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

45. His Majesty

Chapter forty-five

His Majesty

B atre moved in my peripheral vision and uttered something like an apology on Wren’s behalf as his eyes finally closed again.

She might have told me that it wasn’t my fault and reminded me that he wasn’t himself, but I couldn’t be sure.

I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.

I’m so in love with you.

In love with you.

“Aura, I need you to go downstairs and find a healer.” Batre’s voice came from above the surface of the water in which my head had been submerged. A distant echo growing louder and clearer with each repeat of her words. “Aura, he needs a healer to close the wound. We don’t have much time.”

“Downstairs,” I whispered, my gaze locked on Wren’s face.

I’m so in love with you.

“Yes. Now.”

I was not in control of my body as I fled from my bedroom, almost falling down the staircase in search of help.

A healer.

I needed to find a healer to close the wound. I should have asked about the antidote, about what he’d need to counteract the poison coursing through his blood—

I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.

The hallways were empty, so I made my way to the dining hall, nearly tripping over my feet as I raced around corners and dodged the slightly raised edges of carpet rugs.

The dining room doors were open, but there was no one inside.

Swearing filthily, I turned on my heels and ran back to the stairs. Halfway down, I heard a low murmur of voices.

I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

I’m so in love with you.

Faeries were scattered on the ground floor, talking in small groups along the edges of the hallway and between the open doors.

“I need a healer!” I shouted.

All of them turned to look at me.

“Please, I need a healer. Wren is injured. Batre is with him upstairs—”

“Wren isn’t back yet,” a short High Fae woman with dirty blonde hair called out.

Panic shot up my throat like hot coals. “Yes, he is!” I screamed. “He’s upstairs with Batre, in my bedroom—”

“In your bedroom?” another faerie scoffed. He was wearing Enyd’s grey uniform, altered to accommodate a long furry tail. “Nobody tell Lucais that.”

A gurgle of laughter rippled across the group.

“He’s been stung by a locust.” A desperate sob broke free from my chest. “Please.”

The laughter stopped. Somebody swore under their breath.

“He must have gone to join Lucais’s group in the forest,” another whispered.

And then, finally, one of them stepped forward and said, “I can help.”

If I had access to my magic, I might have sent a blast of power out to knock the rest of them onto their asses. But I didn’t have time to wrestle my magic free from the chains I had locked around it, so I extended my hand towards the woman and nodded my head.

I didn’t even have time to question if the High Fae who had volunteered was really qualified to help, considering she looked no older than ten years of age. The girl took my hand, and we vanished, sucked up into a gust of calming wind, and evanesced into my bedroom doorway.

“Move,” she commanded, and Batre obeyed.

I remained in the doorway, gripping its worn wooden edges for dear life as Batre retreated to the corner of the room and the girl began to work.

She healed Wren the same way that he had healed my mother, by holding her hands above his wound and letting tendrils of light magic flow between them. I didn’t need to move any closer to know that she was stitching his skin back together with nothing more than a concentrated thought.

Batre had specifically told me to ask for a healer, and part of me wondered if it was a particular skill set unique to certain faeries—and if so, how Wren had managed to lay claim to such a wide variety of power.

He was unconscious, his head resting on my pillow and his arms lying limp at his sides, and I stared at the half of his face visible to me as the healer put her magic to work.

I almost screamed when flames burst out across his clothes, but Batre shot me a warning look, so I dug my teeth into my bottom lip and pressed my cheek into the grooves in the doorframe.

The fire wasn’t hurting him; it was removing obstacles, like the bloody washcloths and his torn shirt. It blazed without smoke, controlled and calm, and didn’t singe the linen on my bed as it wrapped itself around his limbs and magically cleared away the part of his shirt trapped against the coverlet beneath his back.

Wren’s features softened as the healer worked, the one sign that his pain was lessening.

Mine only increased.

It is her fault.

I’m so in love with you, it’s made me sick.

“The antidote, please,” the healer said, one hand hovering above his stomach as she extended the other behind her.

Batre looked at me, her mouth stretched into a tight and apprehensive grimace. “It’s your blood, Aura.”

But I was already moving towards the bed, craning my head around the healer’s body, following the line of ink that had appeared on Wren’s skin as the last of his sleeve burned away and the fire went out.

The fire went out.

Like the light in my eyes as they traced the swirls of tattoos up and down his arms.

The scar from the golden manacle, twin to my own, may have escaped my notice previously. I had a distinct memory of studying his arms, though. I’d traced the corded muscle with my eyes along clear, unmarked skin.

It wasn’t clear anymore.

And I no longer cared that the scar from the manacle was, in fact, still on his wrist, like a matching friendship bracelet carved in flesh.

Or that, on the silver chain around his neck, the round Belgrave insignia that rested atop the middle of his chest was identical to the one on mine.

I no longer cared about anything as I saw Wren’s naked arms for the very first time.

He had two sleeves of tattoos, and if I had never seen them before, there was a chance that I might have been convinced it was part of the healing ritual, but I had seen them before.

In my dreams every single night for three long months.

When the healer explained why my blood was needed to counteract the poison in his system, it was too late.

It had already clicked.

“I can make a tonic if you have a blood phobia,” she grumbled, “but his mate’s lifeblood is the quickest and easiest way to cure him.”

And as every other thought, feeling, and drop of knowledge abandoned me, I considered refusing.

I considered refusing to save the life of the man who had haunted my dreams through the winter, and who had lied to me for weeks and tormented me with his touches, smiles, and double-edged words, and who was ultimately a stranger.

I didn’t even know his name.

“She hasn’t accepted the bond yet.” Morgoya’s voice came from behind me.

I stiffened but didn’t turn towards her. If we were to continue our friendship at some point in the future, the High Lady could not see the hateful emotions crippling my features as I stared down at the man on my bed.

“No matter,” the healer declared with a shrug. “It will work either way, though His Majesty’s recovery may take a few extra days.”

His Majesty.

His Majesty.

Morgoya’s voice softened. “Aura—”

“You shut the fuck up.”

There was a stifled gasp from Batre, but I shut the rest of the room out as I extended my hand towards the girl who had healed His Majesty.

“He has to drink it?” I asked, my voice suddenly unfamiliar to my own ears.

“Yes,” she answered carefully. She placed a small blade in my open palm. “Make sure he takes an entire mouthful.”

Oh, he’ll get a full fucking mouthful.

Taking the blade from the healer, I passed it into my other hand and then sliced it across my right palm.

Cupping my hand to let the blood pool there, I dropped the blade to the ground and lowered myself to sit on the edge of my bed. Then I propped his head up and brought my bleeding hand to his mouth.

His lips parted, though his eyes remained closed.

His breathing pattern became uneven as he drank from me.

I pressed my lips against his forehead, aware of the healer quietly retreating. To her and Batre—to anyone outside of the High King’s corrupted, traitorous inner circle—I was no more than his mate, murmuring loving reassurances as I healed him with my blood.

But only he could hear me.

“Take as much as you need,” I whispered, brushing my lips across his skin as I moved my mouth to his ear. “Because when you wake up, I am going to fucking kill you.”