A House of Cloaks & Daggers (The Gift War #1)

41. You Look Ridiculous

Chapter forty-one

You Look Ridiculous

F aerie makeup was something else entirely.

I covered my birthmark with one of the creams Morgoya sent me, and when I was done, there was no trace left to be seen.

In the human world, I needed to use three different products before I got close to full coverage; but one cream from the High Fae and it was like I’d enchanted myself with brand new, unblemished skin.

My reflection stared back at me in reverence.

Silver glittered around my eyelids like starlight was bleeding down my cheeks. I had brushed my eyebrows upwards to mimic the straight, upturned style of the High Fae, and used one of the darker powders to give the effect of sharper and more lifted cheekbones. The last thing I did was dab some red-tinted gloss over my lips.

After a moment of marvelling at my own reflection, I turned away from the mirror.

I was beautiful, yes, but I looked more like them than ever before. That was my intention until I saw the finished product. Until I realised how much it frightened me.

My ears were still human and rounded, and I wore the necklace that reminded me of Belgrave. I found myself touching the insignia every few minutes, just to ground myself. To remember which place was home.

Delia had laid out a beautiful golden gown for me; it was the second dress from the wardrobe in that colour and had spaghetti straps with a plunging cowl neckline. It shone like the fabric held the light of the sun, even in the shadowed bathroom, and I left it behind when I walked back into the main bedroom.

I knew that it represented Lucais and his power, but all it reminded me of was the colour of Wren’s eyes.

A set of white velvet would have to do instead.

Leaving my hair down, I made sure to scrunch my curls with one of the jasmine-scented oils provided by the House until they were light and fluffy. Then I slid into a pair of velveteen slippers and took a deep breath before opening the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Three steps.

I made it all of three steps down the hallway before Wren’s voice stopped me in my tracks. On instinct, I turned towards the sound and found him standing at the other end of the hall as if he’d just stepped out of the open doorway behind him.

That couldn’t be his bedroom, because I’d been in his bedroom once before and it wasn’t…

It wasn’t right up the hall from mine, was it?

“To dinner,” I replied, keeping my voice steady against the strain building in my chest.

“No, you are not.” He strode towards me, eyes narrowing. “What is that on your face?”

My stomach churned. “Nothing.”

When he was close enough to touch me, he reached out and roughly swiped a finger across my forehead. Morgoya hadn’t included a setting spray in her little gift basket, and apparently faerie makeup didn’t set quite like I thought it would because Wren’s fingertips came away coated in the shade of cream I’d used to cover my birthmark.

He scowled down at his hand, positively livid. “Wash it off.”

I let out a disgruntled sigh and made to wipe his finger clean with the sleeve of my shirt. He jerked his hand back, brows pulling together.

“No,” he snapped, throwing his arm out behind him. He pointed to my bedroom door. “Wash it off your face. You look ridiculous.”

My mouth fell open as blood flooded to my cheeks. “I—”

“Aura.” My name came out of his mouth like a curse. “You are not presenting yourself to our guests from the Court of Wind looking like someone you are not. Wash it off before you come downstairs, or I’ll put a glamour over you.”

Face flushing a shade of absolute rage, I balled my fists at my sides.

We were both bound to the High King of Faerie, and earlier the very same day, our exchange had been tense but amicable. I was prepared to deal with him as part of the bargain with Lucais, but the brute behaviour would have to stop.

Or I am going to strangle Wren in his sleep.

“Do those human ears of yours still work?” he jeered.

I might’ve strangled him right there in the hallway.

Tears welled up behind my eyes, and even though my mind was a dizzying cyclone of insults and hateful threats all directed at Wren, my voice had disappeared. I couldn’t even feel my way down my throat to find it and drag the words up as a chilling, empty numbness began to spread across my body.

Before the first drop of moisture trickled over my lower lid, I rushed past him and slammed my bedroom door closed between us.

I hate him.

I hate him so much.

He had no right to treat me so poorly. There was no reason .

Leaning against the door for support, I sank to the floor and wrapped my arms around my legs as I brought my knees to my chest.

By the time my brain was able to send out the command to hold steady against the wave of emotions wrecking my body, it was too late. The tears streamed down my face freely, and I would have to wipe the rest of the makeup off when I was done crying.

