A Kingdom of Flame and Fury (The Four Kingdoms, #1)

by Whitney Dean

“I’ll be seeing you.” And then he released me and backed away, breaking my gaze only to turn and leave me standing alone. That felt more like a goodbye.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, repeating my earlier plea. “I can only be jealous for so long, Raven.” My head lifted to peer up at him. “You don’t even know me.” He pressed his lips gently against mine. “I’ve had to watch men touch you all night, make you laugh, while I’ve been clamoring for your attention all day.” Another soft kiss. “And I do know you, Raven.”

“You’re my heaven.” He found my collarbone. I had chills on every inch of my body. “You’re my hell. And I want to burn in you.” And then he found my lips, pressing his gently against mine.

I peered farther back into the darkness behind her. Another male form watched her. She was alone, but he never advanced. When he stepped toward the light, I recognized him — King Leonidas. Raven started skipping away, and he smiled, following her until she was safely in her cottage. Why did he have such an interest in her?

I gently pressed on, filtering until I saw her as a baby. My hair stood on end. I had seen her before. She was embedded in my memories: black hair and green eyes. John brought us to the castle when I was a boy to show me the new princess. The Princess of Reales. It was Raven. Raven was Mira’s sister.

Raven was screaming, and tears wet my eyes at her pain. Her mother was crying, holding Raven tightly to her chest. ‘Please let me have her,’ I heard a man say. I blinked my eyes, trying to focus on who it was. My forehead creased as his face came into view. King Leonidas. ‘Celestina, please. She can reign over Seolia.’ There was anguish in his words as they tumbled out of his mouth. Celestina shook her head, stepping away from Leonidas. ‘She is the key, Leonidas. Don’t you see?’ Celestina spoke through her sobs. ‘We can control all four kingdoms with her. Rudolf has a nephew. They can marry. He’s a prince.’

Celestina was talking about me. She wanted us to marry and incite a war over the kingdoms. ‘She’s my heir, Celestina. Not Rudolf’s. You have another daughter.’ Leonidas tried to reason with her, but I felt her anger brewing, and she raised her palm toward Leonidas. Something black began to trickle from her fingers, and then pain.

Mira remained still under the bed, covering her mouth in silent sobs. She had witnessed her mother murdered by Leonidas and saw him steal Raven away.

Golden strands began to escape Celestina’s body and wrapped around Raven, pushing into her skin. The golden strands slowly turned gray and then black. Leonidas tried to pull Raven away, but they followed her, sinking deep into her chest. She was gasping, screaming, her green eyes widening. She inherited her mother’s magic… and her sadness. All her darkness, her fury, lived within Raven. That was why her anger was so loud.

Celestina… was a witch. There had always been rumors, but they were spoken about in hushed tones. Mira wanted that. She wanted Raven to continue with Celestina’s plan. She wanted me to propose and bring her back madly in love with me, to where she couldn’t stand the thought of us parting. Mira wanted a war. She wanted to avenge her mother an...

‘She can’t come to the castle yet,’ he said, kissing her forehead repeatedly. ‘They’ll know it was me. Find someone for her, someone who will take care of her until I can safely move her home.’

Hidden deep within the cottage, I saw a little blond boy with blue eyes, watching intently and staring at the baby in his mother’s arms. Cade. He saw everything. Was that why they were so close?

Mira wanted to use Raven. She would use the connection in their blood to manipulate Raven into agreeing to marry me and invade Perosan and Thoya. She would bind our kingdoms for all eternity, showing the power we hold as one. Any children we bore would be heirs to both thrones.

This was why John wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Jeanine wasn’t part of the original plan to bind the kingdoms. Another reason Mira wanted her in Seolia was to tell everyone about Raven’s magic, but why? I needed to talk to John. He needed to see that my allegiance was to Raven and not Mira. None of this explained why he came here all those years ago.

