the group for the best option, each seeming more unlikely than the last.

‘We do,' Anya said, thrusting her chin towards her sisters. ‘All three of us together. A united front of Delmirians, taking a stand against the darkness that claimed our family, our kingdom.'

‘Agreed,' Wren said firmly.

‘Also agreed,' Thea added from Wilder's side.

He suppressed the urge to pull her close. It was selfish, but his first response was regret. Regret that in the face of that hourglass that ticked against them, they would be pulled apart yet again. But the Embervale sisters were right. No one else could make a stronger case. No one else had lost more in the face of Artos' corruption, and it was something the widow queen needed to see for herself.

‘So be it,' Talemir said. ‘Kipp will return to Thezmarr for Esyllt and any willing fighters remaining in the fortress. Anya, Wren and Thea will go to Aveum to secure Queen Reyna's alliance.'

‘Who will escort them?' Torj asked, not taking his eyes off the youngest sister.

Anya made a derisive noise in her throat. ‘We're three storm wielders. A warrior, a Warsword and an alchemist.'

‘If you're attacked, Wren can't just throw potions at the enemy,' the Warsword argued, his face lined with concern.

Wren's nostrils flared. ‘Care to bet?'

Anya's expression contorted as she fought to hide her amusement and resume her hardened countenance. ‘We need no escort to the winter lands, Bear Slayer. I'll take us there myself.'

‘And I'll pretend not to be insulted that you're dismissing my Warsword prowess,' Thea added.

‘But —'

‘No buts,' Talemir said in agreement with the sisters. ‘The Embervales are more than capable of defending themselves. You're needed here. I'll send for more shadow-touched units to arrive by the end of the week. They'll need training, as much as we can give them if we mean to take a stand against Artos on the field.'

Torj fell quiet.

‘So while Kipp rescues Esyllt, and the Embervales go to Aveum, the rest of us are to make something of your forces?' Wilder sought Talemir for confirmation. ‘And we have two weeks, likely less, to do so?'

‘Pretty much.'

Anya cleared her throat, running a hand over her shaved skull as she addressed Thezmarr's former librarian. ‘Audra, any development on what we discussed in Aveum?'

Wilder wracked his mind for what Anya was talking about. What had she asked of Audra at the Singing Hare?

The older woman scowled, pushing her spectacles to the bridge of her nose. ‘My answer remains unchanged.'

‘That you know nothing?' Anya said, deadpan.

‘Not a clue,' Audra replied.

Thea leant in. ‘Anya thinks Audra's holding out on the whereabouts of the former women warriors of Thezmarr,' she whispered.

Thatrang a bell in Wilder's head. But Audra was being cagey, as always.

‘If that's all for tonight…' Audra gave the midrealms model a final fleeting glance before she headed for the door.

Anya caught Thea and Wren's attention. ‘We leave at dawn tomorrow, yes? I'll meet you in the quadrangle.'

There was no room for negotiation in her tone, and so Thea and Wren simply nodded.

Slowly, the chamber began to empty out, and Thea let out a long sigh, resting her weight on the edge of the table, closing her eyes as she tipped her head back to the ceiling. ‘Long day,' she murmured.

‘I'll say,' Kipp called out from the door with a farewell wave.

Wilder gave a tired laugh, and Thea made to go after Kipp, no doubt realising that she wouldn't see her friend for some time if she was off to Aveum in the morning, and he was travelling back to Thezmarr. As Thea pushed off from the table and jogged out of the room, something fell from her pocket.

Wilder stared at the thing that had hit the maps with a soft thud, falling open on the table.

A notebook. The very one she'd been scribbling in since they'd arrived.

Wilder meant to close it and pocket it to return to her later, but his gaze caught on a detail scrawled at the top of the page.

His name.

Dear Wilder, it began.

How could he not read it when it was addressed to him?

He glanced at the door, where he could hear Thea talking with Kipp and Cal just beyond. Wilder's stomach lurched as his eyes returned to Thea's messy handwriting. He knew he wasn't meant to read it, but he also knew there was no way he could stop himself now.

Dear Wilder,

I didn't want to leave you, ever. If I had it my way I'd be by your side, always. But Fate had other plans for me, for us, it seems…

Wilder's shoulders caved with the weight of her words, the first few lines alone causing his eyes to burn with tears. He flicked through the notebook, finding countless entries, some only a few sentences long, others spanning several pages.

Wilder,

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I'm no longer there with you. I wanted to travel the midrealms with you. I wanted to capture my stallion with you riding alongside me. I wanted so many things for us…

Thea's innermost thoughts, her regrets and her unrelenting declaration of love, all written down for him.