Wren ruined everything.

He ruined everything.

From the moment I went to close the stair gate in Dante’s Bookstore that fateful night until the moment I picked myself up off the floor and wiped all traces of joy and sadness from my face, Wren flaunted his continued existence in my mind. A dark, looming presence tainting every single memory he touched.

I hated him.

I hated him even more than I hated myself.

The hateful brute was standing outside of my bedroom door when I opened it again, red-eyed but fresh-faced.

I shot him a disdainful glare, my stomach twisting in protest at the very sight of his beautiful, cruel eyes. “What do you want?”

He glanced up at me without tilting his head away from the floor, strands of his blond hair tangling with his thick eyebrows. “I’m sorry.”

The door slammed closed behind me, but it was his words that startled me. I blinked at him, the knot in my belly tightening. “You’re… what ?”

He lifted his head and rolled his eyes skyward. “You did look ridiculous,” he began, holding up a hand to stop me as I opened my mouth to curse him. “But I should not have spoken to you like that.”

Closing my eyes, I blew out a sharp breath through my nose, and then fixed him with a hard look. “I don’t care.”

His eyes roved over my face, no doubt marking the tear-stained redness that couldn’t be washed off, and he nodded—slowly, like he didn’t believe me, and was recalculating his next move. “The birthmark above your eye,” he said, lifting his chin towards me. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

I shook my head at him. “I don’t understand you. Since when do you apologise for anything?”

Wren’s eyes dropped to the floor. “It doesn’t happen often. But I know when I’ve crossed a line, and for that I’m sorry.”

That he thinks this was crossing a line, after everything else that has happened—

“Okay.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, folding his arms over his chest. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I repeated blandly.

That was the best he would get from me. I had no interest in setting his clearly conflicted feelings at ease by accepting his apology. I’d appreciate it much more if he would simply disappear.

Wren nodded again, thoughtfully. “Okay.” He started to turn but halted. There was something raw and bitter gleaming in his gaze. He took a sharp breath and waved a large hand in the air between us. “I know you don’t like me, and I don’t expect you to. I never expected that from you, Aura. But I need you to know that this has nothing to do with you.”

My throat tightened, heat rising up to melt my brain. “You can dismiss me all you like—”

“Not you ,” Wren snarled, though his voice was mild. He gave me a beseeching look, free of its usual condescending edge.

I squinted at him, exhaustion beginning to creep over me. It was such a common feeling around him. “What are you trying to tell me, Wren? That if I was born High Fae, and I was not the fated mate of your High King, then you might actually like me?”

The corners of his mouth turned down, and he shrugged. Something like relief loosened his shoulders. “Perhaps.”

If he was trying to make me sick with these hot and cold flushes, I wouldn’t let it work. One day he was behaving like an ass, belittling me and wishing I was dead, and the next he was offering me twisted compliments and wishing things were different.

I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster as I began to walk down the hallway in the direction of the staircase. “Like I said, I don’t care.”

His eyes shuttered, barely concealing another eye roll. “Good. I suppose this means you can escort yourself to dinner then?”

“ Please .” I didn’t turn back to him as I replied or even glance over my shoulder to watch him evanesce.

I didn’t need to.

One moment, I felt him standing there behind me. The next, the feeling vanished. Because he had.

The days we spent travelling into Faerie together seemed to have attuned me to Wren every bit as much as it had done for him, and I didn’t like it. I couldn’t shake it off, though. Even as I walked through the House alone to meet Lucais downstairs, I couldn’t shake the imprint Wren’s fingers had left on my forehead.

I stomped, more than stepped, down the stairs and cursed him repeatedly as I approached the dining room doors.

My furious fixation on Wren was short-lived. As soon as I stepped up to the doorway, two members of the High King’s Guard appeared out of thin air on either side. I vaguely recalled the slight ripple of their silhouettes as being the effects of a glamour and wondered why the High King had thought it necessary to hide two sentries at the entrance to the room for this occasion.

My stomach flipped as I considered the possibility that they had been there all along—even on days when he had made everyone else leave the room—but I refused to let it show on my face as I regarded them both with the best impersonation of an impatient, entitled glare as I could manage.

