Chapter 38
Derian
For someone who claims to hate the Fae as much as she does, she fits right in among them.
She sat next to me throughout the entirety of the meal, listening to the toasts in her honor, with the kind of detached amusement my brother would be proud of.
When she finished eating everything on her plate, which I suspect she did solely for my benefit, she allowed Aunt Ulna to pull her from her seat and drag her through the room, introducing her to as many people as possible.
Now, she moves with effortless grace, no longer pretending to be anything other than what she is. Trained. Calculating. Confident. Strong. It’s a sight to behold.
And I’m painfully aware that I’m not the only one tracking her throughout the evening.
Ulna loves her.
Although, that’s no surprise. She has the kind of dry wit and attitude that my Aunt appreciates. Ulna has probably already demanded Taric tell her everything he knows about my new bride-to-be.
Then there are the eyes that trail her with lust—laced with desire for her body, her power, and her strength.
I try to remind myself that she’s the winner of the Conclave.
It’s to be expected that she gets this kind of attention.
It would be expected even if she hadn’t revealed herself to be half-Fae in the middle of her final trial. That just adds more fuel to the fire.
This dinner is more for her benefit than mine, in fact.
It’s a celebration for the victor of the Conclave, complete with a feast the likes of which this fortress has never seen before.
Visitors from across the kingdom have found their way into this dining room, drinking themselves silly and filling their plates with more food than they can bear to eat.
Along the far end of the room, a table stretches across the stone wall, piled high with pastries and cakes of every flavor imaginable.
Still, as much as I remind myself that this is normal and expected, every eye on her is eating me alive. It’s as if I can’t bear for anyone else to even think about touching what is mine.
Even if she isn’t mine.
Even if she’s been very clear that she doesn’t want to be.
Even if she’s still considering trying to kill me.
“He’s quite possessive of her,” Ulna notes to Taric as she returns to her seat.
And fuck, her being back means that she’s left Huntyr with Rhen.
“You get used to it,” Cal mutters under his breath.
Rhen’s smiling at her. Grinning with those fucking dimples.
Cal snaps his fingers in front of my face.
“What?” I snap, hardly recognizing my own voice.
What is wrong with me?
I feel like I’ve been losing my mind slowly, painfully, since I took her to bed.
“We were in the middle of a conversation,” Cal reminds me, pushing my drink towards me in a silent order to cool myself off. “Your bride will still be there in five minutes.”
Ulna chuckles, looking wryly at her husband.
“A letter came from your brother’s company today,” Cal continues as I gulp down my glass of wine. “Since you want the wedding in Springhallow, he’s redirecting to go there instead, and planning to stop at some of the border villages along the way to check in with the people.”
“That’ll extend his trip quite a bit,” Taric murmurs.
It will. It’ll add another week, maybe two, but at least it stops him from coming this close to the Wastelands. I suppose my strongly worded missive instructing him to stop being an ignorant bastard had its desired effect.
“That’s good,” I agree, glancing back towards Huntyr.
She’s touching him. Pulling him to dance with her.
I breathe through the magic roaring inside me.
It’s just a dance. She’s allowed to dance.
“So, you think her mother was Fae?” Taric asks, following my line of sight.
My fingers tense around the glass in my hand, the only visible sign of my internal struggle, as I clear my throat. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. It’s rare that a union between a Fae and Mortal could produce an offspring, but I suppose it’s not impossible.”
Cal purses his lips, considering. “We should look into it more, before you let her ask for her favor.”
I laugh darkly. “You’re a little too late for that. Tricky little thing pulled herself together and demanded it the second the shock wore off.”
His eyes flash with concern, and he’s already leaning forward, resting his hand on the pommel of the sword on his hip as if he might take off right then and there to eliminate any threat she poses.
The growl that pulls itself out of my chest is enough to pause his movement.
“What did she want?” Taric asks, continuing to eat carelessly, oblivious to the obvious tension between my best friend and me.
When Taric won the Conclave, he asked Ulna to procure a house in Kilshore for his parents to live in. They had just lost theirs in a fire and had been living in various taverns along the coast.
She left that night and bought it. Spent far more than the house was worth, but his parents had a home exactly twenty-four hours after he won.
“She has a sister,” I tell them, not bothering to hide the way my eyes don’t leave her for even a moment.
Rhen has the good sense to keep his hand at a respectable place on her back as they dance.
