Chapter 63
Chapter
Sixty-Three
HAVEN
Only Zane’s arm kept me upright. I would have melted into a puddle on the floor without his support.
I looked down at Remy. His impossibly blue eyes twinkled, and his lips curled into the crooked smile that got to me. I caught a whiff of masculine pride. He liked that he’d made me scream before leaving me incapable of speech.
“Is her pussy as sweet as her lips?” Zane’s dirty words sent a jolt through my core. I’d just had the best orgasm of my life. I couldn’t want more. But I did.
Remy licked his lips. “Just as sweet.”
Zane’s answering moan rumbled down his chest, and wherever we touched, it rumbled through me. My pussy clenched.
“I need a taste, Haven. Say yes.” Zane stood behind me. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard his smile when he added, “Please.”
Words still escaped me. I nodded, my body still humming with pleasure, my legs unsteady. I’d let myself go completely with them—and gods help me, I wanted more.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Not now.” Remy’s voice had all the authority of—well, a crown prince.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Your Highness, but our mother wishes to meet your guest.”
Remy’s guest’s legs still draped over his shoulders, and her pleasure still wet his chin. I felt my skin flush, and I struggled to disengage.
Remy caught my thigh, keeping me in place. “An hour.”
What might they do to me in an hour?
“Your mother anticipated your response, Your Highness. She instructed me to tell you that you have fifteen minutes.”
“Fuck.” Remy’s lower lip jutted forward like a toddler denied his dessert.
“That’s what we won’t be doing.” I pulled my legs free, using Zane as a support until I found my balance.
Zane’s teeth grazed my ear, and the sensation made my core spasm. “As soon as we’re done, you’re ours,” he promised. “We’re going to make you come so many times you forget your name.”
Who said things like that? Yes, please. I wanted that. And more. I wanted to collapse onto the bed and let them make good on that promise.
“Haven?”
“I’m fine.” My cheeks were on fire just from thinking of what we might do in an actual bed. Gladys’s visions were coming true, and I didn’t mind a bit.
But a queen waited. On me. A queen who was also Remy’s mother. Showing up late and disheveled, with lips swollen from kissing and hair mussed from … it would make a terrible first impression.
“You don’t look fine.” Amusement laced Remy’s voice.
“I’m meeting your mother in fifteen minutes, and I literally have nothing to wear.”
“Wrong.” Remy rose to his feet, crossed the room, and pressed on a door that blended into the walls. “This is your closet.”
My closet? “How …”
“My visions.” Zane’s cheeks darkened, almost as if he was embarrassed. “I guessed your size.”
Remy stepped into the closet, and gas lanterns flared, revealing racks of clothing. Leathers and silks and satins. Furs and fine wools and lace.
I was overwhelmed. My closet in Grimswood had held four outfits. This was too much. “What do I wear?”
Remy selected a dress and handed it to me. “This.”
The dark-blue silk dress fell to my ankles. Its neckline was high, and the long sleeves touched my wrists. It was elegant and demure.
After what we’d just done, I felt wanton. And wanton was not how I wanted to face Remy’s mother—the queen.
The demure dress was perfect.
Remy opened a drawer and handed me a few scraps of lace.
“What’s this?”
“A bra and panties.”
Not like any bra and panties I’d ever worn.
Another rap sounded at the door.
“We still have ten minutes!” Remy’s annoyance at the interruption was clear in his clipped syllables.
“I brought refreshments, Your Highness.”
Remy’s expression cleared. “Are you okay here?”
“It’s a closet, Remy.”
“Someone tried to kill you.”
Which reminded me. I summoned the rose-hilt dagger.
Remy stared at the weapon that had appeared in my hand. “That’s how you survived the pit. You teleported food and water.”
“And medicine from my grandmother.” I glanced around the enormous closet. “Are there sheaths?”
He grinned as he pointed to a wall of drawers. “Second down from the right.”
He left me, and I slipped into the ridiculous underwear, strapped the rose-hilt dagger to my thigh, and pulled on the dress, but the buttons at my back were beyond me.
I emerged to find Remy and Zane hovering over a tray of fruits, meats, cheeses, and crackers.
“May I fix you a plate?” asked Zane.
“No, thank you.”
“Perhaps a glass of wine?”
“Please. Would one of you do my buttons?” I twisted, revealing the dress’s gaping back. Zane said nothing about my scars. I hoped he realized how grateful I was for his silence. I was tired of talking about them; the past was the past. I was more worried about the future.
“Of course. But first, a toast.” Zane poured three glasses, handing one to me and the second to Remy. “To what comes next.”
Pain and suffering and death.
I wouldn’t ruin this moment by worrying about what the future held. I lifted the glass to my lips and breathed in the wine’s bouquet. “Stop!” I knocked the glass out of Remy’s hand. It shattered on the floor, wine spreading like blood across the stone.
“Haven?” Remy stared at the broken glass, then at me. “What—”
“The wine is poisoned.” My hands shook, and I clasped them together to stop them. Another attempt. Whoever wanted me dead was relentless. “And this poison is nasty.”
Zane moved to the door in an instant, yanking it open. The hallway was empty.
Remy’s face had gone dangerously still. “Carter brought the tray. I’d trust him with my life.”
“Did Carter prepare it?” My voice came out sharper than I had intended.
Remy and Zane exchanged a look. The kind of look that said they were realizing how badly they’d underestimated the threat.
“Fuck,” Remy muttered.
“Someone in this castle wants me dead. Have I replaced someone?”
They both stared at me.
“Is there a woman willing to kill to keep your attention?”
“No,” Zane replied. “Remy has avoided entanglements with the ladies at court.”
“Have you?”
“I first saw you in a vision a year ago. There’s been no one since then.”
A year. He’d been waiting for me for a year. My throat tightened. What kind of man stayed faithful to someone he’d only seen in visions? Someone he wasn’t even sure was real?
I looked at him—really looked at him. The golden eyes that saw the future. The smile I was fairly certain few people saw. The reverence in his touch. Zane had chosen me long before we met.
“Thank you,” I said softly, the words inadequate for what I felt.
His eyes met mine, and something warm passed between us.
“You’re mine, Haven.” He glanced at Remy. “Ours. We’ll keep you safe.”
I cleared my throat, needing to move past the emotion tightening my chest. “So it’s not a jealous woman. Who else would want to kill me?”
The gold in Zane’s eyes flashed. “Someone who doesn’t want to see Legacia fall.”
I couldn’t help but think there was more to it than that. “If that’s true, you have a spy.”
“Just as we have spies in the Legacian court.” Remy claimed my elbow. “We should go. The sooner you meet my mother, the sooner we can move to a safer location.”
“I need someone to button my dress.”
“Only if you promise to let me unbutton it later.” Zane’s teasing made me smile. Did he want my promise, or was he trying to lighten the dark mood?
Either way, my answer was yes.