Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fawn
“ W hat happens in these woods will be our little secret.” Nox’s words play upon my mind in an endless loop as we dress and exit the garden before taking a small tour of the city with Blue trotting beside us.
I feel particularly shy. Eiden holds my hand, pointing out various sites and telling me about my new home. But I’m aware of the curious citizens who politely bow as we pass.
Everything about the stag city is a fairytale come true. I only have to look down at the forest green silk dress I wear, feather-soft against my skin. There are a dozen more dresses in every color of the rainbow and various lengths and styles already waiting for me in the wardrobe of the primary bedroom, which Seven has indicated are for me.
It was his room that Wolf and I slept in last night. No one has confirmed it, but I know it is so. Though the bedding was clean, his scent permeated the air and wrapped around me. Wolf noticed, too, I’m sure of it, making sure his seed and mine went all over the clean bedding last night…
I am not used to this splendor.
Nor the attention of so many men.
Of any man.
And I need to tell Wolf what happened when we are next alone.
Will he be cross with me?
We talked last night… between other activities, and he allayed many of my worries. But still, everything is so new and unsettled, and I love Wolf so very much.
“Oh, what is that?” We are passing a crossroads in the wide avenue. To the right at the end of path, is a strange twisted looking gate in a high walled off section of the city. A cluster of soldiers stand at the gate with a small queue of citizens waiting to pass in. “Why is it guarded?”
I shiver.
“Wormwood,” Nox says. “Even great cities have their share of scum. And it’s guarded so unwary Fawns don’t stumble inside and get eaten by the trolls.”
“Would you like something to eat when we return, Fawn,” Eiden asks brightly in a blatant change of subject.
“I’m not very hungry,” I admit. “Do they really have trolls in there?”
Eiden cuts a glare at Nox. “No, of course not. Nox is just an idiot.”
Nox chuckles, leans in to share a brief, quiet word with Eiden, then bows to me and excuses himself.
Eiden resumed pointing out shops and sites until we arrive back at the palace and our suite.
The doors to the balcony are open, and the light, gauzy curtains billow in the breeze.
“You look a little pale,” Eiden says, his sensitive eyes far too perceptive. “If we overstepped ourselves today, please accept our apologies. I should be devastated to upset you.”
His words hold only honesty. I should be honest in return.
“I shouldn’t be with you when Wolf is not there. He did not say so, but it’s how I feel.”
He takes my hand and presses a kiss on the back. “Of course. I should have had more restraint.”
My cheeks grow warm. “I don’t think you can take all the blame.”
He chuckles. “We were very much lost in the moment… Would you like me to talk to Wolf on your behalf?”
“No, thank you.” I think that would be a very bad idea.
“Well, alright then.” He traces his fingers down my cheek. “You look tired. I can only guess Jude indulged himself frequently last night. And he explained how you were afraid to shift in the wolf village, so your long shift today will likely tire you, too. Why don’t you take a nap? No one would mind. I can let Wolf know, and he can come and check on you when he returns from his tour.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I would like that.”
With my hand still in his, he walks me to the bedroom. I pause at the bed, feeling shy again as I eye the sleeping gown folded neatly upon the bed.
“Please, allow me,” he says.
Eiden is so handsome that it borders on beauty. But he is also sweet, and I am very much falling for him.
I nod.
His big, broad hands gather the hem of my dress to draw it up slowly.
He groans, tosses it to the floor, and pauses to adjust his cock tenting his leather pants.
“You are a true beauty,” he says reverently, daring to cup one breast and lightly squeeze the nipple. He takes his hand away just as I forget everything I said about restraint, leaving me throbbing with the need for more. With another groan, he tosses the sleeping gown over my head. “There, under the covers lest I break my word.”
I slip between the silken sheets and let him tuck me in. I wish he could stay and snuggle up with me in bed, but I know we are not ready for that yet.
“I’ll take Blue with me,” he says, leaving me with the feel of his lips after a chaste kiss on my forehead.
Nox
I leave Fawn with Eiden, knowing I would have done things; consequences be damned, if I had stayed near her a moment longer.
The last person I fell this hard and fast for was Eiden, and he was a broken, feral thing who brought out an unexpected side of me.
