The War of Two Queens (Blood And Ash, #4)

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“I felt your pain. Tasted it.” A muscle began ticking in his jaw. “That was, by the way, very rude of you,” he said after a moment. “And it hurt.” “You lived.”

“Love. Such a strange emotion. I’ve seen it take the most powerful beings down,” he said. Millicent’s words knocked around in my head again. “I’ve seen it give others unbelievable strength. But out of all the many, many years I’ve lived, I’ve only seen love stop death once.” “Is that so?” Callum nodded. “Nyktos and his Consort.”

“Who else would I blame? Malec wanted the heartmate trials. He called for his father. Even asleep, Nyktos would’ve heard him. He answered, and he refused,” she told me, and another wave of disbelief crashed through me. “Because of that, Malec Ascended me. And you know what happened next. I don’t just blame Eloana or Valyn. I blame Nyktos. He could’ve prevented all of this.”

“Nyktos appreciates all manner of life, but he is particularly fond of the Atlantians. Their creation was a result of the heartmate trials—the product of love. Malec once told me his father even saw the Atlantians as his children. Their loss will deliver the kind of justice I seek.”

“You may have given birth to me, but blood is the only thing we share. We’re nothing alike. We never will be. You’re not my mother, my friend, or my confidante,” I said, watching that smile fade from her face. “All you are is a Queen whose reign is about to come to an end. That is it.”

“You summoned the mist, Poppy.” “I know.” “I know of only two things that can do that. The Craven,” he said, his eyes wide, “and the Primals.”

Where’s Reaver?” I asked, knowing that the draken would’ve answered my will. “Wherever those screams were coming from,” he answered, lifting the hood of his cloak.

“And we’ll kill them. All of them. Then we’ll kill the wolven and whatever the hell that other thing is with you.” “I’d be offended by that statement,” Reaver remarked, “if what was left of your souls wasn’t about to be ushered into the waiting Abyss.”

“Fun times are over,” the Revenant said, lifting a heavy broadsword. “Wrong.” Reaver rose. “Fun times have just begun.” He exhaled.

“Whatever,” the draken replied, stalking forward. “I don’t want the Liessa to be upset.”

“The Shadow Temple,” Reaver said, looking up. I glanced at Reaver. “The what?” “That’s what the Temple was originally known as when this kingdom was called Lasania. The Sun represented the Primal of Life, and the Shadow represented the Primal of Death,” he said.

“There could be Priests and Priestesses,” I reminded them as we strode forward. “How should we handle them?” Kieran asked. “Burn them?” I shot Reaver a look. “If they don’t stand in the way, then leave them be.” “Boring,” he replied.

“You’re so very special.” Kieran gave me a half-grin as we edged around the dais. “Very,” Reaver said dryly. I glared at the draken’s back. “Neither of you sound like you think that at all.” “So special,” Kieran added.

I inhaled sharply. “Millicent.” Kieran frowned. “The Handmaiden?” He nodded. “Nearly everything—” Malik’s voice roughened. “Nearly everything I’ve done is for her. She’s my heartmate.”

Fury exploded, stirring up the Primal essence. “I want him dead.” “Noted,” Reaver said from the entrance.

Reaver leaned down, his mouth opening as Kieran turned me away. “Good gods,” I heard Malik rasp as silvery flames lit the dark walls. “You’re a fucking draken.” There was a beat of silence. “That’s why those knights were smoldering.”

Kieran went to Casteel’s side. “I’ll carry him.” “No,” Malik bit out. “He’s my brother. And if you want him, you’re going to have to pry him from my dead fingers. I’m carrying him.”

“You fucking idiot,” his brother growled, grip tightening on Casteel’s chin. “We don’t have time for you to be all heroic and worry about taking too much blood from a godsdamn god

I kinda like Malik

“That’s Reaver,” I told him, and his nostrils flared. “Remember? I told you about him. He’s a friend. He’s also a draken. You’re not going to win that battle.” “I think he wants to give it a go,” Malik remarked.

Lmfao

“I’m going to need you to lift one arm at a time,” he instructed. “And I’m going to need you to do that without trying to bite me because I bite back.”

“Never again are we taken from one another.”

“I couldn’t see you going to anyone else. You’re close to Delano and Vonetta—and the others—but Kieran is…it’s different with him.” “It is,” she whispered,

“Okay. You’re right,” I admitted. No matter who she sought aid from, I never would’ve held it against her. The other person? Thoughts and prayers for their ass, though. “Kieran is the only one.”

“Wherever you want,” I affirmed. “On any finger or toe of your choosing. I can have it pierced to my nipple. Or have it melted into a bolt and pierced in my cock—actually, you might enjoy that.”

“You once told me that I didn’t always have to be strong when I was with you. That it was safe for me not to be okay,” she said, and the muscles in my neck cramped. “You told me that it was your duty as my husband to make sure I knew that I didn’t have to pretend. Well, it’s my duty as your wife to make sure you know that, too. You’re my shelter, Cas. My roof and my walls—my foundation. And I am yours.”

“Millicent said that to remake the realms, you had to destroy them first. And I think that’s how Isbeth failed with Millicent. She would’ve had to go through the Culling—Ascend into her godhood. I don’t think Millicent survived it.” “And you think Isbeth made her into one of those things as a way to save her?”

His skin thinned. His eyes turned luminous. “Kill her?” “Not going to happen,” I reminded him. “Damn straight, it’s not,” he growled. “Because I’m going to go round up Reaver and let him burn that wannabe Revenant.”

