CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
VAYEN
This woman was going to be the death of me.
I practically floated through the corridor, drunk off the very scent of her, increasingly unsure if I would survive our current accommodations.
After riding together, I had become intimately aware of the way my skin hummed whenever our bodies touched; I couldn’t imagine that hum making for a restful night.
Come to think of it, dozing off in the tub might have been preferable.
All I needed was an excuse. For her to complain, to object. For her to insist that she, a princess, a proper lady, could never share a bed with a kidnapping, exiled, too-warm Videa.
But she didn’t. She righted herself, tipsily made her way to our room, and walked inside as though she hadn’t a care to her name.
As though she hadn’t perfumed our table in the common area with the scent of her arousal when I’d seized Sera’s hand.
As though her perfume hadn’t grown sweeter, a blooming bouquet of winter jasmine and crisp moonlight, at the mention of my mouth between her legs.
Fucking Sera. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with Alyssum, and what she might be feeling, I’d have had half a mind to return every blow that vile creature aimed my way. She didn’t deserve to be near me, let alone speak to me, but her audacity was limitless. At least when compared to her loyalty.
It had been years since those bright green eyes had haunted my memories, and I had no intention of revisiting the pain left in the wake of her. So I forcibly removed Sera from my mind with the practiced ease all wounded lovers cultivated to maintain their sanity.
I followed after Alyssum, closing the door behind us with only a slight glance spared for the glyph above me, ensuring rootcraft still bound the room and that I could sleep without her drunkenly falling down the stairs in an ill-designed escape attempt.
I watched as she sat on the edge of the bed, loosened the drawstring on the bag of cookies, and peered inside. I couldn’t see her face, but I noticed when the tips of her ears, peeking through wavy, pale blonde hair, shifted with a smile.
That smile. Wars could be waged over that smile, I was certain.
I hadn’t seen much of it the last couple of days—admittedly, the reason I’d bought the cookies in the first place.
The moment I smelled the citrus peel in the marketplace, unfortunately while dragging her through the square like a proper bastard, I knew I’d have to return and buy her a bag.
They were too strong-flavored and tart for my sensitive tongue, but the reverent way she sniffed the lightly yellow, glazed surface, careful not to dislodge candied pieces of peel with her fingertips, almost made me reconsider.
She took a bite, and the moment her teeth sunk into the cookie, those ice-hued eyes rolled to the back of her head. She chewed slowly, savoring each bite with exaggerated moans and exhales while I stood there wondering if it was normal to find someone’s front teeth attractive.
Get a hold of yourself.
Fortunately, Alyssum’s preoccupation with the cookies allowed me a moment to think.
Would the tub or the ground be more comfortable?
Of course I’d had worse, Naeno could attest to that, but the beds in Cobble’s tavern were unmatched.
Haize’s rootcraft was something for the ages, and the glyphs that ensured deep, dreamless sleep and cured mild-to-moderate ale sickness were beckoning me.
But not as much as the scent of her was beckoning me.
I crossed the room, enjoying the absence of her gaze as she sat focused on her cookies, and pressed my palm to the barely visible glyph beneath the window’s latch before pushing it open to welcome the cold, damp air.
A bit of much-needed sanity, it would seem.
I was resigned as I began unpacking a bedroll from one of our bags.
The floor was far preferable to staring at the ceiling and holding my breath, and Naeno forbid she reached out a hand for me, or pressed our bodies together to keep warm.
The urge to run a finger down her jawline, to press the tip of my nose to hers, to be the one who edged those delicious moans from her mouth—
“What are you doing?” Alyssum asked through a mouthful of cookie as she adeptly removed her boots.
I ducked my head, grateful for years of training my face to conceal my thoughts. I was on my hands and knees by then, smoothing out the thick fabric I would sleep on.
“Preparing for the night,” I replied with practiced stoicism.
“On the floor?”
“Yes.”
Her hesitation was palpable. Regardless of whether she’d be willing to admit it, there was a part of her weakened by drink that craved me in the bed beside her.
I knew it the same way I knew I was meant to have her the moment I scented her in Lunamor.
But I also knew she wouldn’t ask for it.
