Keeper of Storms (The Fallen Fae #3) - Jenna Wolfhart Page 0,107
her words.
But he swore it was goodbye.
Heart thundering, he threw his feet toward the gallows. Nollaig threw out a hand to stop him, but he shook her off. Lorcan knew what his old friend would say. Stay back. Wait for the army. If these wood fae warriors killed Lorcan, it was all over. The city had no hope of survival if they did not have him.
But he couldn’t think of his duties, not when Reyna was two seconds away from death. He raced into the crowd, throwing back his cloak to reveal the crown on top of his head. Shadow fae gasped, falling back to give him space. He strode up to the gallows with a confidence and strength he had not known he had.
“I am the High King of the Shadow Court. Lay down your weapons. Step away from the princess. Now.” His voice boomed with confident assurance, like a king fully in command. But he knew the wood fae would not listen. He was not their king. They thought him dead. And they’d come here to conquer, not to parley.
Hell, their king had already chopped off his head.
The wood fae warriors frowned, stumbling toward the back edge of the platform, leaving Reyna with the noose still cinched around her throat. She’d started mumbling to herself, as if she were speaking to an invisible foe. His heart ached. She probably was. Even now, the Ruin would not leave her alone.
Lorcan grabbed the edge of the wooden platform and leapt up beside Reyna. She peered up at him with watery eyes shot through with red. Anger flashed through him, toward the wood fae who had done this to her. He would make them pay for this.
He lifted the noose from her neck and pulled her to his chest. She collapsed into him, trembling. Her entire body shook as great heaving sobs poured from her frail frame. He could feel the bones beneath her skin. She was scarcely alive, a ghost of her former self.
“Are you alright,” he said softly, pressing his lips to her dirt-caked forehead.
“No, Lorcan,” she whispered back. “I’m really not. And you won’t be either. You have to get out of here. There’s no way to beat the king or his warriors. They’ve all been drinking blood for days. They’ll kill you all.”
He ground his teeth together. He’d never heard her sound so hopeless. Her fire was gone. Her stubbornness trampled down.
“What have they done to you?” he asked, his voice cracking along with a piece of his soul.
“It’s not them.” A tear slipped down her reddened cheek. “It’s the magic inside me. And I think I need to use it, Lorcan. If I let it go, if I use it against the wood king…”
“It might kill you,” he growled.
“I’m going to die no matter what I do.”
“No,” he said, pushing up from the ground just as two of the wood fae guards rushed toward them. “I won’t allow it to happen.”
The wood fae guards flung themselves at him. They both had swords, rather than bows, which made Lorcan’s work easier than it would have been otherwise. Anger burning through him like fire, he roared, shoving the sharp blade right into the first guard’s gut. Nollaig launched up onto the gallows, joining the fight. Within seconds, both guards were dead. Their blood painted the wooden platform, and a twisted sense of victory rose its ugly head inside of Lorcan’s mind.
They never should have looked twice at Reyna Darragh, let alone put a noose around her neck. Anyone else who so much as blinked at her would join them in the Court of Death.
Gasps rose up like an orchestra from behind him. Lorcan spun on his feet to find every fae inside the square bowing before him, their knees digging into the dirt. Adoring eyes glistened beneath the red light of the sun. Desperate hope flashed across gaunt faces.
“Your Highness,” Nollaig muttered from beside him. “It seems your subjects are relieved that you have come home..”
Home. That heavy burden of his title settled back onto his shoulders. The power of the throne pulsed within him, anchoring him to this place, these fae. He gazed across the crowd, understanding at once the importance of what he had done. And desperately hoping that he would not fail them now. These fae had been beaten down. They’d been ripped from their homes and killed. Death had stared them in the face, and not for the first time in their tumultuous lives.