“I don’t think any of them need to wait.” “They do,” I said, and that glare flipped to me. I smiled. “Don’t smile at me,” she snapped. My smile grew. “So feisty.” Her stare warmed even as her chin jutted. “Stupid dimples,” she muttered.

“It’s just that I don’t like using you as a—as a snack.” His brows flew up. “Well, first off, I don’t like to think of myself as a snack. More like a whole damn meal.”

“Only the already enticingly wicked can be influenced.”

“I do not ramble.” Casteel coughed on his drink as Kieran silently hoisted himself onto the counter, his brows lifted. “I do not,” I insisted. “Yes, you do,” Reaver said, entering the kitchen. He glanced at Casteel. “Reaver. Nice to meet you. Glad you didn’t bite me, and I didn’t have to burn you alive.”

“Cas is right. Millie…she would’ve been a god if she’d survived the Culling. She didn’t.” “Wait a second,” Reaver said, wiping crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. “That Handmaiden is Poppy’s sister?” Kieran sighed. “Where have you been?” “Not in the kitchen,” Reaver snapped. “Obviously.”

Gods i love reaver so much

“But Isbeth has Ires,” Kieran said. “Why couldn’t she use his blood?” “The cage Isbeth keeps him in nullifies the eather in his blood, rendering him powerless, and his blood useless,” Malik explained. “Another thing she hadn’t exactly considered. That’s why she kept you alive when she had other Atlantians killed. She needed your blood.”

“Then what the hell am I?” I threw up my hands. “A Primal,” Malik announced. I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on.” “He speaks the truth,” Reaver announced, and we all turned to him. “Both of them. You’re a Primal—born of mortal flesh.”

“Cannot. You are the first Primal to be born since the Primal of Life. I do not know why. Only the Primal of Life can answer that.”

Malik’s eyes closed then, and all the while, Casteel hadn’t moved. “Her. The Consort. I saw her in your eyes, looking back at me.”

“Pick up a dagger, Malik.” And Malik, Casteel’s brother, picked up a dagger with a shaking hand—a long, thick one with a wickedly sharp blade. The tendons in his neck stood out. “On your knees,” Casteel demanded. Malik’s entire body trembled as he obeyed, falling to his knees. “Put it to your throat,” the King coaxed, his voice velvet and iron. A compulsion. He was using compulsion. Malik did just as he’d been forced to do.

I turned to Reaver— “Don’t look at me.” Reaver picked up his biscuit. “This is entertaining as fuck.”

“There’s something wrong with him,” Reaver muttered from behind us. “Isn’t there?”

“Reaver,” I said. “There’s something I would like you to do for me, and you’ll be really happy about it.” The draken’s smile was bloodthirsty as he walked between Casteel and me.

“We are not brothers of the same blood. We are not friends due to some bond,” I told him, and his gaze met mine. “We are not loyal to each other because of courtesy or tradition or title. We have always been above all that. And, in a lot of ways, we’re two halves of the same whole. Different than Poppy and me, but not that much different. You know that.”

“He’s unconscious,” Poppy said, and Sven’s stare turned curious. “That was how my father knew that something had happened to him. When Malec lost consciousness, it woke Ires.”

“Do we put him back into the ground?” All eyes, including Aylard’s, turned to us. I didn’t answer, having enough sense to know that it wasn’t my place to do so. It was Poppy’s. “No,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “We make sure he returns home with his brother, to Nyktos and the Consort.”

“You’re not just any wolven. It would be no one else but you.” Kieran dipped his chin as a sweet taste gathered in my mouth, at odds with the bite of whiskey. “Don’t make me feel emotional about this. If you do, you’re going to make this weird.”

“You know I love Cas, right?” “I do,” I whispered. “And I know he loves you.” “I would do anything for him. I would do anything for you,” he said, echoing what Casteel had said. He looked up at me. “And knowing that you would do this for me means…” He swallowed. “There really aren’t words other than that my reasons for agreeing to the Joining have very little to do with Cas being a King or you a Primal god and everything to do with the love I have for both of you.”

“And the nagging-as-hell voice keeps repeating the same thing.” “Can I have a sword?” Kieran tossed a limp Craven aside. “Can I have a dagger? A stick—?” “Real fucking mature,” Malik snarled. “You’re not getting a weapon.” Casteel kicked off a moss-covered boulder, catching a Craven in the back as I shot forward, bringing the sword down on another’s neck—a small one. Too small. “You’re not getting a weapon. Not even a blunt object such as a rock.”

I knocked a Gyrm’s hand aside. “Touching without permission is not okay.”

What a reaction

“Three things.” Reaver held up three fingers. “First off, I need my rest. If I don’t get my rest, I get cranky.” “Who sounds like the sensitive one now?” Kieran fired back. “And when I get cranky, I like to set things on fire and then eat them,” Reaver continued,

“What do you mean?” Casteel’s eyes narrowed. “And can you please stop giving Kieran the middle finger?” “I was actually giving it to everyone, but whatever.” Slowly, Reaver lowered his middle finger.

“You could at least smile,” Kieran said to Malik as Casteel let go of his arm. “At least you have a sword this time.” “Gee, thanks,” Malik muttered as Casteel shot him a look a wise person would’ve shut up upon receiving. “You know, for allowing me to have the bare minimum protection.”