I’m highly dominant.
Eiden is highly submissive.
Yet I had never felt so fiercely protective of someone the way I did Eiden the day we met.
Fawn brings out similar feelings but layered with a heavy dose of possessiveness.
I am not normally possessive. I have watched Eiden fuck men and women and was only interested in the gratification of the moment. My feelings for Fawn have taken me by surprise. Perhaps they are an extension of my love for Eiden and how much he already adores Fawn.
But I don’t think so.
No, I think these feelings are all mine and all for her.
Only Fawn is not submissive, not entirely, and there is definitely something else lurking under her shy persona that I want to explore.
I find Seven in the Constable’s room, where he’s reviewing today’s reports. The old constable—a human alpha who mated not one, but two does, and who has more gray than brown in his hair, twitches his nose.
Alphas have an impressive sense of smell… much like wolves.
“Her scent is all over you,” Seven says bluntly.
Deer shifters do not have heightened senses when in human form, so clearly dousing myself in the lake did not fucking help. “We did not fuck her,” I offer. I believe he reads between the lines because he maintains his unwavering stare—I try changing tack. “Where is Jude?”
“I asked Gideon to give him a tour of the barracks.”
“And he went?”
“He seems resigned.” Seven hands the scroll he was reading to me.
I glance down and skim over the information with increasing rage. “How confident are we of this report?”
My gaze shifts between Seven and his alpha constable, Ambrose.
“Very,” Ambrose says. “The tavern they were seen in is a known place for shady dealing. We keep watch as often as we can without drawing suspicion. This was the second time one of them has been noted there.”
My brows rise. “We have seen more than one?”
“Yes.” Ambrose nods. “Two of the three surviving brothers on separate occasions. Both in Wormwood. They probably think we do not have eyes there.”
Fucking Wormwood. A broken portal let a scourge into the city many centuries ago. With the help of the fae, it was closed, but we were left with a horde of monsters of every flavor, including the human kind. We should have razed it to the ground in my opinion. Instead, they walled it off, and left them, hoping they would just kill one another.
They didn’t.
Which leaves us living with the legacy.
There is some access, strictly monitored, in and out. But if there is trouble anywhere in the city, you can bet it originated there.
“They were exiled,” I say. “They dared to set foot, not just in your kingdom, but in the capital city. We would be within our rights to kill them on sight.”
“We need them all,” Seven says, taking the scroll from me and handing it back to Ambrose. “Otherwise, whoever we leave will just dig in somewhere and seek revenge at a later point.”
“You think that is what this is? Revenge? Has it got anything to do with the attack on the patrol where Eiden turned feral?”
“Possibly,” Ambrose says. “We have notified his niece and her mates as a precaution.”
“I doubt they will try and target her given she lives through the portal. The fae guard access well, but still, I will feel better all around with those bastards eliminated. You should have killed them when you had the chance.”
Seven sighs. “With hindsight, perhaps. We don’t know their intentions. Petty revenge, or something bigger? I need to know how deep and far this spreads. Killing them might have stopped this, but it might also have escalated matters, making them into martyrs.”
He nods to Ambrose and indicates I should accompany him out of the door. We exit the room together, taking a long corridor that leads out to the back of the palace.
“Where is Eiden?” Seven asks, his eyes suddenly narrowing. “I think it best he does not attend further patrols for the foreseeable future until we get more information.”
“With Fawn. I told him not to fuck her.”
He raises both brows. “Do you trust him?”
We take the wide sweeping staircase at the end of the corridor.
“Yes.” Mostly .
“And how did it go?”
I feel a tightening in my gut. “It went well… Actually, she was a fucking nightmare. I’ve never seen a more joyful creature in all my life. Her damn tail never stopped wagging. She was lucky she didn’t get fucked.”
“She clearly does not know the significance,” Seven says in his reasonable tone, although I notice a slight tightening in his jaw.
“No, she does not… Eiden became an unruly level of aroused. Fawn likewise became aroused.” After she caught me blowing Eiden—I elect to skip this detail. “I ordered Eiden to go down on her.” I shrug. “I fucked Eiden.”
