Chapter 4
Chapter four
You Smell Different When You're Nervous
Sorren
I wake with her in my arms. Beautiful Nora. I have about half a second to appreciate how her brown hair spills across the pillow, how a shaft of sunlight caresses her bare shoulder, how her head fits perfectly on my chest, before she also wakes.
I slam my eyes closed and pretend to sleep.
It’s hard not to be a little hurt when she goes stiff against me. She gives a sharp gasp that I can only interpret as dismay, then shimmies carefully out of my embrace and across the bed, practically log rolling herself off the edge and onto the floor.
Floorboards creak as she hurries out of the room.
I wait, counting my breaths until I run out of patience. Then I rise and go find her.
She’s in the kitchen. Barefoot. Hair tangled from sleep. Wearing one of those loose human garments that exposes the line of her shoulder.
Completely unaware that my entire world just rearranged itself around her.
It takes me a full minute to compose myself before stepping into the room.
When I do, she’s pouring herself a cup of something dark that steams. “Want some?” she asks, deliberately not looking me in the eye.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “What is it?”
“The best thing on earth.” She blows on it, takes a sip, lets out a soft, satisfied sigh. “Coffee.”
“Very well.”
Her eyes widen when I take the cup out of her hand and drink.
Something bitter detonates across my tongue. I choke, stagger to the sink, and spit it out with considerably less dignity than I would prefer.
“What is this vile concoction?” I demand, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“That,” she says calmly, “is how most adults start their day.”
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
“Regularly?”
“Every morning.”
I stare down into the cup like it has personally wronged me. “This explains a great deal.” I hand it back to her with a grimace.
Nora takes it and wraps both hands around the mug. I try not to watch the way she leans in, the steam ghosting over her full lips as she blows across the surface of the drink. Try not to notice the way she licks her lips, right before she drinks.
Desire rolls through me anyway, low and insistent, a heaviness that gathers in my stomach.
For a reckless instant, I imagine crossing the room, pulling her back into my arms, and tasting the sweetness of her mouth the way I tasted her blood last night.
I look away before the thought can grow too big for me to contain.
The last thing I want is to make her uncomfortable.
To scare her away.
Like the fox does to the rabbit.
She takes another sip, then sets the mug on the counter and turns back to me, hands spread. “What now?”
“Did you check with your mother? Is she well?” I ask.
“Yes.” She smiles faintly. “She and Aunt Renee stayed up until two a.m. playing poker and watching movies.” She shakes her head fondly. “Sometimes when those two get together, they revert back to their college years, I swear. How about you? Are you recovered?”
“I am healed,” I answer.
The words feel insufficient, especially given how she helped me. Saved me. Trusted me enough to let me draw on the bond between us. If it hadn’t been for her, my uncle would be king now. The Crown of Willow perched on his head.
Heat creeps up the back of my neck. I am supposed to be strong. Unshakable. A ruler. I have not shown that to her yet. Instead, my mate has seen me broken. Shaking. Begging. My fingers twitch, wanting to reach for something, to prove I am not as weak as she saw me last night.
I wish I had a weapon to protect her. Fight for her.
I wish I could touch her. Show the tenderness I would give only to her.
Instead, I force myself still. A king does not act from impulse. A king acts with his mind before his hands.
I swallow hard, then change the subject. “Your plan, the one you mentioned last night, is a good one,” I acknowledge. “If we leave, the hunters will follow and hopefully not notice the presence of your kin.”
“You mentioned an armory?” She tilts her head. “Something magical?”
“Many years ago, there was magic here, in your land. Some of it remains, locked away. Ancient relics, spells, and potions. My father showed me when I was younger.”
Nora’s forehead wrinkles. “Your father? You’ve been here before? In my world?”
“Part of my training to become king was to travel to all the worlds. My father took me. Explained each one. Shared their secrets so I might use the knowledge when I sat on the throne.”
“All the worlds?” Nora pauses as if her brain is catching up to that phrase. “How many are there?”
I eye her cautiously. “More than you would find comforting.”
She exhales. “Okay. Sure. Fine. Multiple worlds. No biggie.” She gestures toward the hallway. “What’s in this armory that’s worth running from homicidal rabbit assassins for?”
“A blade,” I say. “One forged to cut through what my uncle has become. The Thornreaper.”
“And that helps you.”
