Chapter 33 Solstice Celebration #2
“You always look beautiful. Even with sweat and tangled loose hair,” he said, grabbing a hair from my face and pushing it behind my ear.
My cheeks blushed, but I tried not to move a muscle to give myself away.
Then, a loud voice cut from behind me. I tilted my face to see who it was.
Thalen. Lorik concealed himself in front of me with his shadows as I turned around completely to face Thalen.
Evidently, he was under an auroric potion influence, perhaps under an exaltation potion, given his euphoria.
His white tunics were all out of place, and he held a rose in his right hand, pointing to me.
“I have been looking for you, Thea,” Thalen screams in a high-pitched voice. “Why are you here all alone?”
“You are screaming, Thalen,” I said softly. “And you are extremely under the influence of auroric potions.”
Lorik had covered himself with shadows all this time. No one knew I was talking to him.
“It's the only day in the year we can loosen up from all the responsibilities and not be judged,” he said, quieter this time, with sadness in his eyes almost.
“Would you accept my rose?” He continued. “I am sorry for tricking you into the arranged marriage.”
“I can’t accept your rose, Thalen,” I said softly.
Thalen stepped closer into my personal space. He stood tall in front of me. His sad golden eyes pierced through me.
“I care about you as a friend,” I said quietly, hoping the Moonveil hidden behind me wouldn’t listen to everything. “We are not together. You cheated on me, and you tricked me. We will not be together again.”
“Rionis comes first for a noble general family like mine and for a princess like yourself,” he said.
“You know I had to kiss you in public, make a scene to secure your Emberkeep lineage. People like us cannot choose us; we cannot put our relationship first. Otherwise, I would have. I would choose you first.”
“I want to believe we still have a choice,” I said firmly, stepping back, my palms brushing what I knew had to be Lorik’s hand behind me. I swallowed. “We might be betrothed for the sake of Rionis, but I will find a way around it.”
Thalen’s expression hardened, not with rage, but with jealousy. The kind of that came when something slipped out of reach for good.
“Is there someone else?” he asked. “Are you hooking up with a lowlife Dragontail?” I stayed silent for a moment too long, anger rising sharp and hot in my chest.
“Any Dragontail has done more to defend this island than you ever have,” I snapped. “Hiding behind the Veil and behind fabricated laws. And even if I were, it is none of your business. Leave, Thalen.”
His mouth tightened. “You’re just like your father. You don’t understand hierarchy or power. Maybe the royalists are right. Maybe you shouldn’t rule.”
The air shifted.
Shadows curled at my side as Lorik stepped forward, no longer hiding his face nor his body. Darkness folded around the three of us, muting the sounds and our bodies from the crowd in the celebration beyond.
“Careful, Sunheart,” Lorik said calmly. Too calmly. “That was a poor choice of words.”
A single shadow rose from Lorik’s hand, stopping just short of Thalen’s throat. Not touching. Waiting.
“Thea is more than capable of ruling,” Lorik continued. “Far more than anyone who has come before her. She cares about people, while you and your court only care about preserving ancient power schemes and obsolete hierarchies.”
The words landed hard against my chest.
I was furious, at his intervention, at him stepping in when I had been holding my own, at the risk of giving Thalen too much insight into us. But beneath the anger, something else twisted in me.
He was defending me, not my title, not my bloodline, not the Kingdom. Me.
Thalen laughed out of shock, eyes wide. “Lorik Draventh,” he said slowly. “So your fuck toy isn’t just a Dragontail but a Moonveil?”
My heart stuttered as Thalen realized the truth between us. Lorik’s shadows had already coiled around his throat, close, waiting, but not yet tightening.
“Lorik, stop,” I said sharply.
The shadows froze.
Lorik didn’t look at Thalen when he answered. He looked at me. “I know you can fight your own battles. But I’m done watching him insult you and pretend he has any claim over you.”
My pulse kicked off.
Thalen’s eyes widened as the realization hit. “So it’s true. That’s illegal. You’ll be cursed, Thea. What are you thinking?”
My mouth parted, but no words came out. I was in shock. Lorik and I locked eyes, and he just smiled.