I looked down at her, peacefully sleeping against my chest, and another tear fell. I couldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t make her believe that I didn’t want her. It would make her hate me, but maybe she needed to if it kept her kingdom safe.

her. I had to push them together. She would have to choose him. They had been friends for a long time, and I hadn’t been with her long enough for her to pick me over him.

“I have to become your villain, baby,” I whispered as my voice broke. But I would stay. I would continue to watch her. I wasn’t expected home for at least three months, and I couldn’t leave her yet. I would invade her dreams and pull at her memories so she could begin to connect the dots herself. I would plant doubt in her mind about Mira’s intentions so she would already be on edge when they met. She would suspect something before she had all of the information.

Please don’t fall in love with him, I pleaded with her. Please forgive me for the hell I would unleash on your soul.

I came up behind her, wrapping my hands around her waist as we watched together. Raven hummed the melody, and I smiled. Celestina’s eyes rose to meet hers. “I knew you’d find me one day,” she said.

Some villains were born, but I would be made. I would be her devil to keep her protected.

“I love you,” I whispered against her hair. “You have no idea the lives we’ve lived, Raven, but I do. I could feel you in each.”

He turned and crouched. “Up you go.” I jumped on his back again. “I think this is how I want to be carried everywhere from now on.” A smile pulled up on his cheeks. “As long as you keep waking me up like you did today, we’ll have a deal.”

That was a half-assed answer. Jealousy surged through me at the idea of someone else touching him, which was fucking insane. He didn’t belong to me; I wasn’t his, either. He was only in Seolia for a few days, and then he’d leave to return to Reales. His allegiance was sworn to another kingdom.

It was what all members of royal courts did in the four kingdoms. If you swore an oath to the ruler of one of them, it was a nearly impossible bond to break. Doing so could result in banishment or, worse, execution.

I had searched for books on the history of the forest, but nothing ever came of it. It’d always been the landscape of the island. The rumored history was that when Seolia was built upon the mountainside and grassy knolls, witches who lived in caves along the water’s edge, deep within the trees, were angered by the disturbance. They tried to stop the process, casting spells upon the royals or enchantments that would turn them into beasts during full moons, leaving them to wander through the kingdom, thirsting for blood.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the king finally had enough and sent a legion of soldiers into the forest to murder the witches. But, ever since that time, people wandering into the forest would not come back out. The caves where the witches dwelled brought in brave travelers, banking on the idea that they’d finally reach them, but no one ever did.

I, however, found them. I’d walked around them and fell asleep in them. They were quiet. The sounds of water splashing against their backs were the only noise I’d ever heard while wandering through them, desperate to find answers about where my magic came from and why I’d never felt at peace within the kingdom.

It wasn’t until recently that I became angrier, wanting to draw blood the second something threw me off-balance. It made me wonder if something deep inside my skeleton was awakening. If the old magic that coursed through my veins was trying to warn me of something, protect what was mine. But the kingdom that the witches didn’t want was what I was trying to protect. My magic was ironic.

“Zeke was telling me about the loss in their kingdom. I wasn’t aware.” I didn’t buy that bullshit. John was always aware. The passing of a king in our realm should’ve been accompanied with arrangements — the passing of the torch, so to speak. It was assumed that his daughter would take his space, but to do so without alerting any of us seemed strange.

“Baby, being in public would not stop me from touching you.” He pulled on my hand until I was flush against him. “I’ll fuck you wherever I want.”

“You have to give me something, Zeke. Should we not be doing what we’re doing?” The bartender put my fresh drink in front of me. I picked it up and threw it back, setting the glass down as I asked for another refill. He sighed, rubbing his temple. “We’re not going to stop doing what we’re doing.” “That’s not what I asked.” “Fuck, Raven. What do you want me to say? It’s a gray area,” he bit out. He was snapping at me. “A gray area? What the fuck does that mean?” “It means that it’s not wrong, but it’s not right, either.”

