Chapter 21 Wolventon #2
The moment our eyes met, the noise around me fell away.
My breath caught. I looked down first, pretending interest in my empty glass.
But the potion’s warmth burned too brightly in my veins, urging defiance instead of restraint.
When I looked back up, his eyes were still on me for a heartbeat longer…
then he turned, expression unreadable, and joined his friends.
“Dance with me, Princess?” The Sunheart’s voice broke through my daze. He held out his hand, palm open, grin daring.
“With pleasure,” I said.
I glanced around for my friends as he led me onto the dance floor.
Shakari and Rowan were already spinning through the crowd, their laughter rising above the music.
Nearby, Soehl was swaying with Jan, dancing far slower than the frantic rhythm demanded, her head tilted toward his shoulder.
At the edge of the hall, Tran stood by the bar, attempting a conversation with Camelia Aric, who looked half amused, half bored.
The music swelled, drums and fiddles colliding in a riot of sound and the floor trembled beneath the crush of stomping boots.
We moved together, fast, and breathless, the air thick with laughter and heat.
His grip was steady, pulling me into the rhythm, guiding each turn with practiced ease.
The potion blurred the edges of the world until all that remained were flashes of color, the pulse of the beat, and the rush of my own heartbeat echoing it.
When he drew closer, his breath brushed my cheek. I should have stepped back. I didn’t. The potion dulled reason, sharpened sensation and for those few spinning moments, I let myself forget who I was. Just another face in the crowd, laughing, alive, and free.
I saw my friends dancing next to me. Shakari was having more fun than I just watching me being free for the first time in ages.
The Sunheart’s hand slid to my waist, pulling me closer until the space between us disappeared. The crowd pressed in, the music pounding around us, but all I could feel was the sudden wrongness of it, the discord beneath the rhythm.
I should have wanted this. The warmth of his touch, the thrill of being seen.
But instead, something inside me recoiled, a low hum of magic twisting beneath my skin, warning, restless.
It wasn’t fear. It was recognition. A quiet part of me was telling me this wasn’t who I was meant to be tonight.
The confusion tangled in my chest, hot and tight, but the pull was stronger.
I drew a breath, steadying myself, and stepped back.
“I need a minute,” I said, laughing it off. “Too much exaltation portion.”
I slipped from the floor, weaving through the crowd toward the back of the tavern to find the washroom.
When I found the corridor leading to the washrooms, I saw Lorik Draventh leaning against the wall, a dark silhouette against the torchlight. A glass rested in his hand. His silver eyes pop in the dim light, and his face was serious. My chest tightened with something I didn’t dare to admit.
“You don’t know how to smile, do you?” I teased.
He lifted a brow without saying a word.
“Come on, that was funny, Mr. Unhappy.”
I stepped toward him, one reckless inch, then another like some magnetic force beneath my skin pulling me straight to him. I stopped right in front of him and tilted my chin up, meeting those silver eyes head-on.
Up close, he was… overwhelming.
Tall. Broad. All hard muscles and coiled power. Dangerous and beautiful. A creature carved out of moonlight and shadow.
I knew I shouldn’t admire a Moonveil. I knew I shouldn’t even be within arm’s reach of one. But from here, he wasn’t my enemy, he was the most striking, arresting thing I’d ever seen. Art carved into a body.
And even knowing the danger, something inside me wouldn’t let me step back. It ached for him.
“I didn’t think you were the type of guy to come to a tavern,” I teased, my voice softer than I meant it to be.
“I could say the same about a princess in a low-life tavern,” he replied, that infuriating smirk tugging at his mouth.
“I’ve told you already, I’m not like other royals. I am different. You just… don’t listen.” I stepped closer until our knees brushed. Our bodies were inches apart. The gap between us thinned into something electric, too close, far too close.
His breath brushed mine, warm and sharp, and every instinct trained into me should have screamed to retreat.
But instead, it dragged me closer.
I held my ground, daring him to be the one who broke first.
“Why did you come this time?” I asked, my voice a low, challenged flirtation I barely recognized.
What was I doing?
We hated each other.
He wanted me dead, he’d made that painfully clear.
He loved intimidating me.
I should have run. I should have turned away.
But there was that pull again, low, and magnetic beneath my ribs, dragging me toward the one person I had every reason to fear.
