Chapter 31
F irm knuckles assault the door.
I feel it down my spine, all the way to my toes. I feel it in my bones and in my fucking soul.
“What?” I whisper, knowing who it is. I knew from the moment I heard his heavy feet ascending my stairs slower than normal, as if he were being cautious for a change. “It’s not feeding hour yet.”
Silence stretches so long I picture being tossed through the castle gate like a sack of grain.
There’s the faint clear of a throat, and then, “Funny.”
I thought so.
“I’m here to escort you to the Conclave,” he commands, and every muscle in my body tightens.
Nobody told me I was expected to attend. And the thought of facing all those people after what just happened in the gardens? Fair to say, attending the Conclave is at the bottom of my priority list.
“I think not,” I reply, gaze pinned to the open window. To the blanket of heavy clouds refusing to allow even a shaft of sunlight to split through and warm my skin.
Make me feel less numb.
“You think not?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I made your effort, and it didn’t turn out so great. Hard pass.”
“Then I guess you’ll be hitching a ride over my shoulder.”
This asshole.
“My door’s locked for a reason.”
“And it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve busted through it. Should I call the carpenter in preparation? It’s his birthday, and he’s spending the day off with his family, but I’ll tell him it’s urgent.”
“Leave the poor man out of this,” I mutter, glancing down at my clothes and realizing that in the time I’ve been sitting here, staring at nothing, they’ve almost entirely dried.
“Is—” I clear my throat, scanning the clouds again. “Is that male going to be there? The one who ...”
I grind my teeth, mind staggering back to the memory of those sounds splitting me apart strike by strike—of the familiar man with azure eyes and a sword hanging at his side.
I feel ... rattled . Not myself. I don’t know if I have it in me to face him most of all. Not after he saw me unravel like that.
And it wasn’t just him. It was an entire crowd of people previously roaming the castle grounds; a crowd Rhordyn no doubt carried me through once he plucked me up and bundled me against his chest like a child.
“Yes, but you’ll be at my side the entire time.”
My heart leaps into my throat and flutters about.
At his side ...
He really shouldn’t use that sort of language around me.
“Won’t Zali be there?” I ask, tone flat, and he puffs out a sigh.
In that sound, I hear exhaustion.
“Orlaith, I need you in that room with me,” he insists, leading me to release my own exasperated sigh.
“I’m not dressed for it ...”
“You look perfect to me.”
I peel off the door and twist around, staring daggers at it. “You can’t even see me.”
“Don’t need to.”
I roll my eyes, then hear him rumble—a deep, throaty sound that ignites every cell in my body. But that fire is swiftly extinguished when I remember where this discussion is leading.
“Do I have to talk?” I ask, eyes squeezed shut.
“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“Can I get that in writing?”
No answer.
I blow out a breath, run my fingers through my hair, and shove to a stand, straightening my blouse with a few firm tugs.
Sweeping damp hair off my shoulders, I lift my chin and whip the door open, catching a glimpse of his posture; bent forward, head bowed, as if he were leaning with his forehead pressed against the grain.
He arches a midnight brow and moves back until he’s three steps down Stony Stem, his eyeline just below mine.
He’s the picture of savage regality, dressed in a fine garb that contours to the grooves of his chiseled physique—so impeccably tailored, it’s as if Dolcie dipped him in shadow ...
I glance away before my mindset erodes any further. Dolcie and her measuring tape can drop in a ditch.
Rhordyn’s shoulders square and he offers me the crook of his arm.
Ignoring it, I sweep past, careful to breathe through my mouth—the sound of his hearty chuckle grating my nerves as I stomp down the stairs.
He’s giving me his smile again, but it’s tainted now.
That smile belongs to somebody else.
* * *
T he distressed-wood door does little to soften the chattering coming from behind it.
People .
My twisted fingers betray my skittish nerves, as does the sweat collecting down my spine.
Rhordyn severs my sight of the door, a galvanized shadow slipping into place. But I don’t want to look into his unnerving eyes right now, so I stare at his chest instead ... only mildly less intimidating.
Reaching for the stone and shell hanging around my neck, he tucks them down the front of my top, pinching buttons through their holes until they’re secured all the way to my throat.
I swallow, painfully aware of his closeness—his paused fingers.
The silence between us seems to draw its own breaths, bearing a full-bodied weight and pressing against me, demanding attention.
He shifts, hands landing on my shoulders like weights, and I dare a peek at his eyes ...