That dress has left her entire spine exposed, though.
I want to slice that hand clean from his arm for having felt her skin.
“A sister who is ill. She asked me to get her a healing tonic.”
Huntyr glances over at me, as if she senses us talking about her. Her eyes scan over our little group before lingering on me, and as Rhen spins her out and pulls her back in, she smirks.
And then, just before she turns her attention back to Rhen, she winks.
She. Fucking. Winks.
The glass in my hand shatters.
For a moment, the conversation around me stills and I just stare down at the offending hand. Did I really just break a glass because of a fucking wink?
Cal clears his throat, and a servant rushes towards us to clean the broken glass from the table.
No one says a word, and truthfully they don’t need to.
I’m angry enough at myself for acting like a reckless child.
I don’t need them reminding me how ridiculous it is that one woman is having this much of an effect on me.
“So that’s really all she wanted?” Cal asks, not acknowledging what just happened.
I nod. “Trust me, it was a surprise to me, too.”
Ulna smiles at me knowingly. “And how are you feeling?”
Like my soul is being raked across hot coals.
Just sitting here is agony beyond belief.
I’m at complete odds with myself. It feels impossible to leave her side, and yet, every part of me is screaming to just get up and start running.
To run until I get my own two hands on her sister and pour the tonic down her throat.
“You could have been more descriptive in your warning,” I tell her dryly, sending a glare her way out of the corner of my eye.
She simply leans forward and pats my hand. “Once the favor is over, you’ll feel better.”
I doubt that.
I highly doubt that.
It’s not the magic of the favor that’s filling me with this absolutely unbearable possessive jealousy. It’s her.
And from the way she glances at the servant cleaning the glass, before leaning closer to Rhen and whispering something in his ear, she absolutely knows it.
Cal sighs heavily next to me, glancing between the two of us with a look of pained consideration on his face. “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but maybe you and your bride should go to bed.”
I freeze, turning towards my best friend slowly. “What?”
Go to bed?
Surely he’s not suggesting at a table full of people that I should go fuck her?
Ulna is snickering like the old bat she is beside me. “I’d reckon that’s exactly what they need to do.”
Cal leans back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head as he stretches out his back. “She’s playing with you, Derian, and it’s obviously working. If you don’t want to get so jealous you summon a tornado and ruin the night for everyone, maybe you two should just leave.”
Taric claps a hand heavily onto my back. “If I were you, I would most definitely be leaving a party early to celebrate my new engagement in my bedroom and not in a room full of others.”
“If I remember correctly, you did,” Ulna chirps, folding her arm into his. “You didn’t even make it through dessert before you whisked me away.”
He nips playfully at her cheek. “And if I remember correctly, you were very pleased with how we ended up spending the night.”
Cal and I both grimace at them. The image of my Aunt being bedded on her engagement night is not something I need in my head. Not now. Not ever.
“This night is for her to celebrate,” I tell them, the words tasting like bile. “After what she went through, she might as well have some fun.”
I feel their suspicious eyes on me, but don’t dare meet their gazes.
“Do what you want,” Taric says through bites of potato. “Just try not to break any more glassware.”
As if on cue, a servant rushes over with a fresh goblet for me, an obvious reminder of my humiliating display of a lack of control. I turn to take the offering, and the split second that I look away from her is enough for everything to go to shit.
Cal stiffens. Ulna gasps.
My heart sinks.
I whirl my head back towards her, searching.
The blue of her dress is stained red with wine that some drunken fool has spilled on her.
Rhen has her tucked behind his arm as he yells at the man, as if she needs his protection. Just as Rhen instructs the man to leave, though, the idiot punches him.
It’s a hard, well-placed punch making even Rhen stumble back, and then my Huntress, my beautiful, reckless Huntress, is stepping forward, shoving him back.
I’m on my feet in an instant, but Ulna’s arm snaps out, stopping me as a snarl rips through me.
“Leave her be,” she orders me, unaffected by the rage I’m sending towards her. “This isn’t uncommon at Conclave celebrations. If that girl is to be your wife, then she is to be their princess. They need to believe she deserves that title.”
“Being beaten within an inch of her life and still winning wasn’t proof enough?”
There’s sympathy in her eyes, but also hardness, the kind of hardness that doesn’t invite room for debate. “No, it wasn’t. This is the way of the Fae. Let her defend herself.”