Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Crymson
“You think they’re . . . here?” Thorn asks as every male I’ve ever met in this realm follow me through the castle in nothing more than Christian’s white button-down.
Underwear: that’d be great right now.
I push open my bedchamber doors, and one by one, they all file in behind me. I try not to roll my eyes at them as I pull open the sleek wooden wardrobe and start pushing hangers back and forth.
“Definitely,” Carver says, and he’s being so serious right now, it’s scary.
“How do you know?” Seven asks curiously, but his gaze pulls to me like a magnet the moment the white button-down falls to the floor.
I smile at him, and his boyish smile sinks right into me with a flutter of energy washing through my stomach.
“Hey, focus!” Rorrick snaps. “Give ’er some fuckin’ privacy.” He pushes his hands down his lean hips hard like he’s the only asshole in the room that hasn’t side-eyed the curve of my ass in the last three seconds.
Ope, never mind. Chivalry is in fact dead.
I lift my brows at Rorrick’s straying glance, and though he doesn’t blush, he shyly looks away. With a wet rag, I continue wiping away the mess of blood that covers far too much of my body. It feels like an endless task that will never be finished. but I try my best.
“I can feel her,” Carver finally replies absently. He frowns. “So other. Decaying. Strange.” Nothing any weirder than he often says.
He leans lazily against the frame of the open door, but when I meet his gaze while pulling a white sundress up my thighs, he doesn’t dare look away, challenging me with the heat of his eyes.
“Are you sure you should get dressed?” he interrupts as if my nudity is negotiable.
“Well, you’re fairly certain a small army of the Dead is no longer in the burned border but in the Fae Realm for what I’m guessing is the first time. I kinda think I should wear clothes for that occasion.” I lift my hands in a half shrug at him.
“No,” he says with a smile and an adamant shake of his head.
“Where’s Aerin?” Thorn asks with heavy concern lacing his words.
“He went on a walk with Delilah,” Christian answers, and thunder rumbles through the castle walls.
The two fae eye the Vampire Prince and he glares right back.
With that single statement, the room is full of too much testosterone and distrust once again.
They don’t trust the Vampire Princess. Or her brother.
Or his friends. Jesus. He just shared me in a garden with Carver, but that bonding experience is long forgotten, obviously.
Apparently, trust is earned in the Fae Realm. Not fucked.