38
Aspen
Briar. The letter had been written by Princess Briar.
We flanked Nicu in silence. Multiple stories below, a deer promenaded through the understory, its brass antlers glinting. Up here, the treehouses threw shadows across every bridge, and the scents of apples and parchment ghosted across the vista like a forgotten memory.
Since we got here, I’d been viewing this ancient haven through the princess’s eyes, wondering which cabin had been hers, on which terrace she and Poet reunited in a flurry of passionate fucking, and all the things that happened while she lived here with Eliot and Cadence.
She told our clan about the oak tree incident, plus other stories about her, the minstrel, and the lady.
But she never mentioned this letter.
It could have landed in the branches, swept up by some force of wind. Either that, or she had placed it here strategically.
Nicu’s eyes sparkled like jade as they raced across the handwriting.
Love, devotion, and melancholy softened his pretty face.
As his finger caressed the handwriting, my heart went out to him.
No matter how much he relished exploring this place, separations triggered my friend.
At least, when someone else was doing the leaving.
He missed his family. Thinking of my own mother, I cupped his shoulder.
Briar couldn’t have known her child would eventually end up in The Lost Treehouses, so this missive couldn’t have been intended solely for the Royal Son. And based on Lyrik’s earlier comment, he’d never noticed the letter.
We kept silent while Nicu soaked in the contents, his pupils racing across the paragraphs. At one point, his eyebrows furrowed in thought, then his mouth quirked.
Suspense gripped my chest. Finally, Nicu reread the message aloud.
The trees have welcomed you. Trust their wisdom to forge your way.
For we are nature itself, and nature is us.
One heartbeat. One fellowship. We are forever tied like a ribbon, in truth and spirit.
So heed this: Your reigning path will appear when the leaves speak, your soul listens, and the stars align.
A breeze rustled the paper. I never knew Her Highness to be cryptic, but I did know her to be intentional.
She hadn’t written this note out of emotional or symbolic release, the way people dispatched their wishes to the sky with floating lanterns.
No, this pragmatic princess meant for these words to be found.
Aire draped one finger across the missive.
“This letter has not moved from its resting place,” he mused.
“It has endured every storm and gust of wind, untouched by the elements.” Nodding to himself, he confirmed, “Briar left this note where Nicu found it. Like a steward, she bestowed these words upon the next person who dwelled here.”
We swerved toward Lyrik, who raised his palms. “I didn’t find a thing.” He clicked his chin to Nicu. “The songbird did.”
I puzzled together the rest. “If she meant for the letter to be discovered by an enclave resident, she must have written it shortly before returning to the castle. From then on, the treehouse protected the note.”
“The forest approved, wishing for the recipient to find these tidings as well,” Aire agreed. “It’s a manifesto about following one’s destiny.”
I would have expected Lyrik to call this hocus pocus. But instead, he reached around Nicu and tapped the final line. “It’s more than that. If this really came from a Royal, it sounds like an endorsement.”
Not a bad guess. Nicu had been marveling at the letter, but Lyrik’s suggestion brightened my liege’s features like a constellation. Not for the first time, he seemed to recall an old memory between him and his parents.
“The fate of a leader,” he breathed.
Aire gave him a fond look. “Then it has chosen a worthy recipient.”
Nicu folded the parchment and tucked it into his shirt pocket. Because he said nothing more, neither did we. Whatever it meant for my friend, that mystery would unfold later.
Maybe soon. Or a long time from now.
In a daze, Nicu followed the trail of orange-dyed vapors to his cabin. Lyrik watched him go and only then disappeared, the mist swallowing his tall, rugged form.
Alone, Aire and I tarried on the bridge. My pulse skipped as the knight turned to face me, those blue eyes transfixed. We’d been avoiding this since the night he fucked me in the watchtower, every lashing beat of his cock breaking moans from my lungs.
A longtime fantasy made manifest.
I could say I hadn’t been replaying every kiss, bite, touch, thrust, and scream.
I could also claim I hadn’t been reliving that memory every night since, while pitching three fingers into my soaked walls and making myself come.
I could insist it meant nothing, that it hadn’t altered my world, that the reality hadn’t measured up to the visions I’d stored in the treasure chest of my heart. I could say all of that.
