The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2) - Gena Showalter Page 0,113

say without revealing the truth about Roth and Everly?—she shook her head, as if any response would be moot.

Returning to the spot before me, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine softly. She cupped my cheeks, just as she’d done while we danced. A way I loved, I realized. At first, she held on, saying nothing, as if she were memorizing the feel of me.

“Maybe in our next life, fate will be kinder, eh?” She released me with the saddest smile, then entered the doorway, vanishing from view.

I stood in place for a long while, spreading and curling my fingers again and again. At last I understood why she’d gone cold during our kiss. The stepsister. A respectful gesture for a girl she’d come to like. But not kiss Ashleigh again? Impossible. And wed Dior? Never. But I couldn’t explain my true purpose for entering the tournament.

As I made the return flight to my tent, I considered the other obstacles in our path. I planned to dethrone her father—plans I wouldn’t halt. The longer he kept the crown, the faster he destroyed the kingdom. He’d raised taxes twice, offended Violet, Queen of Airaria and Everly’s estranged mother, and verged on war with Azul, his own wife’s homeland, for offering their beloved Dior as a war prize after using their soldiers to take Roth’s kingdom. Selfish Philipp had too much pride and no self-control—a lethal combination.

Would Ashleigh despise me for overseeing her father’s downfall? I doubt anyone had missed the longing looks she’d cast him upon her return.

Foreboding pricked the back of my neck, but I shook it off as an ungrounded fear. The king treated her like garbage. He didn’t deserve to be part of her life. I thought she’d already begun to accept this truth, just as I had accepted the truth about Ashleigh, my fated, and Leonora, who was not.

I could put off thoughts of the amour no longer.

I’d produced it. It had happened. Ashleigh was my mate, the one I was born to protect and cherish.

The one I’d been waiting for the whole of my lives.

The one I’d hurt again and again.

She’d always been my mate. But the being inside her must have warped the connection. Did that mean Ashleigh was a reincarnate, but the being was not?

A reincarnate, but not a reincarnate.

Could someone be cursed to live for centuries? A ghost, perhaps? One who’d targeted my incarnations and possessed my fated ones?

Could ghosts wield fire magic? Could they be removed and killed?

Protective instincts surged. I needed to save Ashleigh from this being, whatever the cost.

I landed at the campground and strode around a wealth of new trees. I marched past my guards, each of whom congratulated me on yesterday’s victory. As I entered my tent, the first thing I noticed was Everly and Roth lying side by side on the pallet. Both were fully clothed. Everly tossed up a grape and caught it with her mouth while Roth continued reading a piece of parchment.

“Well, well,” she said when she spotted me. She eased into an upright position and offered me a mocking grin. “Look who finally decided to show up for our morning team meeting.”

“I’m ten minutes early.” I closed the distance and fell between them, careful not to bend my wings.

“Which means you’re fifty minutes late,” Roth retorted.

“What time does the test of speed begin?”

“The king had the master of ceremonies blow his horn through the campground an hour before sunrise to summon you. The first to arrive at the coliseum won.” He snorted. “I wondered why you allowed Milo to have the victory. Now I know. You weren’t here. You were with the princess.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face. I’d missed this morning’s voluntary test of speed. “What boon did he request of the king?”

“No one knows.”

I wasn’t going to let myself worry. I had Noel and Ophelia on my side. They would guard my back.

“Oh, goodness. Your lips are so puffy, Saxon.” Everly’s tone conveyed exaggerated concern. She batted her lashes at me. “Did someone punch you in the mouth?”

Tattletale plants. I cast a scornful gaze to Roth, who regarded me with mirth. “Do you happen to have a muzzle handy?”

My friend snickered. “Why? Are you afraid you can’t keep your lips away from Ashleigh without one?”

“Yes!” I lifted my arm to peer at the array of bracelets that adorned my wrist. What would happen if I offered Ashleigh the one reserved for my bride, binding us