“You fucked Eiden?” Seven brings our walk to an abrupt stop in the doorway leading to the inner palace courtyard. He rarely uses such blunt language, so I take it as an indication of his state of mind. “In front of Fawn?”
A tic thumps in his jaw. Maybe I should have mentioned the part about blowing Eiden after all. It might have provided some context. I’m not usually troubled by Seven’s wrath. He is eminently reasonable in all things and rarely directs it at me. But I also don’t wish to risk him rescinding fucking rights to Fawn, who I have not even fucked yet but already know will be an experience beyond all comparison.
“Yes.”
“And?!”
“She encouraged it.”
His golden eyebrows crawl into his golden hairline.
Despite the escalating tension, I find myself grinning.
He narrows his eyes. “There’s no need to be smug.”
“I wondered when you were going to crack.”
His glare turns haughty. “This is not me cracking.”
Keep telling yourself that, Master Stag. “I have been around her for less time. I’m already halfway into my damn rut. It is only fair that we all suffer the same.”
“Locate Jude for me… you might want to wash her scent off you first, lest we set him off.”
Wolf
A royal guardsman named Gideon shows me around the barracks and training ground. He is young, handsome, and overly polite. This way, my lord… See here, my lord… Wolf shifters are not this formal, and it is fucking exhausting.
Also, he keeps side-eying me like he expects me to shift at any moment and rip out his throat.
“What?” I mutter.
He looks away.
“Just spit it out.”
“Do you really have a knot?”
“This is your burning question?!”
“Yes,” he says bluntly, and he does not turn away this time. “How does… where does… she is particularly small.”
Where the fuck is this going? “When did you have time to meet her?” Is he angling for a slot as a courtier or whatever the fuck they call them here? Or is this just a form of curiosity because I’m different? Maybe he wants to regale his posh friends with tales of the shifter’s knot…
“I was part of the escort when you arrived,” he says. “I have a problem, and I was just… never mind.”
“Just the one?” I muse.
His skin is a deep bronze color, but his cheeks still manage to take on a deeper hue. “It’s a personal matter,” he says.
“Do they have beer around here?” I ask.
“Beer, my lord?”
“Yes, beer, and for the love of all things sacred, do not call me a fucking lord again. I’m a wolf shifter and no one ever uses fucking titles like lord.”
“Ah, yes, we have beer. How should I address you?”
“Jude,” I say. “It is my given name, and it is not like I have any formal role here.”
“Jude, would you like to go for a beer?”
“Yes, I definitely would.”
As it turns out, there is a tavern directly outside the training facility. It is full of rowdy guardsmen and is somewhat of a relief in its normality.
I buy the first round. Gideon buys the next. We are soon surround by nosey, well-meaning fuckers. I am determined to get Gideon to loosen up so I can pump him for information on his personal problem—I admit to being curious about it now.
Nox arrives before I make much headway.
“Fawn?” I ask. He is suspiciously scent free. If he has been running with her all morning, I would expect some hint of her. Maybe he kept his distance?
“Taking a rest after her run,” he says, taking a seat beside me with a beer as the other nosy guardsmen saunter off. “You picked the worst companion. Gideon has the constitution of boulder. He can drink the tavern dry and still walk out in a straight line. If you came seeking gossip, Eiden is the better choice. He cannot keep a secret to save his life.”
“Good to know,” I say, still unsettled by his lack of scent. “You know about Gideon’s secret problem then? He mentioned my knot, his burning problem, and then clammed up.”
Nox bursts out laughing and claps a startled Gideon on the shoulder. “He still has his V card.”
“Nox!” Gideon blusters.
“Fine. That is not his problem. But I could see why he was curious about your knot.”
“NOX!”
He only laughs harder, puts Gideon into a fake headlock, and ruffles his curly hair in a surprisingly playful move. “Don’t worry, lad. When the right woman comes along, it won’t matter.”
Gideon groans, and peels off Nox’s arm.
I’m still none the wiser for what exactly the lad’s problem is. Maybe he is a quick draw… really quick draw, given he has yet to consummate matters.
“Best I take you back,” Nox says, draining his pint. “I left her alone with Eiden.”