Chapter 5
RAANA
The prince had come with no interest in pleasantries, it seemed. He brandished a sack of coins, likely light and inconspicuous enough for her to barter with at market, and demanded she be ready to leave within the next twenty minutes.
Raana had remained there for a moment, still stunned. Her eyes wild. The thrum of magic spluttering. Her curse dead on her lips.
“Adrien—are you… Are you kidding me?” She scowled at the annoyingly good-looking, rugged man, worn from traveling through the mountains against the howling night winds and taking up most of the entryway.
She inclined her head, attempting to see over the shifter before opting to glance around his side.
What the hell was he doing here? Better yet, how was he even…
“Foolish of me to expect a warmer greeting,” Adrien remarked, amusement gilding his deep tone as he likely clocked her makeshift weapon. But Raana barely heard the words. She tore her eyes over his frame. Searching until—
There.
A bunch of ebony, white-speckled flowers stuck out of his jacket pocket.
Nightsweet, deceptively simple and beautiful, was eradicated from the mainland because of its effects when woven with twine and soaked in salt water.
A secret Helene had taught the wolf prince that any mortal—witch, wolf, or simple human—could wield against magic like Raana’s weaker protective spells.
Raana abandoned the poker and drove her hand straight into the folds of Adrien’s coat, running into the solid muscles of his stomach. She didn’t care at all that he was a prince… or an apex predator.
The flowers burned at her touch, and the tell-tale nausea hit her hard and fast, poison exterior, made more potent after the salt treatment, leeching into her skin.
With an agitated growl, she carried the bushel to the hearth and chucked it in.
The fire fell to embers before erupting into cold, black hissing flames, the wretched blooms incinerating and leaving nothing but a disarmingly pleasant scent wafting through the air.
Raana lifted her arm to block her nose, but her eyes remained open, watching as the darkness ebbed and bowed before becoming its rightful smoldering sun once again.
Click.
She twisted at the sound of the closing door and found Adrien had invited himself inside.
His keen eyes swept over the small expanse of the cottage as his boots creaked along the floorboards.
He followed the trail of water she’d left from the bathing room to her bedroom, but instead of falling back to the puddle gleaming behind him at the entryway, his gaze settled on her.
Raana noted the slightest uptick of his brow, intrigue passing over his face. His gaze meandered up her bare legs, over the thin black nightgown she’d pulled on that barely covered her body. And though nothing beneath it was a mystery to him anymore, Raana folded her arms over her chest.
She blamed her shiver on the… chill he’d let in from the summer night. Not on his close attention. Not the fact that one look at him always brought up memories of an evening not too many months ago.
When she wasn’t busy having horrible nightmares, sometimes she dreamt of him, remembered him. His mouth drawing over her skin, the strength, power, and presence of his body as he moved against her. In her.
One night of bliss and freedom in that ramshackle inn because she’d been too distracted to worry. By alcohol. By him. Her natural-born enemy, reluctant acquaintance, and one-time lover.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d stood by the cottage entryway, and they’d agreed they wouldn’t see each other ever again. She’d already gone through a few days of pathetically lamenting that decision before she got a hold of herself and accepted it.
So, what the hell was this about?
Before Raana could ask, Adrien said, “It looks different.” He pulled out what was typically her seat at the small, off-kilter dining table. As he sat, making the chair look frail beneath his long-limbed, muscle-bound frame, he dropped the sack of coins to the wood with a heavy, glorious clank.
Raana met his eyes, more golden than green in the reflection of the firelight. Somehow more… animal. Maybe she should’ve been more afraid of him. Wolves and witches had a bloody history, mainly over the territory within and surrounding these mountains.
“You know, bringing nightsweet into a witch’s home warrants a wicked dealing of fate by the Mother,” she said lowly, lifting her head. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was true, but she remembered the tales.
“Good thing you’re only half-witch, then. I guess I’m only half-fucked.” He followed the words with a challenging grin that tied her stomach in knots.
Spirits, why couldn’t Helene have struck a deal to aid in the healing of an ugly prince?
Raana bit the inside of her cheek and nodded towards the burlap. “What’s in there?”
He toyed with the bag’s strings. “A bit of silver. A bit of gold. One to spend, the other to hoard, lest others become suspicious of your sudden haul.”
