My heart pinched at that statement but I needed more information.
“Then why did you challenge Ansel for kingship? If you didn’t want that life?”
He sighed, running his hands through his dark hair. “Two years in captivity gave me a lot of time to think. I never dreamed my brother would be capable of such cruelty. But knowing he could imprison me and control me for so long … I knew I couldn’t let him stay king. That you and I would never be safe.”
I frowned. “I agree. But then why did you let your brother live? If he’d been controlling you against your will and you fought him for king and won – why let him keep his life?” I asked. I’d have killed him.
Axil’s wolf surfaced then, eyes glowing yellow. “Wolven law states that two heirs of the royal bloodline must be alive at any given time. Ansel’s wife was unable to give him a pup, so I had to let him live until I could marry and have children of my own.”
Everything he said made sense but my heart still hurt for how things went down. “You’ve been king for two years … you could have sent for me the day you were crowned.” I fumbled for reasons not to forgive him.
“Could I have?” he asked. “Once I became king I realized the mistake I had made. A king must only take a wife through the Queen Trials. I’d trapped myself. Part of me wanted you to enter to become mine, and the other part wanted you to stay in the Mud Flats where you couldn’t be hurt.”
The wind knocked out of my lungs as he reached up and cupped my jaw in his hands. “You’re my mate, Zara. I’ve known that since we were fifteen. Didn’t you?”
Those damn tears that usually never surfaced were back and I blinked them away quickly. “I hoped,” I said softly.
He looked at my face then, no doubt waiting for my verdict.
Was he forgiven?
My heart thundered in my chest as I weighed his words in the note, along with Dorian’s response, and then finally Axil’s invitation to beckon me for the Queen Trials. The first night he’d seen me at the registration dinner he’d said he regretted inviting me. It was because he feared I would be killed and he’d have to marry another. He did everything he’d said he would when we were fifteen. It just took longer than I thought it would.
I finally peered up at him. “You took too long,” I told him.
His face fell, hands slipping away from me and he nodded, looking stricken.
I hadn’t meant it like that, like it was too late.
Reaching out, I cupped his chin and drew my thumbs along his rough beard. “I mean, I’ve been without your lips for far too long.”
It was like something in him roared to life then. He reached for me eagerly, grasping my hips and lifting me into the air until I was straddling him. A peal of laughter escaped me. He used to always do this, toss me around on the grass as if I weighed nothing.
I’d loved it. I still did.
I looked down at him, my hair falling like a curtain around us as my lips hovered above his.
“I’ve ached for you since that day my brother forced me to leave,” he confessed and my heart constricted. All these years I’d told myself he wasn’t my mate, my future husband. He wasn’t the one. Forget him. Hate him.
“Me too,” I breathed and then our lips crashed together in a blind passion. This was no teenage love kiss. There was no tempered desire. This was five years of pent-up yearning. I opened my lips as our tongues stroked together eagerly and he stood quickly, holding onto my waist tightly as he walked with me.
I didn’t need to ask where he was going. The bed. Tomorrow I could die fighting Ivanna and so tonight would be just for us, to make up for all the nights we’d slept alone. His fingers slipped up the back of my tunic as he explored my body and I gripped the back of his neck, pressing my lips harder into his.
There was nothing quite like your first love. Your heart fell faster and harder, without restraint, and every love after that paled in comparison. Axil was the man I’d compared every other guy to. The impossible figure for any man to model themselves after. And now I had the real thing.
His legs knocked against something and I pulled away from kissing him for a moment to find that we’d reached the bed. Without hesitation I pulled my top off and let my breasts spring free. His gaze hooded as he took me in fully.
Then he reached forward and kissed the smattering of freckles on my collarbone that he always traced with his finger, the spot that haunted me for years when I saw it in my reflection.
A small cluster of freckles that he particularly loved.
“I’m sorry for taking so long,” he breathed. “But I promise to spend forever making it up to you.” I fell back on the bed then, pulling off my trousers as he dropped his own. Everything about this was forbidden and I didn’t care.
Our forever might just be tonight, for tomorrow I might go to meet the Maker. But even one night with Axil Moon was better than five years without him.
EIGHT
Laying with Axil and then sleeping next to him all night felt like something out of a dream. I’d imagined it so many times in my teenage years and even after. He was far more tender than I fantasized but also passionate. I tried to slip out of the bed quietly and leave, but he growled and it made me smile.
“Don’t you dare bed me and then leave without breakfast,” he scolded.
I laughed for falling into my usual ways with men. I had only bedded two others but it was casual and there was no breakfast involved.
“Well, you better hurry, I have a fight to win,” I told him.
He crawled across the bed and yanked my hand, forcing me to fall on top of him laughing.
Reaching out, he traced my hairline, looking into my eyes with a tenderness I never remembered being there at fifteen. Perhaps that came in his two years of imprisonment. It was like he was grateful for the smallest things.
“You’re damn straight you do.”
That caused me to grin. “So … you think I’ll win?” I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my cheeks.
“I’ve seen you fight, Zara. Even when we were kids you were the strongest woman I’d ever met. You’re a survivor. I have no doubt you are the toughest amongst the wolven and will be my queen.”
I wanted to be happy about his compliment but instead bile rose in my throat. My mind was infiltrated of an image of sweet Eliza lying dead at my feet. I knew that my physical strength was unmatched against her … but I had an emotional weakness where that girl was concerned. My packmate. My sister. I could never hurt a hair on her head.
“I need to get training,” I said suddenly.
He must have noticed the shift in my mood and released me, nodding.
A servant came by with breakfast and we ate quickly and then I kissed him goodbye. I needed to get in the right headspace for this fight and being around Axil was not going to do that. I didn’t want to spend too much time with my prize before I’d won it and lose my edge.
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“We’ve got this,” I told Eliza and she nodded, though she looked like she might be sick.
The crowd had amassed again for our doubles fight. Two more girls had made it in from the outskirts just before the cut-off time: everyone else was assumed dead. Now whoever won this fight between Ivanna, Charlize and us, would fight the girls who’d just made it back. They were dehydrated and injured so it wasn’t much of a competition.