Ryke

 

It’s adorable when she hides from me. As though her curtain of white-and-blue-streaked hair will somehow keep her crimson cheeks from my eyes. I see my blushing queen. Red-faced and recently ravished. She pretends as though I’m not blatantly staring at her as she pulls on one of her fancy dresses adorned with diamonds.

All through the night, I took her. Over and over again. She didn’t protest, not once. No, she dug her nails into my flesh and begged. My sweet, beautiful queen begged for more.

I groan because my cock is hardening once more. The timing is ill considering we have duties this morning. I’ve decided she and I will share our breakfast in the dining room before heading to a meeting with my men. The Damned are coming and I want to make sure we have a plan of attack. And then, there’s the matter of allowing her to see her sister.

Anger, hot and violent, surges through me.

I want to keep my queen all to myself.

She’s safer that way.

“I’m ready,” she says, lifting her chin to finally meet my eyes.

Her color is no longer pale and bluish. She’s pink and flushed. Beautiful. But far underdressed.

“Where’s your shawl?” I demand.

“I don’t wear anything to cover my arms…” She frowns, a troubled expression on her pretty face.

“And why don’t you wear anything to cover your arms?” I implore.

Her brows furrow deeper. “I don’t see you offering your cape,” she snaps, storming toward the door.

Fire runs through the blood of the ice queen.

“Not so fast,” I growl, snagging her arm as she passes.

Cold, chilly flesh.

Anger at the situation has me summoning my fires to warm her with my touch. Her rigid posture relaxes. I release her to unfasten my cape. Once I remove it, I tie it around her, letting it drape heavily over her shoulders.

“Let me see you, snowflake.”

She turns to face me, her blue eyes stormy. “It smells like you.”

“Try not to inhale it all morning,” I tease.

A smile plays at her lips. “I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

“It’s already been forgotten.” Reaching up, I tug at a strand of her white hair. “I’ll need my cape on the battlefield, though. I can do without it for breakfast. In the meantime, I’ll have my servants make you something warm.”

Her eyes lift to the crown I’ve placed on my head. Then, excitement glimmers in her eyes.

“Long ago,” she says with a smile, “I could create impenetrable diamondblades like my father and his father and so on. As soon as I’d earned my gift, it was taken away abruptly.” Her fingers wiggle and she looks down at them. “But I feel it, Ryke. I feel the ice and steel in my veins.” She lifts her gaze to meet mine. “I think I can do it again.”

The fact this queen lost her gift in the first place sickens me.

I can’t imagine losing my fire making abilities.

“Let’s see,” I encourage.

Her hand glows bright blue much like mine turns orange-red. The hiss of what sounds like a stone against steel grinds out in unison with the diamondblade that slides from her pointer finger. It’s sharp and strong. This blade will never melt. I take it in my hand and break it away before setting it on the bed.

“Again, Elzira.”

Over and over, she shows me her gift until the bed is littered with her blades. Then, I watch with rapt attention as she forms a circle in the air seemingly from nothing, but I can tell it is from ice. One by one, she attaches her diamondblades to the ring, fastening them with more ice. When she finishes, I realize she’s created a new crown. Tall. Sharp. Severe. Fit for a cruel, powerful queen.

I kneel before her and kiss the back of her hand before rising again. “Allow me,” I rumble, taking the crown from her other hand. I place the heavy crown on her head. It fits perfectly.

“I’ll escort you,” I tell her, offering her my arm.

She lifts a brow. “We’re going down together as a united front?”

“We need to be if we intend on combining our armies and defeating a horde of The Damned.”

“I want to see Yanna,” she reminds me as she loops her arm with mine.

“You will see her. I don’t break my promises.”

Seemingly pleased with that answer, she allows me to guide her from the room. A sense of male satisfaction washes over me at seeing her white clothes hidden way beneath my black cape. It’s as though she belongs to me. The thought thrills me.

I came here to marry a princess and find a way into the Hidden Lands in search of a war.

Instead, I fucked a queen and am uniting in a battle with her.

I’m a man of opportunity.

We enter the dining room, earning the stares of everyone. Danser barely lifts a brow in subtle amusement. Both Jorshi’s and Fayden’s eyes widen in surprise. What has me wanting to thump my chest in pride is the way Cavon’s green eyes burn from behind his white mask. I wish I could see all of his features. Oh, to be inside that man’s head for one second as he watches me claim what he wishes were his.