But I already had enough lies under my belt. This man hadn’t lived up to the years’ worth of fantasies. He blew through them, tore them to shreds, and left those imaginings in the dust.
Even now, I felt the shape of his dick stroking every wet inch of my cunt. His hands grasping my ass, my hair, my face. His voice, roaring with my own. His eyes, possessive and captivated. His body fucking mine. That pivotal moment when we unleashed and changed everything.
Aire’s throat constricted, pink tinting his skin in the most endearing way. Despite how roughly he’d pounded into me, this fearsome soldier blushed like a suitor.
He knotted his hands behind his back. “I would very much like to accompany you to your cabin.”
My fingers itched to grab him. “Fixing to make a routine of it, then?”
“That would be a mere courtesy. To the contrary, I would prefer to make a habit of it.” He cleared his throat. “With your permission.”
Yes, please. Walk me to the front door, kiss my hand, and say goodnight again. Then retreat, stop, and stalk back to me. Seize my face, crush your lips to mine, and blast open the front door. Back me into the cabin, kick the door closed behind us, and never leave.
Kiss me again. Fuck me again.
While reading my expression, Aire’s pupils glittered.
His eyes skimmed the dress I chose for tonight, the gilded bodice hugging my breasts, my nipples in danger of studding through the fabric.
Suddenly, the textile chaffed, abrasive against my skin.
I had to get out of here before my throbbing pussy changed its mind, to say nothing of my conscience.
A gale tousled the knight’s ashy blond hair. As darkness etched the sculpted incline of his jaw, I envisioned draping my tongue across the ledge.
Except that wouldn’t be right. For treacherous reasons.
I had to tell him. I wanted to.
Everything about Rhys. Everything I kept locked away.
“For we are nature itself, and nature is us. One heartbeat. One fellowship. We are forever tied like a ribbon, in truth and spirit.”
One heartbeat. One fellowship.
None of us survived or triumphed alone. That was the crux of Briar’s letter.
The desperation to confess had been chipping me apart for years. But after Aire and I shared our fears and losses, and after every carnal thing that happened between us, and now on the heels of our princess’s words, the truth surged to the edge of my tongue.
My mouth opened. Then my eyes panned to the spot where Nicu had been standing.
Not without him. My friend deserved to hear this alongside Aire. In the morning, I would tell them together.
Once and for all, I shoved my heart into a box and bolted the latch. “I appreciate the offer, but I’d like to walk on my own tonight. If it’s all the same?”
Disappointment flickered across Aire’s face. “As you wish, my lady.”
Then he ducked his head and stepped aside. I sidled past him, the axe bumping against my hip, the dress pulling too tightly across my ribs. As I left him behind, Aire’s gaze seared my flesh, the impact quickening my steps.
The route to my treehouse passed Nicu’s cabin. Halfway across another bridge, my feet slowed.
Although my friend had gone to bed, Lyrik stood outside the door.
No knocking. No pacing himself. He just waited there, slouching against a balustrade and sucking on another of his cigarettes, a line of smoke crawling along his jaw.
From this vantage point, the rogue watched through the window to where Nicu must be sleeping.
No.
Just. No.
It had been a long few days, one soul-crushing incident after another. Lyrik may have supplied me well for the camp explosion, and he may have developed that vaporous lantern path for Nicu. I would give them those points.
But lurking outside my friend’s cabin was out of the question.
Trusting him about as much as I’d trust a cult leader and no longer in the mood to tolerate his frankly erratic behavior, I struck into motion, my boots hammering against the planks.
Ripping the axe from its harness, I hurled the weapon across the remaining twenty feet of distance.
The hatchet rotated and slammed into a load-bearing pole six inches from Lyrik’s arm.
Hissing, the stalker pushed off the rails and whipped toward me. “Are you fucking kidding?”
I yanked the axe from its position, marched past him, and snapped, “Come talk to me.”
Grunting, the rogue dropped his cigarette and ground his heel into the charred paper, then followed me to a pavilion shrouded in blood-colored foliage.
There, I flipped toward him. “What game are you playing with Nicu?”
