In Malice (The Stolen Queen Book 1)

by A. M. Hodges

  I have no idea what came over me. It's not like I'm inexperienced. I'm well versed in charming women. Just not this woman. Josie and Jeb joke that I'll never settle down, but it isn't because I'm cold and disinterested like Reyna believes. It's because

  I'm a salacious flirt. I know it. Women know it. Everyone knows it.

  Everyone except Reyna. Her naivety regarding me is almost amusing.

  I felt the tug on my heart she causes the first time I met her. I had to repress the urge to shove my mother out of the way to get to her. The way the soft skin of her hand felt on my lips is permanently ingrained into my memory. Then, there was the awkward way she received my bow that made her seem like the most precious being on the planet. And then it happened.

  A light breeze blew over her and the scent of her mating bond wafted into my senses.

  I've never been jealous of her affection with my brother. Envy, however, is a feeling I've come to know all too well. Envy over the parts of her he gets that I will never have. Envy over the extra time he got with her in her world that I didn't. In a way, I think the envy is more dangerous than jealousy would be.

  After that, I did my best to keep my distance. I'll admit I had little slips. Like when Josie told me Reyna's affinity was for water. I was all too eager to agree on crashing their training session. We arrived just as she sank her dagger into a tree mere inch from Jeb's head. The cocky smirk that stretched across her face did more funny things to my heart.

  My mouth offered to train her before my brain could stop it. A part of me was desperate to have her any way that I could. I'll admit, the grumbling that came out of Jeb about our one-on-one training sessions fanned the flames of my ego. For a short period of time every day, I got her to myself. There was something she shared with me that she didn't share with her mate. That fact gave me just the smallest hint of pride. Despite the robotic and cold way I regarded her, those sessions were the best part of my day.

  The more I felt my fondness growing for her, the more I pulled away. I spent my nights drinking my sorrows at the tavern and unabashedly flirting with the locals. No matter what, or who, I did to push her from my thoughts it always failed. She was always at the front of my mind. It's almost maddening at times.

  Eventually, I quit trying all together and resulted to quiet brooding.

  After all, what else could I do? Tell my brother I was in love with his mate? Explain that I think she might me mine too? HAH! Not fucking likely.

  Multiple mates don't exist in our realm. This is only a trick my heart is playing on me and I just need to wait patiently until it's out of my system. I'll just lie to myself and keep telling myself I don't want her until it finally goes away.

  Her small sobs draw me out of my thoughts. I watch her, curled up in a chair next to my brother's bed, doing her best to cry quietly. The pain the sight causes in my chest nearly breaks me. I tremble with the restraint to remain by the door, to not go and wrap my arms around her like I want to. It'll be a while before Jeb wakes up, but he will wake up. He has made it through far worse injuries than this and when he does wake up, she will still be his mate and he will still be hers.

  She swings her glassy gaze towards me and her lower lip trembles slightly as she holds in her emotions. That effectively slices through every bit of restraint that I have left in me and I reach her side in two strides. She lifts her arms towards me, and I scoop her up into my arms before settling back into her chair with her curled up on my lap. She feels incredibly small like this, like there is no way the strength and wildness of the woman I know could reside in such a tiny body. Her delicate hands clutch onto my armor and she cries into my chest.

  "Shhhhh, it's alright dande faash. He will wake up. I promise."

  I stroke her hair as I hum soothing melodies into her ear. It feels like hours before her sobs turn to sniffles and finally, they stop all together. She looks up with me with confused, curious eyes as she slowly reaches a hand up towards me. Her fingers delicately trace over the scar that runs down my face and I let my eyes flutter closed as I try to control my breathing. Every bit of my focus narrows onto all the places her body is touching mine as I fight to repress the shiver that attempts to rack through me.

  It is then that I realize one thing. I am completely fucked.

  ∞∞∞

  Two weeks. It's been two weeks and Jeb still hasn't woken up. His color is improving, and the superficial injuries have healed, but his body remains locked in battle with the poison running through his veins. Healers rotate in every two days to do a session on him. It's an agonizingly slow process.

  Agonizing because every day he sleeps, I grow closer to his mate. The guilt threatens to eat me alive, but I can't help what I feel.

  During the first three days, the only time Reyna left the tent was to show respect and mourn the fallen warriors at their funeral pyres. I don't know where she learned it, but she led the camp in a traditional Malatian funeral dirge. That was the first time I'd ever heard her sing, and it was glorious.

  Miles stopped in every day to bring us food and water. I never left her side. After that, she wanted to keep her mind busy.

  So, we trained.

  We trained for hours on end every single day.

  After the first week I stopped trying to hide myself from her. It was near impossible anyways, considering she clung to me like I was her lifeline while she waited for her mate to regain consciousness. I spent every moment trying to coax even the smallest of smiles from her.

  I'll admit it sucks, knowing that I'm only her lifeline while she doesn't have Jeb and that as soon as he is awake everything will go back to the way it was. It doesn't matter though. I've decided I will take whatever I can get, and these weeks will stay with me for the rest of my immortal life. It'll have to be enough.

