Fire Kissed: A Rejected Mates Romance (The Rejected Realms Series Book 2)

by A. K. Koonce

  15

  The Light King

  Torben

  I don’t sleep a wink. I cling to the feel of her soft body sleeping soundly in my arms. I don’t remember the last time I felt this good. Possibly . . . never.

  I never knew sex could be like that. It was instinctive. I wasn’t hurting the entire time or waiting for it all to pass. Shit, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to bury myself in her and never let her go if it meant forever seeing her eyes brighten before rolling back with ecstasy.

  She curls into me with a soft moan, and I hate that I have to wake her. Our night of fun is over. We’re out of time. The heavy sigh within me releases, and I’m just about to shake her awake when her big ocean blue eyes open and stare right up at me. Her lips part. I see it in her. There’s something just on the tip of her tongue.

  Something important.

  “Hey,” she says softly.

  I wait for the words she isn’t saying, but nothing else comes out.

  Whatever it is she’s thinking in that constant mind of hers, she keeps to herself.

  “Hey,” I whisper back to her, a smile inching over my lips for no damn reason.

  That’s what this maddening woman does to me.

  I act irrational with her. Reckless.

  I both hate it and love it all at the same time.

  The cool feel of her palm slides over my stomach, and I feel flutters up inside me as she traces the muscle there. Thin marks of scars long healed are just beneath her hands, and yet she only focuses on the dips and lines of my muscle.

  And I smile harder.

  Like a damn idiot.

  “We should go,” I tell her on a grumble of words.

  Her gaze lowers and she nods. All the peace we’ve held in this garden is slipping away from us with each ticking second. That’s what life is though, the moments of good among all the bad. Lately I’ve had more good than I’ve had in my entire life though.

  Because of her.

  “What did Loki mean yesterday about the Light King being a dog elf and what he did to this realm?” She looks up at me curiously.

  My brows lift to remember things I’d long thought I’d forgotten.

  “Gods leave their realms all the time. I left. Loki left. Your mother left. Your mother came here. And at the time, the light elves welcomed her with open arms. She was the first god to come and spread good in their world without expecting anything in return. She spread her love freely. It was a much less vicious place back then.”

  Her emotions are always written across her face. Especially when someone speaks of her mother. So for once, I’ll tell her everything I can.

  She deserves that and more.

  “And then, King Mordon took notice of her. He loved her. Naturally. And she adored his devotion. She was intrigued by his powers as most people are. He’s a hybrid: part elf, part shifter.” I swallow hard when the idea of the King and Goddess becomes a bit too similar to myself and Hela. “But when someone’s a giver like your mother, and someone else is a taker, like the King, it can slowly kill the giver from the inside out. Her magic weakened. The King is a selfish man. And he soon realized he could have all of her magic. All of her love. He kept it for himself, taking it from his people and turning this realm into a dark and bitter world. People hated him. Called him the Dog Elf which turned him against his own realm. Time passed, and your mother hid here in the elaborate nature of this world. But he found her soon enough. The elves knew then that she wasn’t his lover. She was his slave. And when the people here rebelled against their King, he left. And he took her with him.”

  I think about what Rhys brough to her realm and what the Goddess of Love brought to this realm as well.

  “Without her magic, the elves turned cruel and conniving. They war with anyone who dares come here. That’s what lack of love does to someone.”

  It’s what it did to me.

  Until I met her.

  “We should get going.” We both turn to look up at the man shadowing over us.

  Latham’s gaze isn’t as carefree as it was last night. Aric stirs at Rhys’s side, and he, too, grows somber the moment understanding sinks in. They know just as we do that the war the Light King started years ago is still waiting.

  Except now, it’s waiting for us.

  16

  The Tree House

  Rhys

  As Loki said, the trek through the realm is safer at dawn. It’s entirely silent actually. Our heavy steps over beautiful, dancing flowers are weighted with the thought of what’s to come. I’ll return home. But I won’t stay. How can I when my mother is being held captive by not one, but two Hell-spawned psychos?