Lyrik feigned offense. “How dare you call me a cock tease.”
“Answer the goddamn question.”
“Maybe he’s the one playing a game with me. I hear that’s what the elite do to peasants.”
“Stop with this false display of righteous indignation. It’s not cute or convincing.”
“I backtracked, caught up to the songbird, and made sure he found his way home without getting lost or injured.” Lyrik reclined against a column, his frame blocking out trickles of starlight. “Didn’t want him confusing a bridge for a stairway.”
“That’s what the lantern trail is for.”
“Then consider me overly cautious. Same as you and Aire when it comes to the Royal Son. If he gets wounded while I’m the enclave’s designated steward, I’ll be liable or some shit. Plain and simple.”
“From where I’m standing, nothing between you and Nicu is plain or simple.”
The cocksucker scoffed as if I needed to relax, so I seized his arm and jerked him into me. “Let me spell it out. I don’t like your friendship with him.”
Lyrik shrugged off my grip. “You have no fucking say about his choices,” he snarled, his control slipping a notch. “Who Nicu spends time with is his decision. No one gets to dictate his relationships except him .”
In this, we agreed. The only reason I confronted this man had to do with him loitering outside Nicu’s chamber. Hesitating to knock was one thing, but staring through the window pushed a privacy boundary.
Even so, I paused. If I didn’t know better, I’d mistake Lyrik’s vehement tone for something genuine, a passionate defense on Nicu’s behalf. So perhaps the rogue had a different reason for tarrying at my friend’s threshold.
Unfortunately, before I could give this man the benefit of the doubt, he drawled, “And based on rank, I’d say you have to do what he tells you.”
My opposite hand fisted the axe, the blade sharp enough to clip his nuts. “So you want leverage on us through Nicu. That’s why you’re friendly to him one second, then an asshole the next. You’re abusing his trust.”
Lyrik slanted his head, the spiked earring flashing beneath that messy fall of hair. “I’d wager you know a thing or two about that, don’t you?”
Rather than call his bluff, I pressed my lips together. One duplicitous bastard to another, this blackguard saw through my facade. He might not know my history, but he’d gotten enough hints to suspect I kept something from Aire and Nicu.
I should have been wary, but he just rolled his eyes as if I was overcomplicating things. Maybe blackmail was too much work for him, or maybe I was right about his intentions, and he was offering a deal: He’d stay out of my way if I stayed out of his.
Fuck. Him.
I might be cornered by Summer, but I would get myself out of that. As for Lyrik, I’d rather stoke Rhys’s wrath, confess my sins to the clan, and set my head on the chopping block than stand aside while he did whatever the hell he was doing with Nicu.
If it came down to my fate versus my friend’s wellbeing, there was no contest. No one would harm him on my watch.
Stepping forward, my boot crunched a dead leaf. Getting in Lyrik’s face, I warned, “Accuse me all you want. Shout it to the rooftops. But go near him, trifle with him, or hurt him, and I will end you.”
Lyrik turned away, done with this conversation. As he strolled from the pavilion, I scowled at that arrogant swagger. “Tell me what you want from Nicu!”
Lyrik sighed and glanced over his shoulder. “Not a fucking thing.”
My nostrils vented hot air. Given the upheaval since infiltrating the soldier camp and getting fucked by the First Knight, I might be misconstruing things.
Maybe Lyrik was an opportunistic swindler, which in hindsight made no sense regarding Nicu, since this alchemist didn’t need any of us. He was doing fine on his own.
So maybe he was purely intrigued. Maybe he wasn’t coping with isolation as well as he pretended. And maybe he’d been baiting me out of amusement.
Yet I would take no chances.
Releasing my axe, I left the pavilion. After checking Nicu’s doorstep to make sure he was alone, I continued to my cabin.
Exhausted, I mounted the front porch steps.
My palm gripped the knob, then flew backward as a set of ruthless fingers snared my cloak.
Hauling me from the threshold, that same hand swerved me around and slammed my body into the facade.
The man’s face cut into view, appearing with the force of a nightmare. A black mustache poured from his face like tar, its weight pulling the rest of his face into a disgusted scowl.
Rhys.