“The status of The Damned,” I bark out in greeting as I guide Elzira to the head of the table. I pull out her chair for her to sit.

“Upon us,” Jorshi reports. “Before nightfall.”

“Do we know the size?” I ask, settling in the chair beside Elzira.

Jorshi explains what the scout saw. Not quite as many as our two armies combined, but doubly ruthless and savage. The Damned aren’t deterred by the cold. An arrow to the chest won’t stop them. Each soulless bastard has to be mowed down with brute force. We can’t give them any leeway or they’ll overrun us before we know it.

“There’s also word of the Moral War,” Jorshi says, his voice low. “It wages on beyond The Damned.”

“Do we know anything of the beasts who feast on the humans?” I’ve been studying rumors for years, trying to learn more about what’s in the unknown lands.

“Ravenous and brutal. Male.”

“Where are the females?”

“No information on that, my king.”

He continues to speak of what he’s learned from the scout. I’m listening to his report when my eye catches a servant’s. She’s one of the heavy women from last night who brought my sweet queen cold water to bathe in. Locking eyes on her, I watch her every move. Other servants place familiar dishes in front of us, whereas Elzira is given a plate with three small pastries lined in a row.

Before she can walk away, I grab the woman’s thick wrist. “What is this?”

Elzira absently reaches for the pastry, but I drag the plate away from her while also yanking the woman closer.

“What. Is. This?” I demand, my tone punctuated with white-hot rage.

“Her meal, your highness,” the woman utters.

I shove away her hand and point at the plate. The room has gone silent as everyone watches the odd exchange. “Is that enough food for you?”

The woman glowers at me. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, your highness.”

I pick up the plate and sniff it before dropping it with a heavy clang. “Eat it.”

The woman’s eyes widen. “I beg your pardon?”

Baring my teeth at her, I lean closer. “I want you to eat everything on that plate.”

She glances over at Elzira as though she’ll spare her from my wrath.

“Don’t look at her,” I seethe. “They don’t call me the Truth Seeker for no reason, woman. Eat the goddamn pastries.”

“S-Sir, I c-can’t eat the—”

I pick up one of the pastries and thrust it at her. “Eat it.”

She shakes her head, defying me, as she stumbles away from me. I rise from the table and prowl after her with the pastry.

“Why won’t you eat it, woman?”

“It is for the queen,” she hisses. “I have already eaten.”

“I want you to hear something,” I growl. “Three pastries for your queen is an insult. It is treasonous because you are underfeeding her. Slowly trying to kill your queen.”

The woman chokes on her words. “N-No, it is what she always eats.”

I pin her with a cold glare. “Today it is what you eat.”

Her eyes flick over to the exit, as though she’ll get far from me. I dare her to try.

“I can’t eat it,” she says. “I don’t like those pastries.”

“Put it in your mouth or so help me I’ll kill you where you stand.”

The woman shakily takes the pastry and makes a face at it. As if the pastry has personally wronged her. Her eyes dart to the doorway again. She brings it to her mouth and then sniffs. Panic contorts her chubby features into a sour expression. Rather than taking a bite, she tosses it at me and runs past me.

She’s barely made it three steps before I’ve unsheathed my sword and swung it at her.

Thwack!

Thud.

The slamming of her heavy body onto the stone floor echoes loudly in the dining room. Her severed head rolls a few feet before stopping, the open eyes of the woman staring back at me. I shove my bloody sword back into its sheath before turning to regard everyone in the room. The servants gape at me, Cavon narrows his eyes at me, and Danser smirks.

It’s Elzira whose eyes I catch and hold.

Surprise. Gratitude. Hunger.

She smiles at me and I smile back.

“Yashka!” I bark out, my voice carrying out of the dining room toward the kitchen.

The man waddles in, his face red and covered in sweat from cooking. “Yes, your highness?”

“Queen Whitestone would like one of your hearty, delicious meals. Not whatever it is her servant just tried to serve her.” I look pointedly at the remaining servers. “Any of you try to feed her and it’ll be your heads next. Yashka is to bring her her meals. No one else.”

We spend the rest of our meal discussing the situation of The Damned.

And my queen eats every damn morsel on her plate.

Things are changing around here.

The Truth Seeker isn’t done yet.