Raana hummed, toeing the ground and doing her best to hide her excitement. Gold. She’d be good for months.
Adrien trained his eyes over the cottage again, inclining his head, and she knew it was because he was listening with that animal hearing of his. That, or trying to catch a scent. “Where’s Helene?”
She hated that the question felt like a jab in the gut. “Ehime… Auren… Elsun. I don’t know. Wherever and whoever will pay her more.”
Adrien’s brows furrowed. “I thought she never wanted to return to the mainland?”
Exactly how much had her “mother”—what Adrien had known Helene as until he’d learned the truth of Raana’s parentage a few months ago—disclosed to him during his healing sessions with her?
“It’s becoming more difficult to have a choice, I’m afraid. A lot has changed since you were last here. And to my knowledge, you’re entirely healed, so she wasn’t waiting around for your call or expecting you to fill her pockets.”
A wave of concern crossed his features. “Have you been alone since I brought you back?”
Raana forced herself not to stiffen. “Yes.”
“It’s been weeks.”
“And? Nothing wrong with having your own company.” At his questioning stare, Raana sighed. “You’re a wolf—a pack animal. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m human first.”
She waved him off and looked down into the fire again.
He already knew it all, why she kept to herself.
Knew bringing people in close risked exposing her secret, and exposing her secret put not only her life in danger but also the lives of anyone who heard it.
He was one of those very people. His friends were now those people, too, even though he didn’t know it.
Isla and Kai had sworn her to secrecy within those crystal-laden caverns.
The three of them were the only ones who would know Isla was healed by not just a witch, but fae-kissed magic.
Her eyes slid to her middle finger, to her iron ring, her portable prison, and then she turned for the kitchen. Being around him while drinking alcohol may have gotten her in trouble in the past, but tea… tea wouldn’t be a bad idea right now.
As Raana worked to get the kettle and track down her lavender and mint leaves, she heard the scraping of a chair against the hardwood flooring, followed by the heaviness of Adrien’s footsteps. She refused to turn as he neared, opting to take another bite of the cheese she’d left out instead.
A sudden warmth spread across her back as Adrien reached over her shoulder to take some for himself. She was so bare in this scrap of fabric that his hand, his skin, brushed against hers.
“Help yourself,” she said, cursing internally for sounding so breathless.
A low chuckle from him—that she felt in the subtle places they connected—had her body thrumming. “Such a gracious host.”
Raana was so aware of him that she even clocked the way his breath ruffled her hair.
It was aggravating how easily he could get under her skin.
It had to be that she’d been deprived of human contact for so long.
But even that realization didn’t change that she wanted him to press harder into her.
To be firm in the fact that he was there, that someone was, to warm the chill that hadn’t left since she’d woken from her nightmare, despite the fire and the bath.
When Adrien reached again, Raana turned, momentarily stunned by the rush as she took in his features for the brief second he wasn’t looking.
Long lashes, a straight nose, stunning eyes, a pillow-soft mouth, and a cut jaw graced with a shadow of stubble.
A Spirits-damn prince, yet she’d kissed along that jaw, traced that mouth with her tongue, and made him groan her name as she took him deep into—
Adrien met her gaze, and Raana shook herself back to reality, praying that he didn’t notice. A moment of pause said he may have, as did the way his eyes darkened, but he only told her, “You should get ready to go.”
Somehow, blissfully, that broke any delusion his closeness had brought about, dispelling the heat she didn’t need. “You think you can just show up at my house and demand I leave, and I’ll go with you? No questions asked? You never even said where we’re going.”
Adrien reached over again, but rather than food, he grabbed the kettle. Raana was left damn-near freezing as he moved away, circling her to go to the sink and fill it. “I’ll tell you on the way. Get packed. You’re wasting your ten minutes.”
Ten?
“You said twenty.”
“And we’ve wasted half of it.” He perched the kettle on the stovetop and glanced around the counter for whatever he could use to ignite the flame.
Raana rolled her eyes and turned to grab the spark rocks from where she’d left them by the altar dotted with candles, sage, and crystals. A small tribute to the Mother and Spirits. “If you don’t tell me, I don’t see any reason to go.”
“What’s this?”