There’s a sincerity there—an openness that binds me with his attention, tending wounds that were beginning to turn septic.
I can’t help but revel in it.
Does he know he sustains me? Gives me everything and nothing all at once?
My next breath is nowhere near as satisfying as the last, as if nothing compares to the sips of him he feeds me.
Tortures me with.
“Orlaith,” he says, voice a little raspy. “Are you ready?”
No .
Beyond those doors, we cease to be alone.
Beyond those doors, what we have in this small, disencumbered moment becomes overburdened with the weight of reality.
Even so, I nod.
His hands fall and he spins, shielding me while he tugs the door open, the rusty hinges releasing a pained groan.
The rush of chilled air hits me.
Gray light spills from the expanding void as Rhordyn steps forward. I follow, leashed to his essence—a puppet to every shift of his booted feet.
Murmurings abate as we move into the room crammed full of restless energy. I glance around, taking in the rocky dome of space that’s much like a tomb, or at least how I picture tombs to be from the books I’ve read; a gloomy void, dull and dramatic.
A blade of muddy light shafts through a single open window cut from the peak of the dome, landing on the round stone table dominating the room. The light penetrates the rusty grate covering a hole in the middle of it, piercing down into the guts of who the hell knows what.
I hate this room—can feel the ghosts of past conversations caught in the crypt of it like they’re tangible things. And it’s cold.
Bone-jarring cold.
When I first cracked open that old wooden door to discover this place tucked into the castle’s heart, I backpedaled like my ass was on fire.
One peek, that’s all I needed to know this is not a happy space. It just ... bothered me. Still does, the feeling slightly overridden by my heart-cinching anxiety at the sheer amount of people seated around the huge, circular table, looking at me with barely veiled curiosity.
My skin pebbles, spine stiffening.
There must be over fifty pairs of eyes on me—one big circle of nope .
Rhordyn grips the back of one of the few spare chairs and lifts, walks it back a step, then places it on the ground again.
My gaze docks in his pewter eyes.
He motions for me to sit with a jerk of his chin, hands still gripping the seat. But my feet are mortared in place.
Chairs scraping across the ground only bother me a little, yet he must have noticed ...
“Milaje.”
His beautiful, carved lips shaping themselves around the nickname has me jerking into action.
The chair shocks me with its chill, threatening to tug all the remaining warmth from my body. I shiver, tucking my hands between my thighs to conserve heat.
Rhordyn takes a seat beside me, and conversations start again.
In an effort to avoid the furrowed brows and stolen glances nipping at me, I look to the hole in the ceiling; to the peek of bulging clouds it allots me.
There’s no glass to prevent the gentle mist of rain from entering.
I let my attention plunge to the halo of smooth stone circumnavigating the rusty gate in the center of the otherwise unrefined table, directly below the hole in the roof ...
I wonder where the water goes.
Shivering again, I feel the cold brush of Rhordyn’s stare and peer sidelong at him.
“What?” I whisper, and he releases me from his scrutiny, stare stabbing out across the table.
“Your lips are blue.”
“That’s because you dragged me into a cellar ,” I bite out, and he grunts in response.
The door opens behind me, offering the softest breath of warmth before it shuts again, and heavy footsteps preface the grind of wood against stone.
I grit my teeth, feeling a heat brush over my face, drawing my gaze to the man who just entered.
Twin cerulean orbs assess me in a way that feels far too intimate. Not a sexual sort of intimacy, but one that goes far, far deeper than that ...
The man from the garden.
He reclines in his chair like a cat lazing in the sun, draping a leg over the arm of it. The movement crumples his fine Southern threads—a tunic that accentuates his muscular physique and lends a drop of nonchalance to his already casual facade.
All the while, his stare doesn’t waver.
So, I study him with the same unwavering intensity.
He’s attractive, I’ll give him that, harboring a strong, exotic sort of masculinity I’m not familiar with.
I’ve seen Bahari males before—there are two others currently seated around the table at various intervals—but never one like him .
I’ve not seen skin such a perfect shade of bronze.
I can tell he thinks highly of himself by the way he holds his chin, his shoulders. The way he so boldly examines me, as if he couldn’t care less about the male by my side filling this space with his expanding essence.
A hand nails to my shoulder and I jerk, then relax into my seat as I tune into the calming presence behind me.
Baze .
Something about his touch makes me feel a little less hollow.