Chapter 24 A Feast for One
A Feast for One
The Lovers card represents not only love but duality, choices, lust, and trust.
WE’RE SHOWN A HALLWAY of bedrooms, ending with a beautiful, two-story apartment for Draven, reserved for royal guests.
The living room contains a large wall of windows that looks down upon the busy citadel below and gives a view of the cavernous kingdom beyond.
Everything is accentuated by organic elements, as though carved from nature—light wooden floors, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows, soft earth-toned fabrics, and rounded walls.
The queen wears a bland but polite smile as Draven’s guards move into the room, searching through it, as though looking for hidden traps. Draven keeps his hands in his pockets.
“I apologize again for my husband’s tone,” the queen says.
Draven just nods, the embodiment of nonchalance, though a hint of crimson touches his eyes. But I can’t help but admire her quiet authority and confidence, so in contrast to her husband.
“I’ll send attendants before sunset to guide you to the feast. Please make yourselves at home in the meantime.”
“Could we receive a map of where the zenith is located?” Draven drawls. “Just in case we decide to leave sooner than expected.” The bite in his tone is unmistakable.
I pinch his arm. The king was an ass but it’s no excuse for Draven to take it out on her. I’ve never tolerated punishing women for the behavior of the men around them. She seems to notice my silent reprimand, the tension of her puckered forehead softening as she looks between us.
“I can arrange for you all to collect the zenith tomorrow, instead of in a few days,” she allows.
Draven grunts an acknowledgment.
The queen smiles at me and then leaves us.
Scorpius turns to Draven, running a hand through his blond hair, his body wire-tight. He leans forward. “Their king needs to watch his tone.”
“You going to teach him?” Fable cleans her nails with a small knife.
“Let me, and I will.” Scorpius doesn’t take his eyes off Draven.
Zara and Malik are on the other side of the room, whispering in a way that reminds me of an assured cat ignoring an eager puppy.
“You’re baited too easily. I’m more interested in what other lies he’s gotten so far from the seraphs, not a pissing contest.” Draven folds his arms. “He may have insulted changelings and myself, but the last thing we need is an elf-seraph alliance. We need them on our side if Altair decides to start a war, so for now we play nice.”
Malik folds his arms across his broad chest and brings up, “Did anyone else catch that the drake sounded like a current problem? Instead of a resolved one?”
“All clear!” Commander Soto declares from upstairs where I glimpse the main bedroom and a bathroom. Soto trots downstairs, his salt-and-pepper hair pulled up in a warrior’s knot. “There’s one passage down here behind a portrait, but we’ve closed it off. No other listening spy-ways.”
I doubt that, but Draven looks unruffled. I decide to do my own sweep later.
“Thank you, Commander Soto.” He dismisses the guards, who stream out of the apartment.
“If we’re going to collect the zenith tomorrow, does that mean our timetable is moving up?” Fable looks at her nails, extending before retracting them, the tattoo of the Hanged Man tarot card catching the light across the back of her hand.
“No, and speaking of time.” Draven nods to her, some silent signal, and she rolls her shoulders, summoning her Major Arcana card.
The room warps a bit and the air ripples.
Dust motes are trapped as if in amber glass, a bat paused mid-flight outside our window.
“This will allow us to speak a bit more plainly, should any elven ears be lingering outside. To any outsider beyond Fable’s grasp, these minutes will turn to a mere second. ”
“It’s incredible.” I poke a fly frozen mid-flight and it merely slides to where I’ve moved it. Fable rubs her temple.
“Less of that please,” she says.
“We’re here for more than just zenith.” Draven says, “Malik, Fable, I need information on two humans, possibly turned changelings, matching these descriptions. If we find them, I want to be alerted immediately.” He passes Fable the paper first and she reads it as intently as any bounty hunter.
It’s my brother’s and mother’s descriptions, the ones I gave Draven before we left.
“I also need to find leverage for securing them. Blackmail of any variety will do.” He looks their groups over.
“Zara and Scorpius, you’re on blackmail duty. ”
I note he doesn’t elaborate on my family’s relation to me.
And while their Arcanas—illusions, shapeshifting, invisibility, and the control of time—give them a chance of finding them … I’d still prefer if I could search myself.