  Right now, we are laying side by side in one of the watch towers staring up at the clouds. She doesn't know it, but I've been using my abilities to shift the clouds and form different shapes. I try to keep it subtle, not making perfect figures but forming them enough that she can make out what it is. It's been hours, but the glee she expresses every time a new shape emerges is worth every bit of the drain that’s beginning to claw its way into me.

  Reyna softly rolls onto her side to face me and folds her hands under her head like a pillow. She doesn't say anything, but I can feel her eyes roaming over my face in a questioning gaze. After a few minutes of silence, I roll myself over to face her.

  She looks a bit startled, and a blush creeps over her face as I settle my head onto my hands. I don't even try to hide the cocky smirk that spreads across my face.

  "What are you thinking about?" I ask innocently, like I didn't see the fact that whatever thoughts I caught her in the middle of made her blush.

  She deflects my question with a question.

  "Will you tell me something I don't know about you?"

  Now it's my turn to be startled. It's not like we haven't been having conversations, but they've been light and nonchalant. Nothing like the potentially loaded question she just asked me. I take a moment to think it over. Do I tell her something frivolous and blow it off? Or do I tell her something true and meaningful to me?

  The latter would expose more of myself to her than I should. Answering sincerely would go against everything I've been trying to do since she set foot into this realm. Answering frivolously could ruin everything and I'll watch her emotionally shut down in front of me. So, what the fuck do I do?

  My eyes bounce between hers as I try to decipher what she wants from me. Then I catch a glimpse, barely but it was there, of insecurity. Like she is afraid that I am going to shut her down.

  Meaningful it is.

  "I never wanted to join the army," I tell her honestly and her eyebrows skyrocket up her forehead.

  "You didn't?"

  "No," I sigh, "I didn't. I followed Jeb into the war to make sure someone was always there to have his back. Then, Josie followed me. Bramble was proud. Mother was pissed."

>   She ponders that a minute, her eyes searching my face once again.

  "What did you want to be then," her soft voice drips with intrigue.

  It's my turn for insecurities to surface. I gnaw on my bottom lip trying to convince myself that it’s okay to tell her. That she won't laugh or think differently about me. The me she knows is a warrior in every aspect. The scar on my face can attest to that.

  As if she read my mind, she reaches out once again to trace the scar down my face. This time, I don't suppress the shiver.

  "I wanted to be an artist," I begin cautiously, "I like to paint. Well like is an understatement, I guess. Before the war, the only place anyone could find me was locked away in our attic with a brush and canvas or out in the orchards doing landscapes."

  The beaming smile that graces her features is not one of amusement or mockery. It's completely genuine in nature, and it is the most brilliant sight I have ever seen. No landscape would ever compare to that smile. I suddenly have the uncontrollable urge to paint her. Just like this. With that smile on her face and the adoration that's shining brightly in her eyes.

  "You'll have to show me some of those paintings when we get back," her voice lilts, "Maybe one day you can even paint me."

  Oh, I plan to do just that.

  "It's a date," I murmur through my satisfied grin.

  The conversation doesn't stop there. We move on to talk about everything and anything. Her life before coming to Malatia. Her love of books and music. She asks me to tell her stories about my childhood. I begin with ones that involve my siblings. Stories that I know Josie has probably already told her. She stops me after the third one.

  "I know these stories. That's not what I want to know. I want to know YOUR stories. Stories that are special just to you."

  My heart swells and her words. She wants to know me. She wants to know the me that isn't just her mate's brother.

  I tell her about the first time I snuck out of the house and Bramble caught me with a girl out in the orchard. I tell her about the time I broke half of my body because I jumped off a roof to show off and was too drunk to fly. She laughs until tears drip down her cheeks when I tell her about the time that I spiked my camps ale with a potion that turned all the warriors’ voices into animal noises.

  It is well passed sunset before we finally return to camp. I don't think my heart has ever been so full.

  Chapter 41

  Reyna

  I'm a shit. I'm a shit person and someone needs to knock the hell out of me.

  My mate has been in a coma for three weeks and what am I doing? I'm flirting with his fucking brother.

  The guilt is eating me alive. Well, mostly. Except when I'm with Josiah. With him, I have no control, and it's impossible to feel anything other than content. It's like he calls to the softer part of me. The part that loves art and music. The part that cries over romance novels and feels physical pain when other people are hurt. The part that wants to be anything and everything but a warrior queen.

  Jeb once told me that I thrive on battle and blood lust, like him, but that isn't all of me. Josiah makes me feel complete, like I am equal parts vicious and quiescent, and it's the most confusing thing I've ever felt in my entire life. On one hand Jeb is my mate, my everything. On the other, Josiah fills a piece in my heart that I didn't even notice was missing.

  I feel like I'm losing my mind. I spend hours every day tearing through my memories, searching for signs that I'm sure I missed along the way. Something to indicate Josiah's feelings towards me are what I'm beginning to suspect.

  He's always been platonic, if not downright cold and rigid sometimes. I've seen small changes in his personality at times, a charm that I knew could possibly be hidden underneath. Like the day we met when he kissed my hand. The water he threw at me and Jeb when they caught us in the woods. That grin that completely lit up his face for the first time.