  We’ll prepare. We’ll lure them out away from their protected realm that stunts my magic. Somehow . . . I just haven’t figured out all the fine details yet.

  “You sure you know where we’re going?” Aric finally mutters as he shoves away a braided vine of blue-and-silver streamers that are growing from a tree. He curses it for good measure once more before roughly getting caught up in the party paper once more. “Fucking Loki magic,” he huffs.

  “Loki said the exit to the realm of the living is through the treehouse on the far north side of the forest.” Latham holds back a tangled bush of shining, barbed wire thorns for me to pass through.

  My attention scans the endless terrain for any hint of a treehouse, but the lush forest shows no sign of any such thing. Another thick branch of completely normal but bubble-gum-smelling leaves is shoved aside with a push of my hand and then . . . a brown seventies shag carpet scuffs my boot where soft moss once was. I look up from the strange flooring and realize an entire living room is just beyond the bubble gum tree. Records line the right-hand wall while shimmery lights of a disco ball dance across the room. The guys all stop around me as well to take in the strange sight. We stride through the space in a matter of just a few steps to stand before a hall that’s veiled in an assortment of beads hanging from the doorframe. I push back the clattering, rainbow-colored curtain and walk into a hall of mirrors. My own reflection bounces across both walls.

  I can’t help but feel like the floor might be ripped out from beneath our shoes with every step we take. Latham said Loki wants his approval though. It makes sense.

  He wouldn’t deceive his son. Not Latham any way. Aric and he seem like total strangers but that might be Aric’s total lack of care for anyone outside of his dragon dungeon.

  With a nod, I decide not to release some of the tension in my shoulders as we walk through the portal and toward my home realm. Everything will be fine.

  Soon enough.

  I pull back the next tie-dye curtain then and step through.

  And come face to face with Hela.

  The cavernous space of the realm of Hell is just as I remember it, unfortunately. Right down to my very own mother who sits on her knees at the side of the Light King’s chair. He smiles slowly when our eyes meet, a gleam of cruelty shining in his disgusting gaze.

  My jaw grinds hard. Loki lied. He didn’t offer us the way home. He sent us back.

  I wanted to meet Hela outside of her realm and the powers she holds here. I wanted more time to plan my attack.

  There is no more time though. Torben was right: in life, we never will have enough time.

  “Did you enjoy your time away?” Hela asks with a tilt of her head, her ruby lips spreading into a vicious smile.

  “Why?” It’s a word that comes out slowly and then I can’t stop everything after that. “Why cause yourself the trouble of wanting me here?”

  She wanted me here, after all.

  Now she has me. And for what? Pure evil torment?

  I don’t believe that.

  Her hand sweeps dramatically before folding in front of her in a delicate way. She walks the mostly empty room that we’ve had countless galas in. Each step resounds with a clack of her red heels against hard stone.

  “Do you know what happens without love, Rhys?” Hela looks up at me then with a
ctual curiosity in her gaze.

  I simply stare at her. I’m tired of her games.

  “Everything goes to Hell,” she says with gleaming eyes.

  I consider that, but I have no idea what her games are implying this time.

  “And if you ruin love—if you break it—everything goes dark.” Her words are sharp and meaningful. She’s tried to break me time and time again.

  She won’t succeed.

  “You can’t break me.” I lift my head high, proud of who I am and how much I’ve changed.

  The slow smirk that pulls at her lips is a terrifying form of amusement.

  “Really?” With another sudden sweep of her slender hand, Hela flings magic at my mother, and she’s thrown back to the ground, her head hitting with a painful cracking against the floor, and I’m rushing to her. I’m running to my mother so fast, I don’t even notice the stream of blood until kneeling at her side.

  The angry words of the Light King and Hela screaming at one another over whose toy she just broke is a rumble of noise that doesn’t fully register. All I hear is the slamming of my heart.

