Chapter One #2
I knelt on the dirt path, leaning over the flower bed to inspect the progress of the nathrach I’d planted two months ago. They were sprouting beautifully, not quite in full bloom—they had a week or so to go yet—but a few buds were beginning to split, the blushing pink petals peeking out from underneath.
Warmth swelled in my chest, and the smile that spread over my face was entirely out of my control. I felt immense joy knowing that I’d nurtured another species to life—one previously unknown to me—with my predominantly human hands. This particular variety could be used as an antidote against naga venom, but even if their only purpose had been to sit there and look pretty, I would still be proud of every single seed that didn’t fail. And as I sat back on my haunches, glancing over the colorful patches dotted around the garden filled with a variety of different plants, I was able to see just how many that was.
It was these simple triumphs that had played a huge role in helping me settle in. Immersing myself in nature, finding a purpose and being accomplished at it, made me feel more fulfilled than I ever had in the human realm. I missed Edenglas—of course I did—it was all I had known for so long. Plus, with Alex and Tee there, and everyone else at the club, I’d always have a tie to that world, no matter what, but since we had the choice to return freely, the guilt I’d once felt for leaving it behind was slowly dwindling. It may have been my Fae blood nudging me toward my roots, but I thought I’d be happy to live the rest of my immortal life here.
I often imagined Cair and me having a patch of land away from the capital, with a small cottage and gardens where I could grow flowers and we could live a simpler, more peaceful life. The palace was everything I could ever have imagined it to be. A fairy tale, really. It was the type of luxury most people would kill for, and a far cry from what I’d expected for my future, but it was still daunting.
While I knew in my bones that I belonged in the Otherworld, that this was my home , I often felt out of place in the palace. It was easy to get lost amid the opulence and sheer scale of everything, and the thought of one day having to rule over it all filled me with dread, but I guessed that discomfort was a small price to pay for unconditional love.
Besides, knowing Cair and his high-maintenance ass, he’d never give up those finer things, or his penthouse back in the human realm. Nor would I ask him to. I was content as long as we were together, truly, and that would never change.
Our cozy little hamlet could live rent free in my fantasies for now.
A pointed cough startled me, and I twisted on my knees to see Orian hovering a few steps away. His hands were behind his back, and his distant gaze was glued to a spot over my head. I hadn’t even heard him approach, which was mildly concerning, but as I so often wandered off into my own little world, it wasn’t entirely shocking. Once I was focused on a task or engrossed in a daydream, an elephant could trample through and I would be none the wiser.
Recovering quickly, I wiped my face with the back of my gloved hand and smiled up at him. “Hey, Ri! Sorry, I was lost in my head. I didn’t even hear the gate.”
The space between his brows creased ever so slightly at the nickname, but his otherwise wooden exterior didn’t change except for a slight nostril flare. I really hoped that was a natural reflex and not him smelling Cair on me. That would be mortifying.
“I should have announced myself, but you looked…” He hesitated, eyes still not meeting mine, but he glanced briefly to the side as if caught in an internal panic. His throat bobbed on a swallow, and I could have sworn the tips of his ears had turned pink. “My apologies.”
“It’s okay.” I frowned, concerned by his behavior. Granted, he’d never been overly animated, but we’d spoken more in the last few months—as I had with all of Cair’s siblings bar Maeve, but she was impossible.
Orian had avoided me for a while after we’d settled here. I’d never gotten the vibe that he hated me or wanted me dead like I initially had with Teighan, but it had been obvious he’d done everything in his power not to accidentally cross my path. That was until I’d cornered him outside the library once, asking if he knew the properties of a fuil plant. Ever since, he’d made more of an effort to acknowledge my existence.
We weren’t exactly buddies, but we’d made progress. We didn’t ignore one another in the hallway, and he’d indulge me whenever I asked a question, though he looked uncomfortable doing so. He’d even started to stop and ask me how I was on occasion, but today, something felt off.
“Did you need something, or…?” I hoped the question was delicate enough to sound inquisitive, instead of confused or outright rude.
Orian stood up straighter. “You have no escort.”
“Um.” I laughed, holding up my soil-caked gloves. “I’m only in the garden.”
Finally, he looked at me, but his expression was so severe it made me recoil. “You should not be alone. Not for a single moment.”
“ Oh-kay … Well, I’m not alone now, am I? You might as well join me.”
