2. Two - The Forest Guardian
Two - The Forest Guardian
Edric
The faun woman who runs the teahouse in Petalfall smiles sweetly before she ducks her head, hiding behind her purple hair.
I’ve never seen horns quite like hers before, but I know not to ask.
She ties a bag closed and sets it on her scale while I silently repeat her name over and over again in my mind.
Miss Whipple gives me another of her pleasant, but detached smiles. “I’ll have the rest of the order packaged up and sent to the estate for you.”
Her sister, the town baker, is more talkative, but they are equally friendly. Misses... I’ve forgotten her name. Damn.
“Thank you, that is very kind.” I could, and probably should, simply give her a standing order and send one of my staff around to pay her, but I want to be a part of this village.
I need to.
And I don’t feel like I am yet.
I can pick out any of a thousand species of plants, but I only remember a handful of names of the people in the shop at this moment.
Viggo would tell me I’m being too hard on myself.
But he has always been quick to dismiss my flaws.
As I scan the tables, my gaze catches on a face I’ve never seen before.
A visitor, perhaps? Or a woman traveling through Petalfall on her way somewhere else?
The woman in the corner is beautiful in the same way an early autumn day is beautiful. She looks warm and bright and soft all at once, but there’s a strain in her smile that makes me uneasy.
I have suffered through that forced patience before. What, I wonder, could the woman with her be saying?
The other woman sips her tea and glances out the window, and the one facing me lets her mask slip. It’s only for a moment, but it’s clear she finds the conversation exhausting. The patience returns with the other woman’s attention.
She is trying so hard not to be rude.
“The woman in the corner,” I ask, softly, “who is she?”
Leaning out over the counter, Miss Whipple looks at the woman in question and when she settles back onto her heels, she looks up at me with a smile that is even brighter than the one before. Genuine .
She doesn’t know how she feels about me, but she likes this woman.
“That’s Ana. She owns the potion shop next door and is an absolute treasure.” Miss Whipple hands me my bag of tea. “Will there be anything else?”
“Ana,” I say, softly, so I don’t draw the woman in question’s attention. “I thought Eudora owned the potion shop.”
The tidy little building next door had “Eudora’s Elixirs” painted on the sign.
Miss Whipple hums in agreement and nods. “Eudora was her grandmother. She’s a third generation potion maker.”
There’s pride laced through that statement. Almost as though Ana’s accomplishments are somehow her own. Curious .
Ana is a name I have heard others speak as well. The Anastacia Eventide I’ve heard of is a woman they all expected to leave, a woman they’re all overjoyed decided to stay.
Her name has fluttered around me as I’ve tried to learn the names and faces of the villagers, but in the two months since I took custody of the Queen’s Forest, this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on her.
I have been deprived .
Copper curls tumble from her pinned hair to bobble around her freckled cheeks. Her caramel eyes look straight through me as her gaze ghosts past, unseeing.
The other woman—the one Misses Whipple chose not to name—holds her attention, even as she politely acknowledges a friend.
I will have to deprive myself for a little while longer. Tea in hand, there is no reason for me to linger.
Glancing at her once more, I thank Miss Whipple and go.
Anastacia Eventide .
Even though I know I won’t forget it, I say her name in my head a dozen times as I walk through the square, greeting those I know, nodding to those I’ve yet to meet, formally.
No one stops me until I pass the northeastern corner of the temple. The road that leads east from the village disappears into the Queen’s Forest, and after a very early fork, there is only one place it goes.
The Guardian’s manor—now my home—is set apart from the village.
I’ve often thought it was done to keep the people of Petalfall from feeling as though they are constantly under watch. I am a servant of the Queen, first and foremost, after all. I have been given this guardianship at her leisure.
But I wish it did not separate me from them so well.
The short distance has produced generations of suspicions I now have to fight.
A small, familiar figure sits on the hitching post in front of the haberdasher’s home—The last of the buildings I would pass before I am out of the village proper.
“Lord Ceylon,” she says my name with a tone that is both perfectly respectable and somehow perfectly mocking at the same time.
“Miss Friar.” I tip my head to her, wishing I could stand to wear hats and thereby abide by the social rules they consider normal, even here.
Leaf is a buxom gnome with huge green eyes and a smile that has lured many a man back to the inn where she runs her very lucrative brothel.
