I pulled back and patted Oslo’s hair down. He was teary-eyed and couldn’t speak.
Cyrus rested a hand on my shoulder. “Glad you are okay.”
I nodded.
Dorian was last. He simply looked at me quizzically. “You aged me ten years, child.”
I grinned at that and then wrapped my arms around him. He stiffened for a moment but then he rapped my back hard three times and I pulled away.
“Did you hear that—” I started, but Eliza cut me off.
“Ansel is dead and now Axil fights in the morning to retain alpha status?”
“We heard,” Dorian said and then looked at the other people in the room.
Right. It was probably big news.
“Guys, this is the elf queen, Kailani, the fae queen, Madelynn, and the dragon queen, Arwen.” I introduced my friends and family to the queens we’d had the pleasure of spending the past hour dining with and getting to know.
Everyone joined us at the long table and Dorian cleared his throat, looking at Axil. “My lord, may I speak freely about the challenge tomorrow?”
I stiffened. I didn’t want to talk about that, I didn’t want Axil to participate in that. But I saw no other way.
Axil nodded. “Of course, Dorian, I respect your counsel.”
Dorian had been alpha for a long time, since I was a little girl, and it was nice of Axil to recognize his seniority and experience.
“From what I’ve heard around the camp, you’ll have five challengers, maybe six.”
“Six!” I screeched.
Axil took a slow sip of water and said nothing.
“But the only one you will have to worry about is Brutus,” Dorian went on.
“Isn’t he Ivanna’s alpha?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s more beast than man and worse than King Ansel was as far as fairness goes,” Dorian told Axil.
Axil inclined his head. “I heard he eats raw bearin heart for breakfast, in his human form, just to make his pack fear him.”
Raw bearin heart in human form?
Gross. I loved meat as much as the next wolven but eating the heart raw while in human form was a power play.
“You should fight him first, while you’re fresh,” Cyrus added but Dorian cut him off.
“That’s the thing I wanted to warn you about. Your advisors had them pick sticks: Brutus will be your last fight of the day.”
My heart dropped into my gut like a stone and I glanced around the table to see the faces of my friends, new and old alike.
It wasn’t good. They were all wearing the same look of pity you wore when someone was dying.
“Can he use his king power?” I knew the answer before I asked.
“No,” Dorian said.
Axil looked across the table at my alpha then. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll save my energy for the final fight.”
No.
Six alpha challenge fights in one day? There had to be a rule about that. A tear slipped out of my eye and onto the table and I batted it away quickly but Queen Kailani noticed.
She gave a huge fake yawn, stretching her arms above her head. “Boy, am I tired. We should all get some rest.”
Madelynn caught onto her train of thought. “So tired.” She stood and so did the dragon queen.
Queen Arwen looked down at Axil. “We will stay for the fights tomorrow and then leave to send word back to our husbands with the results.”
Yeah, she would stay because she wasn’t sure if she would even have a king and his army to help join her war. If Axil died, I doubted Brutus would be inclined to march our people off into uncertainty.
The room cleared out then. My brothers and Eliza gave me one more quick hug before they left and then I found myself alone with Axil for the first time since he’d stepped down as king just to be with me.
How much did he have to love me to do that? My heart suddenly swelled with adoration and I stood, crossing the dining hall until I was before him. He pulled his chair out and I swung my leg over him so that I sat straddling him. His hands came up underneath my tunic to stroke my back and I whispered into his ear, “I can’t lose you.”
His hands stilled and then I pulled back and peered down at him. There was so much passion in that gaze I felt consumed by it.
“Zara, I’ve waited years to finally have you. I’m not letting anything tear us apart. Even death.”
Did it work like that? Would death not claim him because it felt sorry for us? A girl could dream. What Axil needed was someone rooting him on, a woman who stood by him and believed in him.
“Good,” I told him, leaning forward and dragging my tongue across his lips. “Because I haven’t kissed you enough for you to die yet.”
He growled, grasping my butt and standing with me in his arms. Walking over to the edge of the table, he dropped me down onto it. His lips locked with mine and then he consumed me. Every inch of my body was kissed on that table. He threw the dirty food plates to the floor, uncaring about the mess it made. In that moment we allowed love to devour us both, mind, body and soul.
I was Axil’s and he was mine. If he died tomorrow, I would have no others after him. There was no point in comparing any man to this one who held me now. They didn’t pale in comparison, they vanished.
FIFTEEN
Watching a wolf tear into the man that you loved, while you stood by helpless, was the most gut-wrenching thing I’d ever had to do. Now I knew how Axil must have felt when he’d watched me do the same over the last week. He was on his fifth fight now and though he was winning, he was hurt. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to do one fight a day or something more manageable, but I supposed if they wanted the strongest to lead us, this was his way to prove it.
Fight six alphas in one day and live to tell the tale.
The Royal Guard stood in a semi-circle towards the back of the fight, no doubt wondering who they would be pledging their allegiance to at the end of the day.
Now I stood in almost the same spot as Axil had when he’d watched me fight in the Queen Trials, right next to his empty throne. The queens of Avalier stood beside me as I held on to Eliza’s hand in fear and Axil tore into his opponent’s neck.
One more fight, I told myself and then glanced over at the giant of a man who would be Axil’s last opponent. Brutus was wider than Axil and probably taller too. His arms were riddled with small scars that looked to be from a knife and his head was shaved clean. Brutus stood tall as he watched Axil attempt to end the life of the Copper Canyon alpha.
I steeled myself as Axil took the wolf’s neck into his mouth and then a large shadow passed over all of us. Every single person in the crowd craned their neck and tilted their faces upward towards the sky. They pointed to something and then a shadow blotted out the sun.
I spun to see a giant black dragon descending from the clouds. The Royal Guard moved to reach for their bows but the dragon queen rushed forward.
“He’s with me,” she assured them.
I stared in awe as the large black dragon landed on the open grass with a man sitting in a saddle on his back.
The dragon king was here.
The sound of Axil’s whimper drew my attention back to the fight and my head whipped around just in time to see the Cooper Canyon wolf he’d pinned swipe his claw right across Axil’s eye, nearly taking it out of the socket.