Two Twisted Crowns (The Shepherd King, #2)

by Rachel Gillig

“You think very highly of yourself, Hawthorn, if you imagine all my comings and goings concern you.” A noise hummed in her throat. “Maybe not your goings.”

“I thought you said we’d have safe passage to the next barter if we made it across that bloody lake,” Jespyr gritted out. “The Spirit of the Wood has no need for crude walls or rope restraints, you little twit. Our captors are decidedly human.”

Hahahha he’s such a dick

“She’ll live. All I did was pay her back for breaking your nose.” “I didn’t ask you to do that.” “No. But Elspeth did.”

Ione’s eyes went wide when they stepped through the double arched doors. Her chin tilted up, her hazel gaze lifting to the towering library shelves and limestone pillars and that high, arched ceiling. It struck Elm with a feeling he hadn’t yet worked out, that she’d brought him there to make him feel better.

I would die for them

He wondered where else she was that shade of pink.

Screaming

“You’d like me to tell you all the things we might have done?” she asked. “Yes.” “In sordid detail?” “Absolutely.” Ione ran the stem of the stylus down the center of her lips—looked him in the eye. “Beg me to.”

I am fucking unwell

Ione looked down at him, eyes narrowing. “I’ll only be in the way.” “Right where I like you.

Death demands to be felt. It wasn’t just Gorse who died in that courtyard today.” His yellow gaze reached into the darkest parts of Ravyn. “But the Captain of the Destriers as well.”

Never dropping her gaze, Elm brought Ione’s hand to his chest—pressed it into the soft fabric of his doublet. Adding the slightest pressure, he ran her fingers down his abdomen, wiping the black paint off her skin. He did the same with her other hand, his clothes absorbing her stain. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go, Miss Hawthorn.”

my knees!!! The floor!!!

“No, but… you just seem—” He swallowed. “I don’t do well with long silences. I tend to overthink.”

My perfect man lol

Beneath the ache that existed between them was a thin, fragile thread. One Ione had slipped through the eye of a needle and plunged into Elm’s chest, past all his bricks and barbs, though she didn’t yet realize it. It was uncomfortable, pretending she was not sewn into him—that it had not become vital to him, helping her find her Maiden Card.

“High Prince Hauth.” Dread. There was so much dread in the Physician’s eyes. “He’s awake.”

Oh no oh fuck

That she’d designed his every failure, his every fear, to get to this moment. He’d needed Ravyn to leave him behind. Needed to face the throne, his father, the Rowan in him, alone.

He didn’t let himself stay. He stepped back down the hall. “A bit more like the real Ione.”

He loves her

and again, here, at the edge of her wood. I paid. We all must.”

Ohhhh fuck

“Are you with me, brother?” Something inside of Ravyn shattered. “I’m right behind you.”

Bro i will fucking riot if she dies

Ione cast her gaze over the crowd, passing Elm, then hurtling back. The muscles in the corner of her mouth twitched. She took her hands in her skirt and lowered to a curtsy, exposing even more of that heart-stopping neckline. Elm ran a hand down the back of his neck, shoved the goblet back at Alyx, and headed straight for her.

GAGGED

“The more time I spend with you, Prince, the less I seem to know you.” “That’s not what I want.” Elm twirled her away, then pulled her back into his chest. “I want you to know me very well, Ione Hawthorn. Which is”—he dipped her again, bowing over her and speaking against her throat—“a rather horrifying feeling, if I’m perfectly honest.”

Again im unwell

Hauth scowled. “Not very pretty, is she?”

Good that hes already dead

She was staring into the great hall, swaying in her seat—gazing at a figure seated along the table. Elm. She was looking at Elm.

SCREAM SCREAM

He dragged Ione by her hair to the casement window, slammed it open. “You’ll have your wish, my dear,” he said, hauling her over the sill. “I release you from our engagement.” Ione clawed at him. Screamed. But with one brutal shove— She was falling.

OH MY GOD

They never came.” She brushed a loose strand of auburn hair from Elm’s brow. “But you, Prince Renelm, did.”

Crying

Elm gave a shaky exhale. “You’d make such a perfect Queen.”

“To Hauth. A contract that bound me to Hauth.” Elm smiled. “To the heir.”