The woman is coy and calculating, and the only person I’ve met here that I might actually be afraid of. She has always gone out of her way to make herself unappealing to me. And even though I don’t mind, I don’t know why .
“Who is it going to be this week?” she asks, swinging her legs like a child.
I would love to know why she doesn’t like me. “I beg your pardon?”
“Some of us have noticed,” she says, scanning the square. “Well, at least I’ve noticed that you are a flavor of the week sort of man... Not that I would ever judge anyone for that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” As I say it, I realize that I do.
She snorts. “You pluck the pretty flowers from our garden and taste their nectar before tossing them back to us.”
If not for the fact that I’ve lived with a man who styles himself a poet for two decades, I might have misunderstood her.
“I can assure you that what you’ve assumed is not what I am doing.”
“Assumed?” Her enormous green eyes somehow get wider. “I have heard it from the proverbial horses’ mouths.”
“Then your horses tell lies.”
Have I invited dinner guests to the manor each week? Yes.
Have I slept with any of them? No.
She chuckles and hops down off the hitching post. “Is it the women who’ve returned from the manor walking on bowed legs who have lied? Or is it the man I know nothing of? I don’t normally wager, but I feel as though I could safely make that bet.”
As long as the rumors are that they’ve slept with me and not the other thing, I suppose I should be relieved.
“Believe what you wish.”
“Oh, I will. And as long as they’re happy about these encounters, I won’t kill you in your sleep.” She blows me a kiss and saunters away.
She would get a startling surprise if she came to my bed to try.
I watch her go, no longer as light as I felt moments ago.
I should have assumed that someone would claim they had found their way into my bed.
More the fool me.
Instead of taking the long way home, I cut down an overgrown path through the forest.
The door opens for me as I climb the steps. Thankfully, it keeps its opinions to itself.
Blicks appears at my side immediately. Making me question—again—what magics my butler might be hiding from me. It would be an unsettling feeling if it wasn’t so common.
“Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” I say, letting him take my coat.
“Is that Master Viggo’s tea?”
“It is.” I hand it to him and Blicks leaves me without asking if I want or need anything else. He’s not particularly pleased with me right now, and I can’t blame him. So, I am not surprised when he disappears around the corner, though I always expect him to vanish into thin air.
The ground floor is dark and when I climb the stairs, Viggo’s bedroom is lit by a mere half-dozen candles, shrouding my lover’s gray skin in even darker shadows.
His eyes shine in the darkness. Bright red points follow me as I enter and shut the door.
“I have some bad news,” I say into the dark. “I have apparently slept with half of the eligible women in town.”
Chuckling, Viggo emerges from the shadows, slipping his lace robe over his shoulders. “How strange that I didn’t notice.”
He twists his fingers in the pearls around my neck and draws me to him like they are a leash. “Did you happen to find the woman you might want to sleep with next?”
“Perhaps.”
One brow quirked, he whispers, “Tell me.”
“Her name is Ana.”
“A small name for a small woman?” he guesses with a laugh that is light as he pulls me closer, inch by inch.
“Anastacia Eventide,” I say her name against his lips. “I think she’s fairly average for a human. But I have only seen her seated.”
“And what did you see while she was seated?” The words are hungry.
“Her hair reminds me of the leaves in late autumn.”
“Careful,” he kisses my throat, “you’re starting to sound like me.”
“The freckles that dot her nose remind me of the constellations you love so dearly.”
“A sun dweller, how gauche.” But he doesn’t mean it. “Do you think she’ll pass the interview?”
“I hope so.”
“Then I do too.” He kisses me with a sigh. “ Goddess, I hope so. You need a woman’s touch.”
“So do you.”
“Right as always.” His fingers work to open my buttons. “And I would never say ‘no’ to new blood.”
As if to prove his point, he pulls my shirt open and sinks his fangs into my chest.
Hand gripped in his hair, I pull him back off of me and wipe the blood from his lip with my thumb.
“You forgot to ask nicely.”
His eyes flash.
“Can I please bite, Penny? You know how much I love the taste of you.” He snaps his teeth together.
“Yes.” I keep my grip tight in his hair and push him down to his knees. “But you have to suck as well.”
Viggo chuckles as his fingers go to my waistband. “Even better.”