28. Extraordinarily Long and Unorthodox Foreplay
twenty-eight
Extraordinarily Long and Unorthodox Foreplay
“ I thought you told me that we aren’t here to catch a caenim,” I said through my teeth. “If you make a scene in the middle of the Ruins, what else do you think is going to happen?”
The High King winked at me. “That’s because we are not catching a caenim, little beast. You are going to lure the caenim out by being here with me, but Wrenlock and I will do the catching.
We can’t have a repeat of that day in the clearing where…
” He trailed off, dislodging a lump in his throat with a cough. “Well.”
“Well?” I prompted, crossing my arms over my chest obstinately. I hoped the fire in my throat was reflected in my eyes as they pinned him to the spot with an unyielding glower.
Lucais’s warm, honey-coloured gaze softened as he coated me with it from head to toe. Where you not only had to think twice about saving my life, but you hesitated before saving your own, too.
A hot, loud heartbeat hit me in the throat, but I rolled my eyes at him and scoffed. “You’re insufferable,” I accused.
“Yet you keep suffering,” he returned with a sigh, but another devilish grin lit up his face in spite of it.
Amusement glittered in Lucais’s eyes when he gave a quick shake of his head and returned his attention to our companions. Taking a measured breath, he brushed a hand down the front of his shirt and composed his expression.
“I don’t know whether they’ll come from the north or the south, but I am certain that a horde of the Malum’s delightful little friends will come out to greet us if we muck around with the lapsus for too long.
Ideally, we need to capture them all so we can use them later on.
Kill them if absolutely necessary, but the fewer trips we need to take out for this, the better. ”
“I’ve never faced one of these creatures head-on,” Batre mumbled from where she stood at Morgoya’s side, their arms around each other to ward off the chill in the air. “Are you sure this is the only option?”
The High King almost looked remorseful. “Yes. We’ve already been out here about a hundred times over the last few months, but I can never break through the exterior wall of shadows to catch even a glimpse of the creature inside the lapsus.
We’re running out of time,” he went on, throwing me a sidelong glance.
“And unless the Malum’s visit was only intended to scare everyone, we can’t shrink Faerie.
Gregor can let them in and out, but they’ll get trapped on the wrong side of the border if I realign the external wards while they’re knocking on Caeludor’s front door like salespeople. ”
I cringed away from the thought, and Batre’s round, pink-tinged cheeks rapidly drained of colour.
“We nab the caenim in case Raella leaves,” the High King went on.
He gave a cursory glance to Morgoya. “I need you both to stay with Aura. The last time she was around these creatures, she was too busy drooling all over the gloriousness of my violence while I slaughtered them all to notice the one that nearly ripped her spinal cord out from behind her.”
A northerly breeze brought a precipitous chill over us, and the cold instantly burrowed down into my flesh, burying itself beneath the layers of my coat.
“So you keep saying,” I grumbled. Throwing my hands up in the air to conceal a shiver, I groaned. “What am I even doing out here this time, then?”
Lucais regarded me quizzically, the faintest of smiles playing across his full, pink lips. “You’re the cheese,” he said at last.
Morgoya finally turned away with an exasperated sound and joined Wrenlock by the unicorns.
“The cheese?” I repeated, glaring at him.
“Like the cheese you lay out for rodents and the beasts inside dark and wonky little places.” He pursed his lips and hastened to hold up a finger in the air between us. “Before you get snippy with me again, I’ll have you know that I think very fondly of cheese.”
Dumbfounded, I stared at Batre, but the poor woman was unable to offer me anything but a sympathetic half-smile. I slid my carefully expressionless gaze back to Lucais, who smiled sweetly at me with all of his teeth.
“It is not surprising at all that you didn’t have a girlfriend when I met you,” I groused, dropping my eyes to my feet and rubbing my left brow bone to stave off the brewing headache.
“Oh, Auralie.” The High King tutted at me like a scolding adult as we began to walk back to the copse of trees. “If I did have a girlfriend when we met, I would have left her immediately.”
Even though I knew that he was absolutely serious, I could not refrain from biting.
“They would have sent me a thank you note,” I sniped, coming to an abrupt stop.
The storm rumbled in the clouds above, and Batre wisely continued on without us.
A crease had formed between my eyebrows, and I couldn’t smooth it out before seeking clarity.