GRIN GRIN

When she let out a breath, Elm leaned forward, traced his nose over her jawline—whispered into her ear. “I’d like to know the real you. Whenever you’re ready.”

Im about to combust

“I’d be your King, but always your servant. Never your keeper.”

Ive combusted

“You look good in this chair.” She glanced down through her lashes at him, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Under me.”

Dead, simply i am no more

“When I bed you, Ione, I want you to feel it.”

IM BLUSHING

There were not enough pages in all the books Elm had read, in all the libraries he’d wandered, in all the notebooks he’d scrawled, that could measure—denote or describe—just how beautiful she was. “There you are.”

In TEARS

The sound rolled through her body into Elm, undoing his last brick, his last barb. Ione’s face was wide open, not a hint of ice or restraint. Her eyes were creased and her freckled nose wrinkled, the gap between her front teeth visible as she smiled. Elm took in the sight of her—memorized her—praying he could get to his sketchbook before the lines of her smile faded from his memory.

My heartttttt

warm and divine and I can’t fucking breathe when you look at me, Ione.

Ohhhh myyy goddddd

“The way you’re looking at me,” he said, cupping her chin, “terrifies me.” “Why?” She ran a hand down his neck, his chest, the line between his abdomen muscles. “Did no one ever love you before, Elm?” “Not like this.” Closer. He needed her closer. “There’s never been anything like this.”

Did i say id die for them? CAUSE I FUCKING MEANT IT

And every memory of pleasure Elm had ever carried fractured in his mind, replaced by this. By her.

“I’m yours. Even if you won’t be Queen—I’m yours.”

“Thinking you could collect the entire Deck under the King’s nose, including a Card that has been lost five hundred years, is the most arrogant—most Elm—thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Then let me enjoy it with you,” she murmured into his mouth. The Scythe fluttered to the ground, utterly forgotten.

It was Hauth.

BITCH WHAT

“Welcome back, Shepherd King. Welcome, Ravyn and Jespyr Yew.” Her unearthly eyes met my window. She smiled. “Welcome, Elspeth Spindle.”

Spook spook bitch

Hauth stood before them. Tall, menacing, and entirely flawless. The scars—bruises and claw marks—were gone, his skin unblemished.

BRUH THE MAIDEN!!!!!!

Elm had to do something. Or else he and Ione might never escape this room. But he couldn’t. Fucking. Move.

Bitch if he fucking breaks thru!!!!!!!!!!........

“Better.” Hauth stepped away from Elm, moving with menacing slowness until he stood opposite of Ione.

No :(

“Let’s try this once more, betrothed.” He raised his dagger. And plunged it to the hilt into Ione’s chest.

God hes such a dick

“I’ll kill you for this.”

Lets hope so

Ione’s hand grazed his sleeve. “I thought I’d slipped through the veil. I was riding in the wood, mud on my ankles.” A small smile graced her colorless lips. “With you.”

“You must know,” he said, “that I was never going to allow the King to spill her blood to unite the Deck.”

He might have saved ink and called her what she truly was. A proper asshole.

Lol

Ravyn’s chest tightened. If he were to close his eyes, he knew what he would see. His parents’ faces, bent as they read books in silence by the library fire. Elm and Jespyr and Emory, riding on horseback down the forest road. Elspeth, sitting across from him at Castle Yew’s table, pink in her cheeks as she smiled at him from behind a teacup. “I have something of love in me.”

“And yet you barter with a liar and thief, just to remain so.” Ravyn leaned forward, letting the tips of her claws press harder against his chest. “You are eternal. And you are magic. But I know as well as you that magic is the oldest paradox. The more power it gives you, the weaker you become. The Shepherd King taught me that.”

We love a sassy king

Then, as if it were truly no more than paper and velvet, he took the indomitable red Card, smiled up at Brutus— And tore the Scythe in half.

Hahaha oh shit

The branches carved into the Shepherd King’s crown—his hilt. The blade, swinging through the air, rearranging the wood. A name, whispered against a yew’s gnarled trunk. And old name. For an old, twisted tree. The Shepherd King’s face. His son Bennett’s gray eyes. The Scythe had not worked on Bennett. Just as it did not work on Ravyn. I’m nothing like you. But you are. More than you know.