She had signed every entry with a lightning bolt, as she'd done with the notes she'd left for him in his cabin, a lifetime ago.

‘What the fuck is this, Thea?' he demanded when she returned to the war room.

The remaining stragglers left in a hurry. Wren shot Thea a grimace before closing the door behind her, leaving Wilder and Thea alone, to deal with… whatever the fuck this was.

He gestured to the open notebook, anger and hurt entwining into something that was bubbling over, something he couldn't control. ‘Well?'

Thea's eyes were lined with sorrow. ‘It's for you… For after.'

‘After what?' he growled.

‘You know what.' Thea's lower lip trembled, but she met his gaze with a determined look. ‘After I'm gone.'

Wilder raked his fingers through his hair, fighting to get enough air into his lungs as he snatched up the offending item and held it out to her, hopeless. ‘You've left me a death book, is that it?'

‘Not a name I would have chosen, but… in a way, yes…?'

Wilder was trembling, fury gripping his bones and sending fire to his heart. ‘You've been writing me death letters? Since when?'

‘Since we got here.'

He flipped through the countless pages. ‘If you had this much to say, why not say it to me? I'm here. I'm with you now.' He could hear the pain straining his voice, but he didn't care. Didn't she know that she was breaking him apart? Didn't she know that he wouldn't let her go anywhere without him?

‘It's just in case,' she whispered, her eyes wide.

Wilder cast the notebook aside and grabbed her, hoisting her up onto the war table, sending maps and markers scattering. He shoved her thighs apart and seated himself between them. He hadn't allowed himself this, hadn't allowed himself to be touched by her since before the Scarlet Tower. But now? Now he needed her hands on him. He needed to bury his cock deep inside her, needed the sanctuary of her body.

‘We're not doing anything just in case,' he growled, before ripping her shirt in two and tearing it from her body.

She gasped, but he didn't stop there.

Instantly hard and aching for her, he tore the band around her chest down the middle, exposing her full, round breasts to him in the flickering candlelight.

‘Wilder,' she murmured. ‘Anyone could come in.'

‘I don't give a fuck,' he told her, and closed his mouth around one of her nipples.

Thea's head tipped back as she moaned, her body bowing beneath him as his teeth scraped the hardened peak, teasing the sensitive spot. Her legs widened, wrapping around his lower back and drawing him close so that he could grind his rock-hard erection against her core. The friction sent stars into his vision.

Thea seemed to understand the shift in him, because her hands were at the buttons of his shirt. He couldn't wait; he tore straight through that fabric as well, letting the tatters fall from his arms to the floor. Thea's hands were on him in an instant, tracing the lines of his chest, the plane of his abdomen and the dip of sinew that pointed right to the bulge in his pants.

‘You're everything,' she whispered, but he silenced her with a savage kiss.

Wilder claimed her brutally, and she welcomed his exploration of her mouth with frenzied strokes of her own tongue. All the while her nails marked his skin, heating his blood to boiling point.

He caught her lower lip between his teeth and bit down hard, pinching her nipple at the same time, eliciting a sharp cry from her before he kissed over each small pulse of pain.

Thea's hands went to his belt, and he helped her with the buckle and then the buttons of his pants. He shoved them down his muscular thighs, letting his thick length spring free, kicking his pants aside.

Thea's mouth fell open at the sight of him and he let a sly smile grace his lips. ‘See something you like, Princess?' he said, his voice rough with desire.

‘Yes,' she breathed, reaching for him. ‘Something I've missed…'

Wilder didn't give a fuck who heard them as her hand closed around his shaft and he let out a carnal moan. Her thumb swiped across the broad, leaking head of him, teasing his tip with decadent circles before she stroked him in earnest.

‘Fuck.' Wilder braced himself against the power of that single touch. She worked him in gloriously long, unhurried caresses, coaxing waves of desire to unfurl from the base of his spine, tightening in his balls. He thrust into her hand, savouring each pass over his cock as he popped open the buttons of her pants.

He wrenched them down to her knees, along with her undergarments, her breasts bouncing with the movement. Thea's grip left him as she wriggled out of her pants completely. More army pieces fell from the table, maps tearing beneath Thea's shifting body. Wilder grabbed his cock and dragged it through the slickness between her legs.

They both moaned at the sensation.

‘Gods,' Wilder murmured. ‘How is it that you feel so good and I'm not even inside you yet?'

