The world starts to blink out. I don’t know if it will do any good to fight the darkness that encroaches.
It doesn’t matter whether I try to fight to stay conscious. The darkness overwhelms me, cradling my terror until I break, and everything vanishes.
42
KATARINA
I WAKE UP WARM. My body aches, and I press my face into skin with a smattering of scales. I want to stay in this spot for the next day at least. Maybe Kalos will take pity on me and hold me a little longer. He does that sometimes. It’s probably prodded by guilt that the pregnancy has sapped so much of my energy—
My memories come into focus all at once, and I jolt to sit up, but strong arms keep me still.
“Easy, little queen, you must rest.” Kalos’s voice is rough but soothes the part of me that has mourned his absence.
“Kalos—” I start to ask, but he interrupts.
“Our dragonling is strong. A little shaken, but strong.”
“She’s okay?” I ask, hardly able to believe it. Not with how motionless she had been before I’d lost consciousness.
He swallows. His face is drawn tight with exhaustion, but his eyes are bright and shiny with emotion. “She’s okay. Maggie checked her over while you were passed out.”
The relief is like a gasp of air after drowning. Beautiful, painful, and too much. The gasp turns into a sob, and I crumble into Kalos’s hold. Each shuddering breath rips through me. Each bringing with it sharp memories and emotions.
Kalos stokes a scaled hand over my hair trying to offer comfort in my overwhelm.
She’s okay, but she almost wasn’t.
I ball my fists, and the first strike against Kalos’s chest is painful against my skin but cathartic at the same time. Too many emotions to name assault my senses.
“How could you?” I cry. My voice thick with tears and raw. I don’t even know what specifically I’m angry about. Him leaving, him not coming for me, him risking his life to destroy the fae gate. It all swirls together into a stew of betrayal.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, my queen, my Rina. For all of it.”
“That’s not enough,” I choke out.
“I know.” And the deep lines in his face show that he does.
This fear of losing her. Of losing him. It’s so large in my soul I don’t know how I’ll ever function again.
It’s not just fear. Kalos risked his life to destroy the gate… and I risked our daughter’s to try and save him. I was only thinking of him.
If I dwell on that guilt, it will devour me more completely than the fae gate magic attempted to.
“You left!” I cry. It was his first sin, so we might as well start there. “You can’t just leave me.”
My gut churns at the memory of the vulnerability and anxiety of his departure.
“I did.” His voice is frustratingly calm. “I was… unwell. I needed the time to convene with the wilder parts of my nature.”
Each word smooths over some of my riotous anger, even when I don’t want to lose those sharp edges.
Kalos’s eyes glow with determination even as his arms cradle me. “I was always going to return, but I needed to find balance before I could come back.”
The words are what I’ve spent days agonizing over, but now that I have them and everything else in the mix, I don’t know what to do with them. I look away from his imploring gaze and notice our surroundings for the first time.
We’re in his bedroom, but there’s no trace of the damage from the Leonid attack littering the sheets around us. It’s no different except for the flood of light in the room. I glance up, and my throat catches at the sight of the destroyed dome. There’s a distant birdsong from outside that conflicts with the broken part of our home.
My home.
“I love you, and it hurts so deeply,” I whisper without meaning to.
Kalos blinks in surprise. “You love me?”
“Yes, you thoughtless reptile!” I snarl.
Ignoring my animosity, the corners of his lips lift in a boyish expression of hope.
“Then I haven’t broken things beyond repair?” he asks.
The anger halts for a moment. It leaves a portion of calm that I don’t deserve.
“I don’t know,” I say, soft and broken. I don’t know anything. I don’t know how to get past what he’s done, what I’ve done. I don’t know how to resolve all of it with the knowledge that this place and these people feel like the only home I’ve ever known.
He lifts my chin and touches his lips to mine softly. “Then rest, Rina. Let me care for you. Everything else can be addressed later.”
“And she’s okay,” I say against his lips as a reminder to myself more than anything else.
Kalos nods. “She’s okay. You’re okay. And I’m never letting you go.”
That should be alarming, but my tired mind mercifully leaves it for later.
43
KALOS
“EVERYTHING IS SET TO BE FINALIZED,” Ben says with a professional air as if we stand in a conference room rather than the back of a cathedral. His manner is fitting. This is a business deal after all. One that he’s been able to pull off within seventy-two hours from the moment Stella sat across from my desk and made the choice that brought her father down.
The audience shuffles around to sit, lacking the usual joyful emotions of a wedding. The people representing the Leonid contingent, distant relations, and those who reside in the territory, are subdued and watchful.
Stoneheart’s half of the church is watchful as well. The gargoyle keeps an interesting mix of people as his inner circle. A lizard man stands beside him in the position of best man. They look to be conversing about business in the same manner that Ben and I are. The rest of his crowd are less wide-eyed than the Leonids and more tense in anticipation of a fight, but there will be no violence today.
This contract is neat, and by the end of it, the Council will be unable to blame me for any of it.
Councilor Moon glares at me from the end of the aisle, but I’m unconcerned with his ire. He loves to officiate weddings. If any of the other Council members invited are glaring at me as well, I don’t notice it.
The wedding is large and formal by necessity. Almost every pew is filled in the grand building. This union is a statement of Stoneheart’s power as much as it is of my influence.
Each Council member was invited, but I think only a few shifters have turned up. Probably to see if there can be any way of invalidating the mating agreement between Stella and Stoneheart. Moon reported that a good portion of the Council wants me drawn and quartered, but they must follow their own laws.
News of what I did to Lorenzo Leonid has become common knowledge, and none of the attendees around us dare to catch my eye. If the engagement hadn’t been signed in blood, the Council would have attempted to take my head by now.
The success of destroying a territory leader who meant my family ill should be a moment of triumph, but I barely register it. This victory is hollow if I cannot succeed in making my amends with Katarina.
With that thought, I glance at the closed door to the room where Katarina is helping Stella get ready.
To say that my mate is upset with how I circumvented the Council’s rules is an understatement.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Ben asks.