The Glass Scepter by Bekah Harris

Author:Bekah Harris [Harris, Bekah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamlake Media
Published: 2019-12-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Pushing past Madra, who was screeching out orders he ignored, Ardan tore away the doublet he wore and stripped off the gauzy shirt, both of them stained red with Queen Lyric’s blood.

His happiness and his future, two hours ago secured in Ivy’s beautiful smile, had been torn from him. He sank down into the soft bed he shared with Ivy and placed his head in trembling, blood-stained hands. The Queen of Winter lay dying, and its heir had been taken to Unseelie, far beneath the bowels of his dark home. The future of Winter rested in Ivy’s breath, in his wife’s beating heart. Each time he imagined one of those creatures with its bony hands on Ivy, sinking his sharp fangs into her soft skin, the darkness Ardan struggled to keep at bay twisted around his heart. He fought his own nature every second of every day out of respect for the customs of Winter. But propriety wouldn’t deliver Ivy from the Laltogs.

“Let it take you,” Padraic said from the doorway. “You’ll need it where we’re going.”

He stormed past Ardan, heading into the closet, his expression shadowed by rage and determination. When he emerged, he threw a pair of fighting leathers at Ardan, hitting him square in the chest.

“Collect yourself, channel your darkness, and do what must be done,” he said. “Winter soldiers await your orders in the hallway, and my Unseelie Fae are ready to be unleashed as soon as I give the command.”

“The Queen?” Ardan asked. On shaky legs, he rose from the bed, slipping off his boots and breeks, replacing them with the thick black leathers of the Unseelie royals.

“She lives,” Padraic said, “but Lochlan is uncertain of her fate. The Magi are with her now. Her explicit orders are for us to return her daughter, alive and whole, to Winter. As we speak, she sends messengers to all courts in the Seelie Realm, commanding them to arms. If the Seelie Queen grants her approval, both realms will unite. We won’t stop until the Unseelie mines are red with blood, and Teagan and her dark army mourn the day they struck their twisted bargain.

“You believe Queen Endellion will agree to this?” Ardan said. “That traitorous hag will let the realms run with blood as long as her own court is safe.”

For centuries, Endellion had ruled the Seelie Realm according to her own interests and advantage. It’s why the Unseelies had broken away from the realm to form their own more than five hundred years before. Though he hadn’t lived through the dark times, his grandfather had. Ardan and Padraic both had grown up with stories of Endellion’s treachery. She would never risk herself or her court for a human and a Winter Princess.

“I have no delusions of Endellion’s loyalty,” Padraic said. “I have no doubt she will leave us all to die if it suits her best, but I know someone in Seelie who will force her hand.”

The feathery wings of hope warred with the inky tentacles of jealousy that snaked around Ardan’s heart.

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