They inclined their heads to me respectfully and moved in perfect synchrony to push the double doors open.

Concealing my surprise that the look I acquired worked, I gave them each a brisk nod as I lifted my chin and stepped into the dining room.

Except it wasn’t the dining room anymore. Not really.

My confident steps faltered as I cleared the threshold and felt the faint whoosh of air hit the nape of my neck when the doors closed behind me.

That wasn’t the dining room. It wasn’t even the pleasure room from downstairs. It was like I had stepped inside a faerie nightclub, the two rooms combined to make one entirely new world of High Fae society.

Plum-coloured velvet curtains were lowered across the wide windows lining one wall. The banquet table that normally occupied the centre of the room had been moved against it, filled with platters and bowls and towers of food much like it had been the first night I dined at the House.

Cushioned armchairs and chaise lounges had been set up, filling the empty spaces in a similar design to that of the strong-smelling room I’d hurried through downstairs. As I blinked ahead, trying to force my eyes to adjust to the phenomenon before me, I noticed that the side tables holding pipes and bejewelled boxes had been relocated to the dining room, too.

With blue faelight orbs hovering throughout the room, some against the ceiling and others down at eye level or lower, I felt as if I was walking through the stars as I took my first step.

Everything was painted in a dim, ultraviolet glow and had a delayed effect—like time had been told to slow down, and my eyes witnessed movement before it actually occurred.

I searched the room for Lucais, but I hadn’t seen a crowd of faeries like that since I’d rode through Sthiara on Elera with Wren. Faeries of all different shapes and sizes and colours flooded the room; some with wings tucked in between their shoulder blades or tails curled around one of their ankles, others with horns that rose high above their heads and bumped into faelight orbs as they moved.

Every last one of them was dressed elegantly, but scantily. I looked down at myself and felt the urge to cover up, keenly aware of my lack of underwear beneath my long-sleeved clothing, as bare shoulders and backs and midriffs and legs breezed past me with an eclectic buzz.

There was no glamour.

This is Faerie. This is the High King’s inner circle, and his guests from the Court of Wind.

I couldn’t tell them apart. Light magic was easy to spot in Wren’s eyes, and I could feel it pouring off Lucais by the warmth that encircled him like a second skin, but how did wind magic present itself?

A flash of dark hair caught my attention on the other side of the room, and I took a careful step towards the crowd of faeries standing in the open space in the centre, swaying and rocking their hips as a low, sensual beat began to vibrate beneath my feet.

I cursed under my breath.

Is this how their dinners were always hosted? Is this why Lucais asked his inner circle to steer clear of me while I adjusted?

No amount of time would have prepared me for this. Certainly not when both the High King and his Hand—and his High Lady, for that matter—neglected to mention that the High Fae paid more attention to each other than they did to their food during meal times.

I needed to find Lucais.

I was sure that I had seen a glimpse of his head on the other side of the room, but there was a sea of bodies between us and the thought of getting any closer to them as the music began to follow the rhythm of their movements made me uneasy.

It was tame. The way that they touched each other… It was tame, but I wasn’t na?ve enough to think that it would stay that way. If I was going to cross the room and curl up into a ball beside Lucais, I had to do it quickly.

Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I began to wade into the crowd.

A few faces glanced towards me, eyes half-lidded and mouths turned up at the corners, and their dazed expressions quickly flattened. Nostrils flared softly and murmurs began to ripple across the room, prompting other faces to turn in my direction.

I was glad that my blush was concealed beneath the soft cosmic lighting because the burn spread down to my collarbone as a few heads bobbed around me. Nodding—or bowing—as they scented the mating bond to their High King that branded me. It must have been extremely potent, given what we’d done that afternoon.

Some groups took a step back to clear a path for me, but others remained glued to the floor where they stood, watching me with rounded eyes.

High Fae were easy to spot due to their resemblance to humans, but the other races of faeries present in the room were harder for me to discern. There were no monsters like the caenim or the Banshees, but I had to be mindful of webbed feet and antlers as I made my way through the assembly.

Every last one of them was beautiful. Strange, but attractive in the sort of way that unrealistic things always were. I tried not to ogle at them, but I met as many stares as I could and offered them a shy, appreciative smile.