Thea ground against him, edging him closer to her entrance. ‘Wilder…'

His name was a curse and a plea, and the sound of it on her lips nearly had him throwing all notion of restraint to the wind. Furies save him, he'd never been so fucking hard in all his life. White-hot need blazed through him like wildfire and it was all he could do not to sheathe himself inside her in one powerful thrust.

‘Do it,' Thea challenged, staring up at him with hooded eyes while she parted her legs even further for emphasis.

Smiling darkly, Wilder notched his cock to her entrance and slid in just a fraction, his control nearly slipping at that first hint of tight heat around him. But he paused, teasing her clit with his thumb and revelling in the way her body opened for him.

‘Wilder…' she warned.

It was the most delicious form of torture, for the both of them, but he couldn't stand it a moment longer.

‘Pinch those nipples for me, Princess,' he commanded.

As Thea's fingers clamped around her hardened peaks, Wilder shifted his hips and thrust inside her with one powerful stroke. His vision blurred and Thea moaned loudly beneath him, her whole body welcoming him inside, clenching around his cock like he belonged there.

‘Holy fuck,'he muttered, enveloping her with his torso as he sank even deeper into the wet heat of her. A low, rumbling sound of need escaped him and he gripped her hard enough to bruise, his thrusts brutal, unapologetic, uninhibited.

Thea met him stroke for stroke with a tilt of her hips, allowing him deeper still. The noises that left her had Wilder's body turning molten, his balls tightening, begging to empty into her.

‘Harder,' Thea panted. ‘Faster.'

Wilder was only too happy to oblige, adjusting his grip on her, dragging her across the war table so that her lower half hung off the edge, so he could drive himself into her with even more fury. For that rage was still simmering below the surface. At everything that had happened to lead them here, every injustice, every stolen moment – even at Thea herself, for having accepted the fate carved for her in that gods-damned stone.

And so he fucked her hard and fast, just as she asked.

‘I don't want your death notes,' he managed between thrusts, applying pressure to her clit, causing her to jerk beneath him. ‘Do you hear me?'

‘Yes…' she cried, her naked body flushed with desire.

He closed one hand around her throat. ‘Never again.'

Thea's eyes flew open, her pupils dilated, her muscles clenching around him. She licked her lips. ‘Are you going to punish me?'

Wilder's thrusts slowed and he blinked at her. ‘Do you want to be punished, Princess?' he asked.

Slowly, Thea nodded, once, then twice. ‘I deserve it…'

A new rush of longing swept through Wilder and he ground into her. ‘You do.'

In that moment, he came back to himself in full force, his strength, his rage, his power all coursing through him alongside his insatiable desire for the woman writhing beneath him. He flipped her onto her front and bent her over the edge of the war table, baring her backside to him.

As he buried his cock deep inside her from behind, his open palm came down hard on her pale flesh with a crack.

Thea moaned, spreading her legs beneath her and pushing back onto his length. He could feel her wetness dripping down her thighs. ‘Again.'

Wilder spanked her other cheek, feeling the sting through his fingers as he slammed into her again and again, wringing frenzied cries from her. He was barely holding on.

‘Thea…' he panted against her sweat-slicked spine, wrapping the tail of her messy braid around his knuckles and pulling her back onto him. ‘I want you to come. Come all over my cock.'

‘Wilder…' Her breath caught in ecstasy.

‘Now,' he commanded.

Thea's whole body tensed and she cried out, shuddering around him.

Wilder arced his hips, restraint a distant memory as he fucked her on the precipice of climax. She pushed back on him and he passed the point of no return, sheer pleasure flooding his veins.

Wilder erupted with a roar, trembling as he spilt himself inside her.

He jerked as Thea coaxed the last waves of his orgasm from him, rocking against him slowly.

He kissed the base of her spine, breathless and in awe of what they'd just done. Leaning back as he pulled his cock from her, he surveyed the bright pink handprints on each pale cheek of her backside. He pressed a kiss to the first, then the second, before turning her over beneath him.

Thea's face was flushed, a smile tugging at her lips. ‘Was that…'

‘Mind-blowing?' he asked without hesitation. ‘Yes.'

On the table, Thea propped herself up on her elbows and surveyed their flushed, sticky bodies, her gaze lingering on Wilder's cock, already halfway back to attention, heavy between his legs. ‘Welcome back, Warsword,' she said with a devious grin.

Wilder cupped her chin and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her deeply before breaking away. ‘Next time you need punishment… It won't just be here,' he murmured, shifting his hand beneath her to squeeze her backside. With his other hand he swiped through her wetness before giving her clit a light slap.

A gasp escaped Thea, and then she laughed. ‘Don't tempt me with a good time.'