“I had my reasons this time,” Lorik said.
“And yet you’re here,” I said, tilting my head as I closed the distance even further, “all alone. When everyone, including your girlfriend, is out there dancing and singing?”
“I’m not alone,” he said, voice edged with quiet sarcasm. “And I don’t dance.” His eyes narrowed, expression tightening. “I also don’t have a girlfriend. Never had.”
Something in his jaw clenched at the word girlfriend, sharp, unguarded, before he masked it again.
The words hit harder than they should have.
Doesn’t he?
A strange heat curled in my stomach, curiosity tangled with something far more dangerous. Something I didn’t want to name.
Had they broken up?
Or… had there never been anyone at all?
“Any other questions about my love life, Princess?” His breath drifted across my cheek, a whisper of heat and shadow.
“I don’t care about anything regarding you, Moonveil,” I said with a cocky voice.
And the air between us changed. Heat radiated from him, a pull stronger than any potion.
All I could think about was closing that last sliver of space and pressing my body against his, feeling every line of him.
It took everything in me to cage that want, that need, before it could swallow me whole.
But my gaze betrayed me anyway. It drifted lower, slow, and unhurried, tracing the sharp line of his jaw before finally settling on his mouth.
“Your eyes say otherwise, Princess,” Lorik said with a mischievous grin that I couldn’t understand.
“Don’t call me Princess. I don’t want to be one.” I said, stepping away inch by inch. I had to force myself, truly force myself, to pull back from him, as if peeling my own body away from heat and gravity.
“That you don’t want to be one doesn’t mean you aren’t one,” Lorik responded again with his typical dry and obscure voice. “Those duties will never leave you.”
“What would you know about royal pressure and commitments?”
“Yes… How would I comprehend that?” Again, with his mysterious and dry voice, not the smirking, even playful tone we spoke minutes ago.
“Good night, Moonveil,” I said, walking past him without looking back.
It felt like wading through a current determined to drag me into him.
Every step was a fight—my pulse screaming, my magic clawing at my ribs, that impossible pull tightening with each inch I gained.
Something inside me reached for him even as I tried to leave, begging me to turn back, to give in.
Inside the washroom, the candles burned too bright, their flames bending toward my heartbeat. I gripped the sink and splashed cold water over my wrists, trying to steady myself.
Then I looked up.
My eyes were flickering red. A thin ring circling my pupils, pulsing, alive. Red? That wasn’t possible.
I blinked hard, but the color didn’t fade.
The door opened behind me.
Rory Rey stepped in, and for a second, I didn’t recognize her. The tight black dress, the slit showing the curve of her thigh, her dark hair loose instead of braided; she looked nothing like the blunt-force warrior from training. She looked… stunning.
And dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with blades.
In her hand was a glass of the same shimmering auroric potion I’d downed earlier.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said with a lazy smirk. “Relax. I’m not in a killing mood today.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I hadn’t been alone with Rory since the day she’d nearly killed me on the mats months ago. I’d been avoiding her ever since. Ducking hallways, skipping shared drills, pretending not to hear when she entered a room.
She didn’t seem bothered by the silence. She lifted her glass and downed the shimmering potion in one effortless gulp.
“See?” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Finishing my potion. I’m not in the mood to kick your ass today.”
I looked at her eye, and then I saw it. I hadn’t really noticed it when she got it, as I was trying not to look her in the eyes. Her silver eyes had a ring of red blooming around her pupils, the same impossible red I’d seen in mine.
“Oh, Princess,” she drawled. “Seems like you drank an aphrodisiac potion without knowing. And it looks like it’s working. Too bad your blond boyfriend isn’t here to witness it. And believe me when I say this: you need sex if you want to survive Dragontail.”
“What?” My voice came out thin. “Aphrodisiac potion? And what does the red mean?”
She must have caught the panic twisting across my face because she let out a low, amused snort.
“When the potion finally hits when you see the person you actually crave your eyes flicker red.”
I had no words. My thoughts were a tangle of heat, fear, and confusion, but I forced myself to speak.
“So… you saw your Draventh boy outside,” I said, my voice tighter than I intended. “Your… whatever he is. Fuck buddy? Boyfriend? And then, poof! Red eyes?”