  Then it dawns on me. The familiarity of this situation. Jesus fuck they really are brothers.

  It all makes sense. From the stern and detached façades to the whiplash I felt when they finally started to be themselves. Josiah has been hiding from me. The same way that Jeb hid from me in the beginning. This has always been who he is inside, he just didn't want me to see it. Suddenly, I am uncontrollably angry.

  Stupid fucking Fae males and their stupid fucking bullshit.

  I storm the camp until I find him, my anger growing to a point that I can feel the veins beneath my eyes beginning to pulse. I knew if I were to look in a mirror, they would be an inky black. When I find him, Josiah is relaxing beneath the shade of a tree on the outskirts of the camp. He leans against its trunk, deeply entranced by the book in his hands. Not even that sight is enough to staunch my growing rage. I stomp up to him and plant my hands on my hips as I glare down at him.

  When he looks up at me, he smiles a first, a gorgeously heart-stopping smile, but he quickly drops it as apprehension spreads over his face. "Reyna, what's wrong?" "WHY," I demand.

  He stutters in his confusion, "Reyna, what-"

  "Why did you hide from me?" I seethe, "All of this, everything about yourself, you hid it from me. You made me believe you were cold and indifferent. You acted like some battle worn warrior who didn't have a heart or a personality. WHY!"

  "I didn't-"

  "Oh no! Don't you even try it! Your brother did the same thing to me. Did you know that? And just like him, you decide randomly that you don't want to hide from me anymore. Which then gives me a severe case of fucking whiplash and leaves me feeling lost and confused and I fucking hate it! So just tell me. Why?"

  I feel pissed. I feel insecure. I feel raw and exposed.

  He must see it on my face because his shoulders sag in defeat.

  "Because I had no choice," he shifts his gaze away from me, melancholy tinging his tone.

  I open my mouth to demand a further explanation, but we are interrupted.

  "My Queen!" Maddox rushes towards us, "He's awake."

  Josiah jumps to his feet and we follow Maddox's quickened pace through the camp. When we enter the tent, Jeb is propped up in his bed softly answering a healer’s questions. His color isn't perfect, but it is a major improvement from what is has been these last weeks. I can tell he is still very weak despite his new conscious state.

  Still, the relief I feel at the soft tones of his voice sends my breath whooshing out of my lungs.

  "Hello, Krasivaya. I missed you," he smiles weakly and pats the bed next to him.

  The healer takes her que to leave and Josiah moves to follow. As he pulls back the tent flap to follow her out, Jeb calls to him.

  "Josiah, you don't have to leave."

  He slowly turns around to look between me and Jeb. The expression on his face when his eyes meet mine feels like a knife twisting in my chest. It's then I realize what he meant when he answered my question. Because I didn't have a choice.

  I am his brother's mate. Not his. So, he dealt with that fact the only way that he knew how. He hid from me and pushed me away. When Jeb did it, it was because I was supposed to be a mission for him, and he didn't understand the feelings that were developing. Josiah knew exactly what feelings he was developing; he just can't do anything about them.

  I let my understanding show in my eyes as much as possible while I fight back tears and incline my head discretely to the chair by the bed. Given the situation, I opt for sitting next to Jeb instead of curling up into his arms. There is no need to make this any more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Plus, he's still healing.

  "How are you feeling?" I let my fingers run lightly through his hair.

  "Weak," he admits, "I'm still not one hundred percent, and I am sure I still have a while yet confined to this bed."

  "I'll stay with you," I assure him adamantly.

  He chuckles at that, "I'm sure you will, but it's not necessary. Which reminds me. Josiah?"

  His brother snaps to attention in the corner, clearly caught in the middle of his drifting thoughts.
>
  "I know there's no way I'm going to be able to convince her to leave tonight, but tomorrow, will you take Reyna out? Get her out of the camp for a while. Hell, maybe even a couple days. Her sitting here fussing over me isn't going to do either of us any good." My breath catches in my throat and I hold it there, preparing for him to flat out refuse. There is only a second of shock on his face before an impassiveness that I haven't seen in weeks masks his features. Great back to square one.

  "Of course, brother," he replies dutifully, "I'll leave you two alone and begin making preparations."

  Without another word or so much as a glance in my direction, he leaves the tent.

  Releasing a tense sigh, I curl up next to my mate and begin tracing the runic patterns on his shoulder. My mind is running a mile a minute as I lay there, listening to his heartbeat and trying to sort through all the emotions that are threatening to drown me. I don't want to hide anything from him. There are no secrets between us, and that's a promise we both made.

  That doesn't change the fact that I have no idea how to even begin to approach this conversation. Panic begins to grip me in its icy clutches.

  What if he hates me? What if I ruin things between him andJosiah? What if I lose them both....

  He must notice my increasing heart rate and breaths that are becoming more rapid by the minute. Pulling me tighter into his chest, he kisses the top of my head and begins humming softly. As if holding me in his arms can right everything wrong in the world.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Alright. Here it goes.

  Pushing lightly on his chest, I pull back out of his grasp and prop myself up onto my elbow so that I can look at him. My eyes search his face one more time, memorizing the moment full of love and peace that I am sure is about to be shattered.