“I have no intention of intruding on your activities,” he said, looking straight ahead once again.
I snorted. “Little late for that, wouldn’t you say?” He met my gaze again, wide-eyed and visibly mortified. I’d have laughed at the uncharacteristic display of emotion if I hadn’t felt so guilty. “I’m teasing you,” I said with what I hoped was a reassuring expression. “You’re not intruding. I’m almost done, anyway.”
He relaxed, though his eyebrows scrunched as if the idea of a joke was alien to him, and my smile faltered.
Orian was visually a mixture of Cair and Teighan, and the youngest of the three. On the surface, he seemed to fit the bill of a distant and unapproachable Fae bodyguard—a mirror of Tee’s scowl etched onto his brow, but with white hair and the light, bluish tinged skin of his eldest brother. He possessed his father’s harsh aura and robotic mannerisms, though there was something else there, a slightly more agreeable side I’d only known him to show around me. A vulnerability, almost.
Cair had admitted that he’d never known his brother to talk as much as he had since I’d arrived. Apparently, he’d always been eerily reserved, even as a child, only opening his mouth to carry out his father’s orders or as a formality. While it made me feel a little special knowing I’d broken the cycle, it was also kinda sad to think about.
Were these stilted conversations all the positive interaction he’d ever allowed himself to have?
My mate said I had a knack for making the grumpiest of grumps soften in my presence—I’d grown to think of it as my superpower—but the more time I spent with Orian, the less I believed he was actually the asshole everyone painted him to be. He seemed unsure. Socially awkward, even. He wasn’t a bumbling fool like me, by any means. It was as if he wanted to talk—to me, at least—but he had no experience with it. Or he didn’t know what was acceptable to ask, so he stood in stoic silence, chewing over his words. Tee had no interest in conversation, especially when we’d first met. He’d been avoidant, and I’d had to wear him down, but Orian having purposefully sought me out proved he was amenable, he was just… struggling . I found myself wondering why.
I doubted I’d be far off if I blamed his father for it.
“Have you…” Orian clenched and unclenched his jaw as if carefully recalculating his words. I busied myself sifting through the soil and removing any unwanted debris to give him some space. “How goes the search for your father?”
“Oh. Um, we still haven’t found him, even with access to the restricted section of the library.” I winced as soon as the words left my mouth and sent him a pleading look. “Pretend you didn’t hear that.” He acknowledged me with a subtle nod. I sighed, letting my shoulders sag. “It’s been months. I’m beginning to think I just fell out of the sky or something.”
Orian hummed as if actually mulling it over. “It is a possibility. Considering you don’t have wings.”
“I—” I snapped my mouth shut, cutting myself off from explaining the meaning of an idiom. He’s not exactly wrong. “You know what? Good point. I don’t have wings. Or fangs. Or horns. And as Cair just loves to point out, I’m shorter than you giants.” I huffed a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t really look Fae at all, do I?”
“I disagree,” he said, matter-of-factly, but didn’t elaborate. “Perhaps your father does not want to be found.”
“Uh, maybe? I just wish I knew either way.” I patted mindlessly at the dirt. “Even if he’d rather ignore my existence, I still want to know who he is.”
Orian tilted his head to the side—a mannerism he shared with his brothers. The three of them were like big, curious puppies, and I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing at the image. “Why does it matter to you so much?” he asked.
I hesitated. Not because I hadn’t already answered that same question in my mind over a hundred times, in a hundred different ways, but my eagerness to overshare often got me into sticky situations. I didn’t detect any sketchy vibes from Orian, nor did I believe he was a gossip—that went without saying, really—but the fact remained that we weren’t besties, and he was the king’s henchman. No matter who I spoke to in the palace, there was always a chance that every conversation was fed back to him, no matter how insignificant. So, even at times like this where the information wasn’t world-altering, for the sake of my survival at court, practicing the art of doing a quick mental scan of everything I wanted to say before I spoke was in my best interest.
I’d already let slip about the library, but we’d ignore that.
“I want to know where I came from,” I said honestly. “Finding my dad is, of course, about meeting the guy himself, but it’s also about figuring out what I’ve missed out on knowing all these years. I loved my mom, and though I feel some resentment about the secrecy, I know she did what she thought was best, but since learning about all this, I’ve begun to doubt whether who I am is actually me , or if it’s only the parts she allowed me to be. There’s an empty space that I want to fill, and a whole twenty-seven years’ worth of questions I want answers to.” I shrugged. “I just want to know who I am.”