My appreciation was as much to do with their unique beauty as it was to do with the fact that none of them tried to eat me when I walked past them.

As the crowd thinned, I spotted a dais against the far wall. The long couch from the reading nook—which had either been physically removed from the room or glamoured—was placed atop it, and both the High King and his Hand were sitting there.

I stumbled over my own feet at the sight of them.

There was no throne, and Lucais didn’t wear a crown. The two of them lounged back in their seats like equals, like brothers who ruled the land together and bowed to no one. Not even each other.

And certainly not to the girl on her knees between them, her head tilted towards Wren.

I swore again—out loud—as the sea of dancers closed in behind me.

The black hair I’d glimpsed did not belong to Lucais, though he was sitting upon the slightly elevated dais beside her. His entire body was angled away from the girl, his head inclined towards the short faerie standing beside him with thin feathered wings and a crown of horns. He hadn’t noticed me entering the room or sliding through the spread of his guests, but Wren had.

Wren—who had unbuttoned his white shirt entirely and reclined in his seat with his elbows resting on the back of the couch. His blond hair was ruffled, tinted with lilac, and his loose-fitting pants hung low around his hips. His physique was on display for the entire room to admire, and the antsy behaviour of the guests swarming the dance floor suddenly made perfect sense.

Skin glimmering beneath the lights like he had painted it with oil, his abdominal muscles rippled as a thin, stark white hand stretched up his core from between his legs. He threw his head back slightly, lips parting, as the dark-haired girl on her knees switched her full attention to him.

I didn’t look at Lucais to see if he had noticed me yet, to learn if he had banished her at the sight of me or if he would have asked her to step back either way. I didn’t care as the deathly white hand and its slender, splayed fingers climbed up Wren’s perfectly chiselled chest, and his hips rocked gently, urging her to squeeze in between his open legs.

Her face was hidden, midnight tresses falling almost to the floor as his arms slid down from the back of the couch, and he brushed her hair over her shoulders with more affection than I’d ever seen him implement. He gathered her hair in his hands, threading his fingers through it, and I wanted to be sick.

I wanted to turn around and run away, but I was paralysed by the scene unfolding before me, and he could tell.

Wren met my gaze, disgust and greed warring in my eyes, and his hands fisted in the girl’s hair as he urged her to climb onto his lap. The pit in my stomach clenched, a brutal and shattering warmth spreading down between my legs until my thighs began to tremble as she obeyed.

When she was straddling him, his hands began to roam across her body. Our stare was locked the entire time and thick, red-hot bile shot up the back of my throat.

Lucais.

I forced the image of the High King into my mind, forced my eyes to tear away from Wren’s and seek out my mate.

He was still oblivious to my presence, deeply engaged in conversation with the winged faerie at his side.

The beast in my lower belly roared, twisting and flinching as hazy thoughts began to intrude upon my mind.

I was less than five feet away from him, and he hadn’t noticed me. Hadn’t scented me. Hadn’t felt me the way I could feel him.

High Mother spare me, I even felt Wren’s presence. But the High King was ignorant to my own—his mate?

Wren was still watching me as the girl climbed him like he was a tree.

A tree she put her mouth on and sucked .

I looked down, studying the way my feet were positioned on the ground. Putting all of my energy and focus on the left one, I willed it to move. I had to leave, had to get out of there.

He moaned.

The sound intertwined itself with every cell in my being, shaking me to my very core.

My head shot up, eyes racing to find his face again.

The girl had buried her head against Wren’s neck, nibbling on the erogenous zone beneath his ear where his jugular vein protruded. His head was tilted back, eyes hooded and mouth open as another soul-destroying moan of pleasure rumbled out of him and punched me in the stomach.

Heat flooded me. In my core, down through my chest, across my face. Even my bones felt hot.

The sound was everything. The dawn of time, the end of the world, and every moment in between.

It was rough and deep and guttural. I could have sworn my ears pricked the way the High Fae’s did, aching to hear him again.

His hands fell limply to his sides, palms facing the roof, and though his eyes became unclear and unsteady as the molten gold flashed like fireworks, he tried his best to hold my stare as the girl began to grind against his lap, moving up and down on a part of his body I couldn’t see, her mouth still fixed around his neck as she sucked, and—

Blood.

There was blood on his chest.