Titus green eyes darkened. “Heavy but mine, until you humiliated me by standing me up at the altar. Mother couldn’t let such a public shame stand. Where were you, while I faced the scandal that followed alone?”
“Dead.”
His lips grazed across my cheek. “Excuses, excuses. But do you know how much it warmed me to know that you suffered for what you’d done to me?” My guts twisted. I tried to wrench out of his arms, but he held onto me. “I lost the throne. I was passed over for my younger sister. When she (along with her worthless husband) died, her brat became heir. There was no forgiveness because a fae who fails is never worthy again.”
“Lysander…?” I whispered.
Lysander stood frozen at the edge of the dance floor. His wings were wrapped around himself. His eyes gleamed, and his gaze was dark like he was one predatory inch from battling his own uncle over me, which was hot and dangerous.
How could I bring this dance of the enemies to an end?
It’d started with hate. What if I showed Titus who he should truly have been hating all this time?
Titus’ gaze hardened. “Instead of taking up my rightful place, I’m left as guardian of a boy who can’t even obey. I sought to train Lysander to repair my reputation. He was to rule with me at his side. But he ruined that by bringing me greater shame. You both owe me a debt.”
I snorted. “I don’t give a mage’s prick how things are done in fairy land, but a woman choosing not to marry or a ward deciding not to kill doesn’t make them indebted to you. Plus, this will come as a shock, but your mother sold you out to mine. You’d never have been king. The plan was for you to bring your magic, power, and money to the House of Crows. You’d have been ruled at the academy, living in my shadow.”
Titus staggered back from me. “You’re lying…”
“Do you imagine that my mother would’ve allowed the protected Blessedly Charmed daughter to ever leave these grounds? I am the academy. We were both set up. Just think how much more freedom you’ve enjoyed for the last hundred years, than if you’d become my controlled husband. Your mother must’ve always intended her daughter to become heir, and when the marriage with me fell through, she used your supposed shame as an excuse. How charmingly sneaky.”
“She w-wouldn’t…” Titus paced away, slipping on the ice. I raised my eyebrow. “Of course, she would. On my feathers, all these years, I thought…and I treated Lysander like…I blamed…”
Lysander prowled towards me (which was impressive in those ruby slippers), sweeping his wings around me; I nestled into their sweetness. “It would be my greatest honor to dance with you.”
I slow danced with Lysander to a song about fucking, and Titus allowed it.
As Lysander’s prick pressed against my hip, his feathers brushed against my cheeks, and his hot breath gusted over my ear, I tingled head to toe like I was making love to him right here in front of Rebels, professors, and Titus alike.
By the way that Titus reddened, perhaps it was obvious.
Excellent.
I’d been lost for over a hundred years, a lonely ghost. But now I was finally found, in the arms of my fae lover. Titus had thought that it should be him, but he’d been wrong. Sometimes love took its time to reveal itself, and sometimes, it was a hard and painful journey.
But it was always worth it.
I’d been born, died, and resurrected for this moment.
“Marry me, prince?” I breathed.
Lysander’s breath caught; his eyes lit up. “In a heartbeat.” Then his lips feathered across mine. “Will my fiancee permit me to kiss her? I’ve been desperate to break this rule for so long…”
“Only if I break it first.”
I pressed a light kiss to his lips, and they opened on a sigh. Then I pushed in again, but this time with a savage, desperate passion that was met with his own. He owned me with his kiss, but I was already his, and he was mine. Pink sizzled on my tongue, twining with his own magic.
Don’t ever stop. More, more, more…
Lysander curled his wings more tightly around me.
This was it. What I hadn’t known that I’d been missing.
I was complete.
The windows rattled. My magic shook the hall. The stars pulsated pink.
And the Membership with its wards snapped.
I jolted like I’d been struck by electricity, breaking the kiss. My eyes rolled back, and Lysander caught me. My magic burst from the floor in roots, covering the walls of the hall, before breaking off the roof.
It was finally happening… Sweet Hecate, this was it…
I pressed my hands against the floor, sensing my Wickedly Charmed magic burrowing through the academy and breaking every ward and spell that’d been imposed on its innocence because it had been innocent when I’d created it as a baby.
Henriette and each Principal after had added wards, spells, and charms onto my magic. They’d created the monstrosity of the academy. The Curse was mine, but the academy was all the House of the Crows.
I turned my head. Panicked voices crashed over me. Damelza screeched, casting spells at the roots, along with Bacchus. I noticed that Juni met my gaze with a determined nod, before nudging Emerick and Snow towards Sleipnir, who’d scooped up Mist into his pocket and joined the ring of Rebels.
Juni knew.
Why was she helping us?
Then I also noticed the longing gaze that she cast at Lysander, and I understood.
If she couldn’t be with him, then she’d save him. Truly self-sacrificing love was the noblest kind.
I nodded back at her.
Fox grinned, leaping over the feast and sending the chocolate cake splattering across the floor. When he banged on the vast glass window, Ambrose saluted him from the other side. Fox clacked a smart salute back, before diving under the table this time on his stomach and covering his head with his hands, which was the only warning before the dragons swiped their talons through the glass.
The shatter of breaking glass rang through the hall with startling loudness, followed by the roar of outraged monkey dragons.
The freezing breeze blew through the hall from the cold night.
Lysander covered me with his wings.
Then I struggled to my feet, and Lysander helped me to stroll to Rayn, who nuzzled me.
Bask slipped his arm around the small of my back, before stroking Rayn’s head. “Petting time.”
Lysander startled when his dragon willingly ducked down for him, so that he could jump on without the need for a saddle, spurs, or riding whip. Lysander flushed, patting the dragon in apology. Then he darted a final glance at me like even parting for a moment was painful, before swinging himself on, holding his hand out to Willoughby and then Midnight. They clung around each other’s middles, and their excitement wound through my magic.
“You’ve got to be joking.” Titus stared at the dragons and then Damelza. “This is your famed taming of supernatural bad boys and professors? They’re running the academy.”
Damelza’s dress ruffled to twice its size with rage. “You’re the one who insisted on this ball and the witch being here. She creates rebellion where ever she goes.”
I smiled. “Why, thank you.”
Sleipnir jumped off the stage, before urging Emerick and Snow toward the dragons.
Emerick and Snow climbed onto one dragon, and Ambrose helped Ty and Ezekiel onto another, before mounting himself.
Flair and Echo dived off their perch, flapping through the broken windows.
“Don’t forget us, boss,” Flair called.