“Baby, come on.” He nudged my knee with his. I didn’t meet his eyes. “You make such a big fucking deal about not sharing me, but you’re fucking someone else, baby.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable.” And turned away from him, facing the crowd. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

But he kept his eyes on me. He sank lower into his seat, lifting his arm to rest on the back of the blonde’s chair, and widened his legs — the same way he had in his room the other night when I couldn’t stop staring at him. My eyes cut into tiny slits as she slid her hand up his thigh. I seethed, moving my focus back to Cade, whose eyes still hadn’t left me. What kind of sick game was he trying to play with me?

He wanted this. He wanted to get a rise out of me. That was why he wasn’t breaking eye contact, which was unfair.

He’d had years of freely getting to fuck whomever he wanted. Years of having to wait for him at breakfast and then rolling my eyes every time I saw his freshly sexed smug waltz into my dining room. Years of wondering why he needed release with someone else when I was right there. If he wanted someone, why was I never what he wanted? Realization fell on my shoulders, stealing my breath.

All those years of watching him, all the mornings I spent mocking him for whoever he had just discarded, were because I wanted it to be me. Not the being discarded part, but the wanting my company to be what he craved. Not necessarily to fuck, ...

His body tensed as he sensed me growing angrier while I sifted through my internal comprehension. He knew he had pushed me too far. I crossed my legs as I leaned coolly against the bar. I was falling for someone else, even if he wasn’t mine. Nothing about this was fair.

Why not show him my darkness? I snapped my eyes open. But this time, they weren’t blue. They were bloodred.

Cade immediately sat up, and the blonde slid off him as he stared at me, slightly shaking his head. Too fucking late, Cade. With a flick of my finger, I lit the table he was at ablaze.

“Please,” I pleaded. “Just choose me tonight.” I just needed someone to choose me.

I had been fucking someone who had someone waiting for him. He never told me. And I never asked. Now I wish I had never had. I wanted to remain ignorant. I wanted to stop feeling like I was never enough for anyone. We felt so connected, but it was all just surface if he could be with someone else and tell me it was a gray area.

“When you feel their loss of life clinging to yours… does it make you feel alive?” He advanced toward me, closing the space between us step by step. He grabbed my waist and pulled me to him. “Yes,” he breathed.

He wanted to drink my darkness. I wanted to drown in his.

Blood — he was obsessed with drawing my blood.

And then his lips were on mine, gingerly, the shadows clearing from his eyes. They lived within me now. I grabbed his fingers from my neck and led him through the dark dungeon back into the hidden corridor. We were silent again because how could we recover from something like what had just transpired between us? We’d unlocked something in each other. Something sinister.

As I went to turn, I heard him lunge, and his fingers wrapped around my wrist. “But I see something much more delectable,” he whispered, pulling me to him roughly. He snaked his arm around my waist and leaned forward to sniff my hair. I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, I use a shampoo with pear extract,” I replied dryly. With his tight grip on me, I knew he was expecting me to scream or flee, which meant this wasn’t the first time he had tried this. But it would be his last.

Just mere days ago, we were fine, and now I was confused about how I felt about him—wanting to chase after him as soon as he walked away. But lately, Zeke was always there to stop me. I cocked my head, recalling that he had successfully put himself between Cade and me since the day in my throne room. He ensured I missed breakfast with Cade again this morning, asking if I’d be in trouble. And at the tavern — his perfect timing after I had thrown the bucket of water on Cade, pulling me back before I could chase him after the banquet. He’d torn us apart almost every time we were together over the last few days, guilting me if I tried to leave him for Cade. The wedge between Cade and me wasn’t just because of us. It was because of Zeke, too.

There were too many coincidences. Unless they really were trying to split us apart. Alienate me. The rumors were spread by someone trying to turn my people against me. No. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I made it clear to her from the beginning that whatever happened between us wasn’t serious. I needed to know what Mira was up to, and Jeanine gave me pieces of information. Now, the thought of touching anyone but Raven made me sick.