“That is… admirable.”
I sighed. “If only I knew something . Just one single breadcrumb is all I’d need.”
“Your resilience will prove fruitful, I’m sure.” He said it with conviction, although his manner remained stony and his voice detached, as if kind words were foreign on his tongue. I appreciated the sentiment, nonetheless. “Should you be in need of assistance… Well, there are resources I could utilize.”
I smiled up at him, grateful for the offer and delighted by his show of compassion. I would melt the Ice Prince yet. “Thanks, Ri.”
Orian’s eyes widened minutely, as if my appreciation had caught him off guard—or no one had ever thanked him before—but he recovered quickly from his internal crisis and dipped his head without another word.
In silence, I finished pottering around in the flower bed before standing with a groan. I peeled off my gloves and set them on the wooden bench to the side. “I’m going to head back inside,” I announced as I stretched out my back and wiped down my pants. Cair’s imagination would be getting up to all sorts if he saw the state of my knees. Truth be told, so was mine, but I filed those musings away for exploration at a later date. Blow jobs in the garden: question mark. “I’ve been reading this really informative book about the mating habits of minotaurs, and I’d kinda like to finish it before dinner.”
Orian blinked, but otherwise didn’t comment on my choice of reading material. For the best, really. His eyes did drop to my neck, however, where I knew a livid bruise in the shape of Cair’s fangs had formed, but again, he just clenched his jaw and ignored it.
I barely resisted the urge to draw my head into my shirt like a turtle.
“I shall escort you, if you will permit it?” he said. Whatever got me out from under his silent scrutiny, I was totally amenable.
“Sure!” I chirped before gathering my tools and striding out of the garden.
Orian followed two steps behind.
* * *
Curled up in the armchair in my nook, with a blanket over my legs and a book in my hand, I could fully unwind and stress over nothing except the words on the page. It was my favorite part of the day, except any time I spent with Cair. Nothing would ever beat my mate’s company, especially when he’d sit with me here, bundle me into his arms, and let me perch on his lap while I read. He said it relaxed him, watching me concentrate, committing every line and freckle on my face to memory and basking in my scent and heartbeat. I never argued. Mostly because I often found solace in the exact same thing.
Thankfully, Orian hadn’t ‘guarded’ me for long. Not that I was opposed to having his sunny aura hovering around me, but having him act as my shadow in the nook felt awkward and unnecessary. Still, I would have let him hang around if it relieved him of the alternative. Almost as soon as we’d crossed the threshold of the palace’s side door, he’d been cornered by his father’s flustered steward, who’d told him of the king’s impatience and the demand for his presence. It was either a matter of great importance, or the steward was working on commission, as Orian barely had the chance to express his apologies before he was herded away. He’d scowled coldly at the goblin, earning himself a second longer to dip his head toward me before turning on his heel to leave, though he’d seemed reluctant to do so. I couldn’t exactly blame him.
His father was a dick.
I sank further into my seat, picking up from the chapter I’d left off yesterday. Apparently, a minotaur’s cum was some of the most potent among supernatural creatures. So potent, in fact, that even swallowing it could result in pregnancy. How is that possible, you ask? I didn’t have a clue because I hadn’t reached that part yet, but it was this sort of information that made me eternally grateful for the hoard of knowledge at my fingertips.
Anyone who said they’d never been curious about the mechanics of minotaur spunk was a liar.
The hours ticked by too quickly. The tome was pretty hefty, I had to admit. How one species could have so many customs was beyond me, and it wasn’t until I was near the end of the book, on the section outlining the physical characteristics of a full-grown minotaur bull in rut, that I sensed a familiar presence approaching. There was a woodsy scent growing stronger in my nose, and the patter of footsteps, faster than their typical gait, echoed in my ears. I couldn’t help but grin.
Someone was eager to see me today, it seemed.
Slowly, I looked up at the doorway, a witty remark ready on my tongue, but the sight of him made the words evaporate. My mate strode into the room, his breathing slightly elevated and a smile on his face that suggested he had exciting news.
My heart thudded in my chest.
“What is it?” I lowered my book, slipping a bookmark between the pages without taking my eyes from his.
“My heart,” he said, extending his hand for mine, noticeably satisfied when I took it without hesitation. I already had a hunch about what he was going to say.
I still held my breath.
“I found something.”