Chapter 5 #3
Fox looks pleased when he opens the door to let me in, but soon I can’t help but notice that he’s distracted.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, drawing my head back from his throat.
He shakes his head. “No.”
I quirk an eyebrow, and climb off his lap. He reaches for my hand and tries to pull me back. “Wait.”
“I’m not going anywhere, I’m just getting more creative. Wouldn’t want you to be bored.”
He rolls his eyes, and I can practically hear his silent reply. “You know you’re the furthest fucking thing from boring.”
Smirking, I sink to my knees in front of him and run my hands up his thighs to his half-open waistband. His pale eyes dilate, turning dark as he looks down at me.
I work the buttons of his trousers open one by one. His breath catches as I free his cock, then drag my tongue up the length and around the tip.
I wrap my fingers around him, taking him into my mouth as far as I can. His hands find my hair, tangling in it as his breath catches again.
“You shouldn’t be making weather spells,” Fox blurts out.
“Hmmm?”
“You shouldn’t be making weather spells,” he repeats more urgently.
My head is fuzzy with lust, and I take a moment to realize what he’s talking about. After a moment, I draw my head back and look up, releasing his cock from my mouth with a wet pop. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
A few days ago, Daemon called a council meeting to talk about the offer from the king of Hydratta.
During the meeting, it came up that I’ve been working on creating a spell to bring more rain to our crops.
Vernallis is booming, and we need the farms to produce more this year to keep all the citizens fed.
It’s important…and not what I want to be thinking about right now.
“It’s dangerous,” Fox insists, looking extremely serious.
“Sorry, but you hate all magic, so forgive me if I don’t take your opinion too seriously on this.”
He scowls. “You’re playing with the balance of nature.”
“I’m trying to play with you, but you’re ignoring some of my best work.” I lick my lips suggestively. “Can we focus, please?”
He still looks grumpy, but huffs and threads his large hand through my hair, pushing my face back down into his lap.
In the fall, things continue to change. As Daemon and Alix’s mission to improve the kingdom keeps on growing, so too has the army.
We have to build a second barracks to house all the new soldiers and Fox is forced to appoint several of the original soldiers as commanders because the work of training is too much for one person to do anymore.
Jett is back home more often now, and he’s found himself responsible for caring for the kingdom’s first official prisoner—a human pirate named Connell.
Most different of all, Kastian and Odessa are gone. Having finally realized they are meant for each other, they now live six months out of the year on their ship traveling around the continent. They’ll be back in the winter, just in time for Daemon and Alix’s wedding.
“You need to come get your rabbit,” Fox says one morning over breakfast.
I lower my glass of juice back to the table, licking my lips. “What about Celestina?”
He narrows his eyes. “The rabbit can’t stay in the barracks anymore. You need to do something with it.”
“Her name is Celestina, not ‘your rabbit,’ and I think she’s happy in the barracks. All the soldiers like her.”
“Soldiers don’t need pets,” he snaps. “Come get her, or I’m going to put her back in the garden where she belongs.”
I scoff. “I doubt that.”
“Try me.”
I ignore him and go back to eating my breakfast, only to feel eyes on the side of my head. I look up, and find that the entire table is staring at us. I put my fork down. “What?”
Daemon and Alix just blink in confusion, while a grin spreads across Jett’s face, his black eyes flicking rapidly back and forth between Fox and I.
Finally, I realize the issue: I’m getting fairly used to Fox initiating conversation with me, but to everyone else, he still hardly ever talks.
This conversation is odd, to say the least.
“Right. Well I have a lot of work to do,” I say briskly, standing up from the table. “I’ll go check on Celestina later. Have a nice rest of your breakfast, everyone.”
That evening, I walk down to the barracks to negotiate Celestina’s housing agreement, but Fox and I never get around to talking about it.
He doesn’t put her back in the garden.
Only a week later, everything starts to fall apart.
In the morning, I join the soldiers for training. It’s the first time I’ve participated in several weeks, so my muscles are sore as I swing my sword. Despite my neglecting practice, I still manage to take down three soldiers all on my own—each of whom outweighs me by at least 100lbs.
Fox barely acknowledges it except to tell his soldiers to pull their heads out of their asses, but I feel his eyes on me.
I know his mannerisms well enough by now that a single look is all it takes, and I’m practically giddy to go down to the barracks later.
I want to hear what a good job I did, and get rewarded with one of the earth-shattering orgasms I’ve come to expect.
Except when I let myself into Fox’s room around midnight, I find it empty.
I glance at the clock on the wall just to double-check the time and frown.
It’s definitely past the time when he’d usually be here, and I thought he’d be expecting me after the heated look he gave me earlier.
Then again, Jett just got back from a visit to Solistine, and sometimes he and Fox go down to the tavern in the village.
That’s probably where he is. I suppose I could wait for him to come back.
Crossing the room to Fox’s bed, I pick at the hem of my long t-shirt.
I’ve grown really fond of t-shirts instead of nightgowns. One of the shirts that Alix gave me last year says HELLO KITTY next to a picture of a cat. I liked it so much that I made more, and tonight I’m wearing one of my favorites. It says: GOODDAY EUGENE above an embroidered squirrel.
Figuring that will make things faster when he does eventually get back, I strip off my Eugene shirt and leave it folded on the nightstand, then I climb into Fox’s bed to wait.
The room is dark except for the light of the full moon shining through the window onto the floor, and I’m surprised when I yawn, feeling unusually sleepy.
I pull his blankets up to my chin, breathing in the scent of pine and leather and something musky that makes my stomach flutter. My eyelids grow heavy, the weight of the day’s training settling into my muscles, and the room blurs at the edges as I sink deeper into his mattress.
“Aurelia?” Fox’s voice comes from very far away. “Aurelia!”
I open my eyes and immediately know something isn’t right. It’s bright in here.
I blink away sleep and confusion, and glance out the window, only to reel back. Suddenly, I’m wide awake. It’s daylight—late morning by the look of the sky—and what the hell am I still doing here?
“Aurelia?” Fox asks again.
I turn to him, taking him in for the first time. He’s clearly just walked in and is dressed in boots and riding trousers, his shirt unbuttoned and askew as if he just threw it on. There’s mud on his trousers and his boots, and his hair is a mess, with a couple of sticks and leaves in it.
I sit up, alarmed, and the sheet falls down to my waist. Fox’s eyes immediately land on my chest, but I pull the blanket back up, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “Did you just get back?”
“Yes,” he says slowly. “Have you been here all night?”
Oh Gods… my ears buzz with mortification as heat floods my cheeks.
Oh, Gods!
I spent the entire night in his bed while he was…elsewhere.
Which is completely fine—he owes me nothing, can do whatever he pleases—but I waited for him like some lovesick idiot. Gods, what was I thinking?
I keep the sheet pressed to my chest as I jump up and spin in a circle, looking for wherever I put my clothes.
Fox says nothing, but looks helpless as he picks up my GOODDAY EUGENE shirt and passes it to me.
“Thanks,” I hiss, snatching it from him and pulling it over my head as I stride to the door. “Ugh, don’t look at me like that. Can we please pretend this never happened? I’m just going to go and—”
“Aurelia!” Fox interrupts.
I freeze with my hand on the doorknob. “Yes?”
“It’s morning. Everyone is out…you need to be careful if you don’t want anyone to see you.”
My face flames hotter, and a fresh wave of horror washes over me. I think I’m going to be sick.