We’d talked about shrinking Faerie, catching caenim, and visiting the lapsus—but only very briefly, and never with self-sacrifice as a key point of our strategy.
“You seriously brought me all the way out here as bait? For the caenim and the lapsus?”
Lucais made a conflicted sound in his throat, twisting his mouth as he considered how best to respond.
“It is your scent they’re trained on,” he bargained at last. “And the lapsus is a gamble. Absolutely nothing might happen, or something very interesting might happen. It might help if you think of it from a productivity perspective. Two beasts, one soulmate?”
My mouth flattened into a hard line.
“Help me out here, bookworm. I’m desperate.”
I arched a brow at him. “And what happens if I die?”
“I’ll let you kiss me one more time before we get started just in case you do.”
It was absurd and childish, but I couldn’t get the retort out of my mouth.
The sound of a loud slap yanked our attention over to our companions, standing a few feet away from us. Batre’s eyes were widening by the second as she stared down at Morgoya’s hand, laid flat against her stomach as if she’d just hit her with the back of it.
“I fucking knew it!” the High Lady hissed.
Batre bit down hard on a smile.
Their feelings were clear—from the moment Batre had approached me at the House to enquire about our bond all the way through to when Morgoya had snubbed Wrenlock not once, but twice, in the palace.
Even Lucais communicated his feelings well enough for me to feel confident in my understanding of them.
At first, he’d accepted the way I felt about his best friend. Part of me was inclined to hold on to that even through recent times, when the High King’s opinion seemed to sway back to the other end of the scale. I didn’t know that he felt jealous so much as excluded. But Wrenlock…
His chestnut eyes wandered across the sky—a little disbelievingly, to be honest—merely in an effort to avoid mine.
A pang of guilt slid down the back of my throat. I really needed to talk to him later.
After I dealt with the antics of the High King as he spiralled into a fit of madness.
“You,” I accused, swinging my gaze back to Lucais. Guilt for a lot of different things was piled up so high against my spine that I felt like I might start to choke if I didn’t shift some of the blame onto someone else, and he was the best candidate.
His full lips twitched into a feline pout that had my heartbeat tripping over itself. “Me.”
“You mean to tell me that you brought me all the way out here to play the part of smelly rat cheese so you can play catch and release with a bunch of flesh-eating monsters that are going to ravage the towns across the outskirts of your own kingdom?” I pointed towards the horizon for emphasis, and he nodded with mock solemnity.
“You do this simply to force people into enough of a panic that they’ll flee into the citadel.
All so you can then move on to playing whack-a-mole with the wards and lapsuses around Faerie without anyone finding out that you might have accidentally-on-purpose sentenced an entire Court of faeries to a fate worse than death? ”
Lucais’s eyes twinkled as he mulled over my words, nodding vaguely. “Yes,” he agreed with an exceptionally pleasant smile.
My hands balled into fists. “This is the stupidest and most selfish plan I have ever heard anyone concoct in my entire life,” I declared, shaking my head with incredulity.
Why I had thought he might attempt to vindicate himself from the very specific, very awful accusation was beyond me.
“You are horrible for doing this—for expecting me to do this!” I crossed my arms, eyes crinkling at the corners. “You should feel terrible right now.”
The High King rolled his eyes skyward and took a firm step towards me, the gold in his irises solidifying as they narrowed on me.
“What exactly is it about me that gave you the impression that I’m a golden retriever boyfriend?
” he enquired impatiently. “Please do let me know so I can take the necessary steps to correct the dreadful misapprehension you’ve apparently been under this whole time. ”
“You keep saving my life,” I seethed, “and then complaining about it. Forgive me for being a little bit surprised that you’re now willingly throwing me out into the middle of the Ruins to lure caenim and other miscellaneous beasts for yet another one of your harebrained schemes.”
He held my glare unflinchingly. “I will never ask you to do something that you’re not perfectly capable of doing.”
“Oh, yeah, like fall in love with you?” I made to turn away, but he snatched my chin with one hand and used it to pull my face back to his.
Inches away, Lucais’s breath settled over me like nitrous oxide. I was slightly taken aback to discover that, despite my mockery, his expression was the portrait of calm.
He spoke very carefully and very slowly. “I double…dog…dare you.”