  A splinter of a wound slashes down her pale face. It’s so deep, the rawness of the bone beneath can be seen, but the blood at the back of her long hair is much worse. Blank, glossy eyes look up to the ceiling, looking past me but seemingly seeing so much.

  A gasp rattles her lungs as I take her frail hand in mine.

  “You are loved, Rhys,” she rasps, her words sinking into my heart as well as my memories. “You are love. And you are loved.”

  The pain in my chest is a building emotion that I can’t tame. The beast within me presses against the feel of all of it. The dampness in my eyes streams down my face without a sound. Her words haunt my mind over and over as her lashes flutter closed.

  And then she’s gone.

  I rip around with so much speed and force, Hela doesn’t even see me coming. My body collides into hers, and we’re both thrown to the floor from the impact of my recklessness. My fist lifts and releases over and over again into her pretty face. There’s too much rapid-fire movement for Hela to fully see my blows. Maybe my wolf can’t help me here, but I’ll still beat the Queen of Hell’s ass the old-fashioned way.

  Big hands grip my shoulders, and I’m removed from my ass kicking as if I’m a pristine vase that the King wouldn’t want scratched.

  All three of my men are surrounding him in less than a second, but no one makes a move when he places me away from his Queen and then steps back.

  “Please trust me. I’m just as upset as you are,” he tells me calmly, brushing off his hands against his slacks like I’ve dirtied him. “I cared for her too. Hela had no right.”

  Fury rains through me like a hailstorm. Pain stings my jaw from how hard my teeth clench.

  “Fuck you,” I hiss, because it’s all my mind seems to keep thinking on an endless loop.

  How dare he pretend to care for my mother?

  He smiles charmingly.

  Familiarly even.

  “You and I are the same,” the King says, infuriating me with every word he speaks. “So, so much so.”

  His palm lifts, and an orb of light glistens like a ball of water in his palm. Except a world can be seen within. My stomach dips at the sight of what’s inside. My mother’s smile is soft and shy as she looks at another version of the Light King. A version these realms have probably never seen. Because he’s laughing. And then he’s kissing. And then . . .

  I turn my head away.

  “You and I are the same, Rhys,” he says more gently.

  Hela’s haunting laughter rings out, sputtering with the sound of too much blood in her mouth. Another cackling sound of amusement suddenly joins her, this one much more disgusting and serpentlike.

  Then it all clicks.

  My head lifts slowly as I look up at the man who tormented and raped my mother for god knows how many countless nights. He was her abductor and abuser.

  The Dog Elf. He’s my father.

  His smile . . . it’s my own.

  Acid sickens my stomach.

  I’m going to be sick.

  A gentle hand brushes down my back. Latham’s boots are all I can see as I stare down at the floor. I want to go to my cage suddenly. I want to leave this room and not have to think about any of the people inside of it for as long as my mind will let me.

  Of all the long painful nights I spent imprisoned here, this might be the worst of all of them.

  After all the whirlwind of emotions I’ve felt for days on end, I just want to feel nothing. For a little while.

  Then my attention lifts, and when I meet his kind eyes, the eyes that seems so beautiful on the outside but so dark and deadly on the inside, I know I won’t rest until they’re all dead. And my mother can finally be at peace.

  All my emotion, it’s too much. And it all comes lashing out all at once. My wolf reacts before my mind ever fully does. She rips through me and takes care of me like she and I are the only family I’ve ever known. Not this asshole.

  The Hell magic restraining my beast feels heavy against her back. With a stretch of four legs, I peer around the dimly lit room through her eyes. Hela’s screaming in a ramble, and Serpan is already shifting down into the slithering form of his body that I’ve only had the misfortune of seeing once before. And as for my guys, they’re all around me.

  Torben’s fist’s shake with unshed power. Latham and Aric are still bound to their physical forms, but they don’t look at all afraid of their tormentors.

  Not anymore.

