The King

THIRTY-FOUR

Kneeling before the bedding platform, Wrath kept time between his beloved’s breaths, measuring her inhalations as they pushed weakly against the arm he had stretched over her waist. Longer and longer between the draws, slower and slower the exhales.

And meanwhile his own heart continued to beat, and his own lungs did their duty, and his body kept on.

It seemed so cruel—and he would have traded her his health in a moment. He would have given her anything of his just to keep her with him—and as that was not possible, he put his palm on the hilt of his jeweled dagger and brought it between them.

Focusing on her parted lips, he angled the blade so that it was pointed at the center of his chest. The supports of the platform were constructed out of stout oak panels, and they happened to be at just the right height for what he required: Bracing the base of the weapon’s handle on the edge of the wood, he kept the dagger upright in his grip and leaned in, measuring the distance he had to close.

Putting his sternum to the tip of the blade, he pushed in enough to feel the pinch.

Satisfied with the angle, he turned the knife around and took the point to the wood itself, digging a circle out of the fibers, creating a lock for the base. As he chipped away, it seemed disrespectful to waste the last of his Anha’s breaths on such efforts—he should be paying mind unto her, and her alone.

But preparations needed to be made.

If he lost her before he took care of this, he was liable to make a sloppy attempt, and he needed to make sure that there was no chance of survival—

“What … do you do?”

Wrath’s head jerked up. And at first he could not comprehend the sight a’fore him.

His Anha had turned her pale face to him and was staring out from under heavy lids.

The dagger point slipped from the perch he was creating, sinking into the wrist of the hand he’d braced. The slice didn’t register.

“Anha …?”

Her tongue licked at the blood on her lips. “Our son…”

Verily, he did not hear whate’er it was she said. Tears came to his eyes and his heart pounded, and he wondered first if this was not a dream … a function of his having followed through with his own death, stabbing himself in the very place he felt the love for her most keenly.

Except no—she was reaching out to his face. Touching him with wonder—as if she too could not comprehend a return to consciousness.

“Anha!” He pressed his lips to hers and then brushed his own tears from her cold cheeks.

Abruptly, the healer’s advice came to him and he rushed to put his wrist over her mouth. “Drink, my love—do not speak unto me yet. Drink. First and foremost, you must drink!”

His Anha struggled for only a moment before she swallowed properly once. And again. And a third time.

As she moaned and closed her eyes, it was not from discomfort or fear. No, it was from a vital easing, as if she were feeding a hunger that had pained her and the agony was relenting.

“Drink…” he said as everything went even blurrier. “My love … partake of me and come back…”

Stroking her hair back, he eyed his dagger. And prayed that this miracle stayed with them both. That she remained revived and soon recovered—

“My lord?”

At the sound of a deep voice, Wrath snapped his head around without moving his vein from her lips. The Black Dagger Brother Tohrture was standing just inside the closed chamber door, having entered silently.

“She is roused,” Wrath said hoarsely. “Praise unto the Scribe Virgin … she is roused.”

“Yes,” the Brother said. “And I must needs speak with you.”

“Can it not wait.” He refocused on his beloved. “Leave us—”

The Brother stalked over, and put his lips close to Wrath’s ear, such that not a word traveled: “She looks as your father did.”

Wrath blinked. Looked up. “Pardon?”

The Brother had the most incredible blue eyes, the color something that rivaled the pale aqua gems that had been specially purchased for Anha’s spring gown.

Leaning back down, the words were whispered once more. “Your father presented thus the evening he died.”

As the Brother straightened, those eyes of his never faltered. Neither did his expression. His very body.

A flash of anger had Wrath curling up a fist. The last thing he wanted intruding into this sacred space of hope was any memory of that other night of loss … when he had rushed for the castle upon a black steed, careening through the forests, risking his own life to return in time.

Indeed, much as he wished the chapters of that story to stay free of his mind, they came back to him with clarity: He had suffered an injury during the daylight hours, a slip and fall in his chamber that had rendered him upon a metal spike. The wound had made it impossible for him to dematerialize, but he had been well enough to proceed from the castle when he’d been called out unto one of the Founding Families.

When he had departed at the fall of night, he had not intended to return until the morrow.

The Brotherhood had come for him an hour later.

By the time he had gotten back to the castle, it was too late. His father was gone.

And as for appearances, some dead showed their provenance, it was true: the murdered, the maimed, the aged—in the case of his father, however, the King had just looked asleep, his body cleansed and dressed in ceremonial robes, his hair tended to, his gloves and shoes on as if he intended to walk unto his grave.

“What do you say?” Wrath shook his head. “I cannot…”

Another whisper in his ear: “Look unto her fingernails.”

As Anha’s eyes opened and widened at the sight of the Brother, Wrath leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Worry not, my love.”

Instantly, she calmed under his touch and his voice, continuing to feed as her eyes reshut.

“That is right,” he murmured. “Take what I provide.”

When he was sure she had settled once more, he glanced down at her hands and frowned. Her nails were … blue.

His father’s hands had been gloved.

“Come back,” he said to the Brother roughly. “I shall call for you.”

Tohrture nodded and walked to the door. Before he left, he said clearly, “Do not allow her to imbibe aught that has not been tasted.”

Poison? Had it been … poison?

As their chamber was shut and relocked, Wrath felt a strange calm come unto him: Strength and purpose returned to him as Anha continued to pull against his vein, the sips turning into proper draws. And the more she took from him, the more that death color faded from her fingers.

After his father’s death, he had been weightless in the world—until she had been brought to him and become his tether not just to the breaths in his chest and the beats of his heart, but his reign as King.

To think that his father might have been taken from him? And then his beloved female?

As he thought of Tohrture’s expression … he knew that there were enemies in his court. Enemies capable of murder.

Anger boiled beneath his surface, changing him in the inside … in the way steel and iron were forged.

“Worry not, my love,” he said, clasping her hand in his. “I shall take care of everything.”

And blood will run like the tears you shed in your pain.

He was King, yes. But first and foremost, he was the hellren of this magnificent female—and ahvenge her he would.