The Guild elixir would be ready tonight and I didn’t even have a single member in mind to initiate, because the Heirs certainly weren’t going to pledge themselves to the Vegas and between Geraldine and her father, I wasn’t sure they could bear to join up while I was in charge either.
Fuck.
I met Blue’s gaze and she calmed some of my worries with that single look. Her belief in me was iron clad, but that didn’t change the truth of the situation. I’d lost the respect of nearly every Fae in Solaria, so how was I supposed to resurrect an ancient royal society for the Vegas?
Maybe Hamish was right, maybe it would be better if I was able to pass on the baton. But I was bound to this role now, there was nothing I could do about it. And as I brushed my fingers over my inner forearm where the Guild mark was hidden, I couldn’t help but feel protective of the role anyway.
My father had wanted this for me, the twins’ mother had seen me standing in this place, but had I taken a wrong turn on the path of fate somewhere? Had they not foreseen me becoming Power Shamed in all of this? Or had they always expected me to pass on the role to someone more worthy?
I turned back to the board, writing out a few notes on auras as chatter broke out among everyone. My heart sank into the depths of my chest because I couldn’t help but feel like I was letting Blue and her sister down, and worst of all, it made me fear I really was as useless as the world now believed I was.
I lay with Roxy in my arms, her dark hair spilling across my chest and her breathing heavy. There was a smile playing around her lips and every now and then she released a breathy kind of sigh.
I’d hardly slept myself. In fact, at this point I was using so many alertness spells and drinking so many wakeful potions which I’d convinced one of the rebels to brew for me that I barely slept at all. I just didn’t want to waste a moment of the time I had on sleep.
Eight weeks had already passed, and I felt like I’d barely stolen a fraction of the future I wished I could claim with her. I’d let that time slip by like grains of sand running through an hourglass and I knew I really needed to start making preparations for what would have to happen after my bargain with the stars ran out.
I’d already been spending any spare time I had with Xavier, helping him hone his magic so that he would be ready to step into my position on the Council once my time ran out, though he just thought I wanted to help him get stronger for the war.
The ache in my chest over the reality of my fate wasn’t even about all the things I would lose and wouldn’t have the chance to experience. It was about this girl who owned my heart and the future she wouldn’t get to live out with me. About my brother and the Heirs and Lance and the pain my loss would cause them. That was where the guilt stemmed. Yet still I hadn’t spoken a word of the deal I’d made with any of them.
Perhaps at heart I was a coward. But that wasn’t why I was hiding this truth from them. I needed them to focus on the chances we would get to strike at my father and those who followed him. And I knew if this came to light, they’d all want to work on finding a way to twist my fate just as they had when they were determined to see our Star Crossed bond fall.
But this wasn’t like that. I’d struck this deal of my own free will. I’d given my life for hers and her sister’s because I knew that they were far more deserving of life than I was anyway. I may have hated my father and was working against him with all I had, but at heart I was always going to be the creature he’d created. But this girl in my arms was so much more than that. Worth so much more than me.
Roxy shifted a little, rolling onto her back and biting that full bottom lip of hers as a soft moan escaped her again and my cock hardened at the sound. She was as insatiable as I was and this freedom we’d claimed to own each other in the way we chose had torn down any final barriers that had been there between us.
Every night we fucked like animals then fell into each other’s arms panting and grinning and telling each other stories about every little thing we could think of. I wanted to know all there was to know about her and the places she’d grown up in, the bond between her and her sister and everything she’d been through, and she was just as interested in getting to know me. Neither of us held back, we didn’t shield the ugly truth of the things we’d survived and there was a freedom and a beauty in that. For so long, my secrets hadn’t even been mine to share. My father had locked them away inside me with his Dark Coercion so that I couldn’t tell a soul even if I’d wanted to.