  I leap at the man who dared to hurt her. Sharp teeth and snapping jaws are my only weapons. His magic tosses me quick and hard, but I’m already right back at him before my next breath. His eyes still shine with amusement as my teeth sink into his arm. His power pushes at me, but my canines sink further into meaty flesh. It’s all tumbling, shaking force of chaos. Godly warrior magic shakes the room. Rock clatters down around us. Soot clouds my vision as pain shoots through my back, and I’m slammed to the ground with too much force. The limp in my leg doesn’t stop me from snapping my razor-sharp teeth through his neck.

  And face.

  And eye.

  I’ve maimed him. The King’s scream of pain is completely soothing to my mind. It’s a lullaby of revenge.

  But another scream sends fear drilling through me.

  Aric.

  My attention shifts past the King scrambling to get away, over Latham and Torben who are fighting to get Serpan contained, and then I spot him. Aric lies flat on his back, blood gushing down the side of his face. Hela’s hand is raised above him with a swirl of crimson magic held in her fist.

  No!

  Big paws race over the ground. The Queen’s gaze lifts, and she smiles as her hand turns slightly, and she throws her fiery magic right at me.

  Torben’s big body collides into mine. We fall with slamming force. Magic meant for me booms into the wall, crashing boulders of rock all around us.

  The press of it all, it’s too much. My beast is shoved out. She collapses within me. The restricting power of Hell sends her away as fast as she came rushing out. And I’m left lying in the rubble of the aftermath. Exhaustion tears me down and I can’t find the strength to stand after all that my wolf took.

  “The castle’s caving in. We have to get out of here,” Latham yells.

  Torben nods, his gaze scanning the blood and dirt for a shifter we can’t see. Aric’s curses are heard before he’s ever seen.

  “Get the fuck off of me.” His boot angles into the air as he kicks at the serpent shifter that’s slithering down into the mess of stones.

  Torben grabs my hand and climbs toward his friend.

  His fist comes down when he’s near enough, and fire blazes out, shaking the ground even more, but the snake’s fear sends him slithering away from the heat of Torben’s magic. Torben grips Aric’s shirt and hauls him up to his unsteady feet.

  “Let’s go.” Torben’s more careful with my bare feet
, taking his time to help me down off of the mound of dusty boulders.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the only exit I know in this room.”

  “Where does it lead to?” I ask, my gaze searching for the King and Queen among the dusty remains, but everything is eerily quiet and still.

  “No idea,” Torben grunts.

  He guides me to the wall that’s weirdly, perfectly intact just behind the two thrones. One of the chairs is severed in half.

  Hela’s chair.

  The other is littered with dust and rock and the floor at the side of the other chair is piled with stones. And that’s where my mother will be buried. That will be her eternal resting place . . .

  He pulls at my hand until I look away and follow after him to the strange gray wall behind the chairs. Torben lifts his palm, and as he’s about to guide me through, a hand snatches mine. Nails dig into my skin and pain follows.

  “You’ll die here, too, you little bitch.” Hela’s wild eyes clash with mine.

  Latham’s entire body lowers down. He slams into her side, but she’s quick to divert away. She stumbles but takes me with her. I land tangled with her, our hands scratching and clawing at one another as we go down. Magic fills her fist, but the nice jagged rock in mine juts out first. I slam it into the side of her head. As she tumbles away, her hand grips my ankle.

  Torben’s hand grabs mine. Latham takes my other.

  “Get them!” Hela commands as my foot slams into her knuckles.

  I’m pulled to the exit with a rush of force and panic. The four of us are just steps away from freedom.

  A familiar tone haunts my mind when I hear his voice. My head turns at the last second. Those eyes that I’d looked into my entire life—the eyes of a man I hated—they stare fully into mine. Uncertainty tangles in my stomach.

  Kyvain’s smirk carves his lips while he slams into Aric. He takes him down to the ground. Serpan covers Aric’s strong body with cords of scaly muscle. The two of them rip my dragon shifter away from me.