If they’re within these borders, we’ll have an idea by dinner. The elven king will have all his eyes on us, Rune. Remember, you’re the Forsaken One. His lips quirk.
Draven’s hand bumps mine, and then he pulls it close, interlocking our fingers.
What about the Arcadian Artifacts? My eyes settle on his.
The drake’s lair can wait. He looks me over, those eyes heating. You are more important, Rune.
I DO MY OWN thorough search of the apartment, finding a couple of spy holes in the bedroom and living room, and block them up before returning to the kitchen and finding one more false wall near the peninsula.
Draven watches me work, leaning against a counter, his elbows propping him up as he watches me sidelong.
“I’ll need to speak to Commander Soto,” Draven muses. “That’s the third one he missed.”
“We can’t all have my training,” I reply over my shoulder.
The others left hours ago. This has kept me busy, but I hate being idle while they’re out there searching for the very thing I was Selected for.
I rifle beneath the stone countertop until I find a small opening that presses inward.
The wall beside him cracks open, barely bigger than a pantry.
I step inside it, but like the others it’s merely a small space for someone to stand and spy from, with no back exits like the ones Soto found.
Enough for a person to fit. Or two people.
The door closes behind me, Draven sidling next to me.
“Ugh, imagine standing in something like this all day,” he says. The scent of him is overpowering in this tight space. His body presses against mine to fit us both, his hair tickling my face as he adjusts.
“I don’t have to imagine it. I’ve been stuck in worse.”
“That’s right.” Those eyes are on me, and the space feels molded to our bodies now. He leans over me, forearm resting on the wall behind me. “Sometimes I forget just how formidable you are.”
“Be glad I’m on your side. I’ll keep you safe, Princeling.” Our chests are pressing against each other, and he leans down, lips nearly against my neck.
“Rune, you are by far the biggest danger to me.” His breaths are heavy, wanton.
All thoughts fly from my head as my hands rake up his sides, feeling the muscles beneath his finely tailored clothes.
He tenses, but doesn’t move away. “You could stab me in the back, and I’d probably beg you for more.”
“Everyone knows the quickest way to the heart is between these two ribs.” I slide my finger between them, and he bites down on his smile. “Why are we stuck in here when we have that big old bed upstairs?”
Draven grabs my hand and leads me out and up to the bedroom. I take in the large bed with a grin, but when I look at Draven, all emotion has been wiped from his face.
Last night’s party, the feel of his skin on mine, my forced betrayal, all unfortunately fresh on both our minds.
My eyes travel over him, then the bed. We’re barely a step away from each other, when he hisses, “Should I be looking for assassins in the shadows?” He looks down at me, hunger and wariness warring in his eyes.
“You have to know I wouldn’t have gone along with that—”
“If your friends weren’t at risk,” he fills in, bored. Yet he waits, as though he wants more. His jaw flexes, as if he’s trying to clamp down the words, but he still says, “Did you actually want me?”
Heat creeps up my chest, burning up my throat until the words crack like a log giving way in a bonfire. “I’m not that good of an actor, Draven. My body wasn’t lying.”
“So, it’s just your body that wants this.” He moves closer to me, his hooked finger caressing up my throat, stopping under my chin as he tilts it up, so I look at him. Is that all he wants?
The truth is I don’t know what I want from him. At first it was the power and protection he’s promised. His throne will allow me to find justice, my family. All my desires and motivations wrapped up in him.
But it’s more complicated than just that. What I feel for him is beyond what brought me here; it grows every day, feeding on everything he gives. A fire that consumes all, burns for everything.
And I think we both know it.
I don’t know what I want from him. I just know I want … him.
“Would you be satisfied with so little of me?” I ask, not ready to answer what is building between us.
Not ready to let myself be vulnerable or have what little is left of my heart be torn from its strings again.
There’s a good chance this will end in disaster; believing anything else seems too naive.
But we are bound together, quite literally, by our magic, by the claim, too. Maybe this gambit works only if we both just break our fucking pride and put our fate in the gods’ hands?
Draven searches my eyes, his breaths ragged.
“I’d beg on my knees just to get that much of you,” he breathes.
This promises annihilation.
“Then beg,” I whisper.