“Yes.” My mind is in strategy mode now, like I was taught. A million scenarios fan out before me, infinite choices, possibilities. I pick through each one carefully, follow their threads until I find the one that ends where I want it. Where Nora is safe.
“We need something else from there as well. The Amulet of Springtide.”
I meet her gaze, the blue of her eyes startling in the morning light. The color of a robin’s egg.
My heart is heavy when I tell her, “That will be for you.”
“What does it do?” Her eyes narrow. “This fancy necklace?”
“It will shield you from the magic my uncle commands. From the hunters, the soldiers, he sends.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, leaning a hip against the counter. “How?”
I hesitate only a fraction of a second. “It washes everything clean. It will ensure that when this is over,” I say carefully, “nothing of my world remains attached to you.”
The words taste like ash in my mouth. Like dust.
Her eyes run over me, searching like she senses the things I hide. “Okay, but where exactly is this magical murder shopping center?”
“Hidden,” I tell her. “Beneath a place where your people celebrate the turning of the season. Where life returns after winter.”
“That could be literally anywhere.”
“It is marked by a great egg of gold,” I add.
Nora goes very still.
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“The Spring Jubilee starts this weekend. At the Botanical Garden,” she says slowly. “They just installed the Golden Egg yesterday for the hunt.” She gets a phone out of her pocket, not her broken one, and quickly scrolls through it.
“Here.” Nora holds the phone out so I can see the flyer.
A riot of pastel greets me. Painted eggs in every conceivable shade of pink and yellow and green tumble across the screen beneath looping script that reads:
THE 100th ANNUAL SPRING JUBILEE
Bring the entire family to celebrate our Centennial Celebration!
Featuring:
?? Tulip Walks
?? Bunny Photo Booth
?? Face Painting
?? The Great Golden Egg Hunt
I study the image of the egg at the center of the advertisement. It’s taller than I remember.
The seams more pronounced.
To most people, they would look like subtle cracks, simple decoration, but I know better.
When I first saw it, there were no more than two thin lines, delicate as hairline fractures in granite.
Now they’ve spread. A lacy branchwork pattern crawls across the surface, splitting and resplitting, as if something beneath the gilded shell has been testing its strength.
Perhaps all the magic from the items within looking for weak points.
“It has aged,” I murmur.
Nora’s brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”
“The egg,” I clarify. “It was not so large the last time I saw it.”
She stares at me. “Can you time travel?”
“No.”
“Because that feels like something you should have mentioned earlier.”
“I travel through portals,” I tell her. “Not time.”
“Then how did you…” She stops. “Wait. How old are you?”
I hesitate.
“Older than you,” I admit.
“That’s not helpful.”
“It is accurate.”
She makes a small, frustrated sound, muttering something under her breath that includes the words giant and menace as she pulls the phone back and looks down at it.
“They don’t open the park up until tomorrow.
Easter Sunday. It’s a couple hours drive from here.
” She peers up at me, then holds out the phone again. “You sure this is the place?”
I remember it. Walking with my father while children dashed past us in their Sunday best—pinafores, straw hats, suspenders.
Wicker baskets dangled from their hands, bright paper grass spilling over the sides.
A brass band played somewhere beyond the hedges, the scratch of a gramophone warbling faintly beneath the laughter.
Father had gestured to the egg, taller than both of us.
“It’s enchanted,” he’d told me. “Only one party, bonded to each other, is allowed to enter at a time.”
I remember frowning up at him. “To what end?”
His mouth had curved. Not kindly. “To be judged.”
A chill moves through me now at the memory.
“Once they go in, the egg locks,” he continued. “Impenetrable to anyone else. It will not open again until the armory decides they are worthy of what they seek. Be careful, my son. If you ever decide to breach its entrance, choose wisely. The weapons and who you bring with you.”
At the time, I had assumed he meant allies. Fellow soldiers. Those I trusted to stand at my side in battle.
Now I understand.
The armory does not admit armies.
It admits bonds.
Nora and I are mated. If we reach the egg before my uncle’s hunters, it will recognize us as a single party and seal behind us. The hunters will not be able to follow if we get there first. My uncle would never risk entering himself. Not when the judgment might go against him.
No. He will send others to retrieve me.
And others will not be able to cross the threshold.
Even if they could, the armory does not grant its weapons freely.