Lorik’s gaze snapped back to Thalen. “Don’t worry, Princess,” he said quietly. “He won’t remember any of this.”
A portal bloomed open behind Thalen.
Lightning cracked from Lorik’s hand, not wild, not uncontrolled, but precise. It left Lorik’s hand and landed on Thalen’s chest, pushing him back to be swallowed through the portal.
I stood frozen, heart pounding, staring at the space where Thalen had been.
Then, I looked up to find those silver, bright eyes.
I was mad at him for getting in the way, but he knew that already.
But above madness, I had a more important question that lingered in my head.
“Why?” I asked, and he knew what I was asking.
My family had taken so much from him, yet he was defending me and cheering me on to be the right person for the throne.
It wasn’t fake. He meant it, and I knew it.
He took my golden mask from my face and moved closer to me.
“Because you are different. You care about people for who they are, not what blood is going through their veins, their magical traces, their titles. You are different. You are not cruel, you are fair. You question the rules and want to make new ones,” he said, gently brushing my cheek with his fingers.
I closed my eyes for a second to just feel his touch.
“He won’t remember anything?” I asked, opening my eyes again.
“Thalen won’t remember any part of the night after that electric shock. This will be a blackout as if he had too much to drink.”
“I am still mad at you,” I said with an edge of challenge.
“Stubborn as always,” Lorik said, his smile reaching his eyes. His lips hovered so close to mine they almost brushed, his intention of claiming my mouth and me, unmistakable.
And I wasn’t fighting him the way I used to, not that I had ever been very successful at pushing him away the last few times we’d seen each other.
“You didn’t bring a rose,” I said without moving an inch. “It’s the Solstice celebration. It’s customary.”
“You want a rose?” He said, grinning again. “I’ll give you a rose.”
Lorik grabbed me by the hips, and the world blurred.
He had portaled me to a beach on a lake.
The moon lit the water in shades of silver and black.
His hands were still on my hips, and he gently turned me around.
Where the sand ended, a large meadow of flowers rose.
Not any flowers, red and white roses. Around the roses, large trees.
This felt like someone had intentionally planted them. They didn’t belong here.
“Where are we?” I asked, tilting my head toward him. My body was pressed against his, and his hands were gently grabbing my belly.
“Near the Silver City, close to the Corn fields. Near where I grew up,” he said. “I would come here as a kid; very few have seen this place. There are no roads, no access.”
“It's beautiful,” I said.
“You wanted roses, these are your roses,” he said, kissing my neck and my shoulders. “You are going to be the end of me, Lorik Draventh, you will drive us both to madness,” I said, gasping slightly over the prickling skin where he kissed me.
“But this was just sex, wasn’t it?” He teased, repeating my words from the last night we were together. Lorik already knew I was lying; I was lying to myself, thinking this was a one-time thing. It wasn’t.
“I don’t know what this is,” I said instead of voicing everything burning inside me. I didn’t understand it or what it meant, only that it was burning me inside.
Lorik pulled me closer, his mouth brushing my neck between words.
“When you enter a room, I can’t look away.
I have control over everyone else. I have discipline and restraint.
But not with you.” His grip tightened at my hips possessively.
“When you challenge me, all I want is to kiss you. When you risk your life, all I want is to protect you, no matter the cost. You already drive me over the edge of sanity. You make me crazy. Curse or no curse.”
I turned and stepped back to face him and remove the mask from my face. I looked at him, truly looked. Any answer to what he had just said was too complicated to speak, a tangle of feelings I didn’t yet understand. So I showed him instead.
My lips found his in a desperate, reckless kiss.
Lorik dragged me against him, every hard line of his body pressing through the fabric, leaving no space between us.
My hands slid up his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.
One of his hands was on my breast, pressing through the fabric, while the other settled possessively at my hip.
He pulled my hips closer, deliberate, unyielding, letting me feel exactly how much he wanted me.
A low gasp slipped from my throat just from the sensation alone.
The need between us was sharp and immediate, coiling tighter with every breath.
His hands moved over me like he already knew every inch, like restraint was something he was fighting and losing.