She was too proud for that, or perhaps too consumed with the version of herself she’d cultivated to maintain safety in her previous environments.
Or maybe she doubted my interest entirely.
Whatever it was that kept her lips pressed together, I was grateful.
It would take weeks to reach Castle Sor, and then I would have to relinquish her to her people, and ultimately to the Moonlight Trials.
Neither of which I’d be capable of doing if she were mine.
Fuck.
I knew better than to drink in such tenuous situations; my rage, white-hot and screaming against the carefully constructed walls of my self-control, was growing in strength. I shouldn’t have been able to feel what I was feeling for Alyssum. None of this made any fucking sense.
I wasn’t sure how long my hands had moved of their own accord, too consumed with how unfair this damnable situation was, but when Alyssum finally stood to drop the linen bag on our table, it was empty.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said softly, making her way back to the opposite side of the room with an unwarranted gracefulness.
Who became more graceful after drinking?
She stopped at the edge of the bed, hesitating there as she looked down upon it, clearly preoccupied with her own thoughts. Moments passed before she added, “Can you manage without the light?”
“Of course.” But the slight scoff earned me a furrowed brow. I cleared my throat. “It’s an aspect of my imbuement. I can see pretty well in the dark.”
Alyssum hummed gently, crossing over to the side of the bed farthest from the door. She began smoothing out the bed linen. I rested on the balls of my feet, doing my best not to stare, when she said, “I can’t reach the flame.”
“There’s no need.” I rose to my full height, which still wouldn’t have been tall enough to snuff it out.
Instead, I approached the glowing yellow glyph at eye-level beneath the sconce, pressing my palm to its surface.
The moment my skin met the carving, the glow vanished from the room, swallowed by the night.
The only remaining light came from strips of bright moonlight piercing the tree cover outside, spilling through the window and casting us both in an eerie glow.
When I turned, I caught Alyssum watching me, and not for the first time that evening. I didn’t miss the way her attention flitted around my face, seemingly always searching for the missing piece I knew she wasn’t capable of finding.
After a few moments, I watched, captivated, as Alyssum sunk her teeth into her lower lip. Those teeth, and that lip… did this woman have any idea the torture she so casually subjected me to?
I hadn’t noticed her heartbeat until the very moment it quickened.
I could hear the steady thump, thump pushing blood through her body as some unknown thought prompted her excitement.
Yes, excitement, I determined, when a focused inhale confirmed that she was absent the sour, metallic scent of fear.
“How well?”
Her soft voice had reached a register unfamiliar to me. It was soothing and gentle, a voice I imagined she reserved for those intimately closest to her. A voice that I, decidedly, did not deserve.
Stop thinking about how she sounds and answer the question.
“How well what?”
“How well can you see in the dark?”
I swallowed, all too aware of the growing thickness in my throat. I wanted to ask why, so I could stop her from doing whatever it was she might be about to do, but Haize’s porter had softened my mind along with my limbs.
“Well enough,” I said instead of the gentle admonishment that hovered on my tongue.
Alyssum hummed once more—a deeper, throatier sound—as she began unlacing the back of her midnight blue dress. Her fingers were quick and capable, summoning the familiar sound of laces sliding loose.
I should stop her.
But my mouth welded shut. I barely breathed. I could hardly hear my own heartbeat over hers, a chorus of snapping leather, and the way her own breath caught. I wished so very badly to peer into her heart, into her mind. Was this because of the drink? What exactly was she intending to make happen?
But then the dress was slipping from her shoulders, and the moonlight found the white shift Catrin had packed for her.
Wide-necked to display jutting collarbones, made of some thin, breathable fabric that floated down Alyssum’s form, barely concealing the skin beneath as her dress pooled to the floor around her feet.
The five Goddesses must have been intent on my ruination.
The moonlight melting over her body rendered the shift very nearly transparent.
I could make out the shape of her breasts, that gentle swoop beneath the weight of them, tipped with nipples hardened by the night’s chill.
I could see the slight softness of her stomach, and how it preceded hips that I desperately wanted to dig my fingers into.
Then, finally, the curve of her ass, shifting deliciously as she used her feet to kick her dress off to the side.