Chapter 41
SAPHIRA
Kaeleron had never looked so dark.
“It’s nothing.” I tried to brush it off, tried to banish my dark thoughts and my horrible memories of that day, but he crowded me rather than letting it go, and something inside me broke, and it all just spilled out of me.
I told him what had happened before they had removed his mark, watching him grow darker and darker, my nerves rising with each word I spoke, sure that he was going to hunt down every male who had been at my inspection and murder them all.
And gods, I wouldn’t stop him.
I wanted them all to pay for humiliating me like that.
It was such a relief when I was done. I hadn’t told anyone about that horrible day, had kept it all bottled up inside me, and now it was out there, I felt better for it.
Even if Kaeleron looked as if he was plotting very imaginative ways to make the males pay.
They probably involved a vegetable peeler.
“They made me drink this tea,” I said and tensed when his head whipped up, his gaze clashing with mine. Nerves fluttered in my belly as I asked, “Is there any chance I might have been—”
“No.” He cupped my cheeks, his brow furrowing as he shook his head. “No. I take the tonic to prevent such things, like most males.”
I breathed a little easier upon hearing that.
But Kaeleron still looked dark.
Ready to kill.
“What are you thinking to make you look like that? Are you thinking about killing them all? With a peeler? Because I’m totally onboard with that.
I would sanction it, one hundred and ten percent.
” I curled my hands around the two edges of his tunic and smiled up at him, trying to lighten the mood again, wanting to go back to how nice it had felt to laze with him and run away from the world for a time.
“I am thinking I want to kill every single one of them for putting you through that.”
Just as I suspected.
“But that’s not all though, is it?” I thumbed the sewn edge of his tunic. “Your mind is probably running through a thousand what ifs just as mine had. What if I had been pregnant? What if we hadn’t taken precautions? What if these seelie had snuffed out a little seed of life within me?”
He growled low, darkness branching outwards from his eyes as they gained a crimson corona.
“Then I would do far worse than kill every single one of them. I would meticulously extricate their bones from their flesh one by one, savouring their screams as if they were the most beautiful of music. My shadows would cut them open with the precision of a master surgeon, and I would expend every drop of magic in my veins to ensure they remained conscious as I did it.”
I thrilled at that.
Loving how wrathful he was even when it was only hypothetical.
“I might do the same if I had the power,” I confessed, “but I don’t, so I would probably just watch you and top you up with whatever handy spell Vyr used on you to give you some of her strength back in Canada.”
His expression somehow managed to grow darker as he glared down at me. “That spell is not one you should ever use. It is unpredictable and hazardous, and you are only part fae. We do not know what effect it might have on you. It is too dangerous. It might take all of you.”
I hadn’t realised that was a possibility. No wonder he hadn’t looked pleased with his sister and had tried to resist her efforts to help him.
He sighed as he looked at the darkening sky. “I do not want to take you back.”
“I know. I don’t want to go either… but a spy’s gotta do what a spy’s gotta do.”
He grinned as he stooped and lifted me in one arm, my backside resting on it as I wrapped my arms around his neck and his hand pressed into my hip.
He swept us into a teleport that comforted me, the feel of the cool darkness swirling around me a balm and a sense of normal that I had needed, just as I had needed this time with him.
He set me down when we landed in the patch of blackened grass near where we had met, where Arianell was waiting and muttering about what he had done to her home as she moved around the area plucking shards of wood from the ground and piling them near where we stood.
“I feel it is a rather nice spot for a firepit,” she cheerily said and continued her work as Kaeleron and I stepped onto the grass.
I picked up my boots and tugged them on. Very slowly. I really didn’t want to leave.
When I straightened, Kaeleron came to me, his tunic now buttoned to conceal what was mine from the dragon female, as if he knew I would growl and snap fangs at her if she got to see his body. Mine. He was mine. Only I got to see him like that.
He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Be careful, my love.”
“I will.” I tipped my head back, drinking my fill of him, struggling to convince my feet to move. “I’ll head to the library tomorrow and see what I can find, and then I’ll report back to you.”
He grinned. “My new spymaster.”
I loved how he always tried to lighten the mood when mine was growing too dark, and smiled right back at him. “I’m quite enjoying being a spy… but don’t worry… I’ll be a very careful one.”
I still couldn’t convince my feet to move.
He pressed another kiss to my brow and then my mouth, and breathed against my lips, “Go. I will speak with the dragon, and read my letters, and will be entertained enough. I vow I shall not leave this spot.”
I quickly kissed him again and then ran for the edge of the woods, not trusting myself to walk. I would only end up turning back to him.
When I neared the edge of the forest, I teleported to one of the spots I had scouted in town, and checked my reflection in a window.
My silver-white hair was about as tidy as I could get it, pulled back in a neat braid, and my dress was a little rumpled but no worse than they often looked at the end of a long day of sitting and standing and moving around.
I strolled through the lower city, admiring the goods in the store windows as the lamps were lit, trying and failing not to think about how Kaeleron had reacted to my scars, or the danger he was in by just being in this court, or how his court would suffer if he was captured.
I stopped paying attention to the shops as my mind filled with him.
I didn’t notice him until it was too late.
“Hello, dearest sister,” Lorien drawled.
I drew up short, my gaze flicking to him where he leaned against the wall of one of the half-timber buildings at the end of the avenue I had been walking, close to the main thoroughfare that encircled the castle walls.
His pristine gold and white tunic stretched across his shoulders as he leaned there, his arms folded and legs crossed at the ankle.
“I’d really appreciate it if you don’t call me that,” I bit out. “The thought we share any DNA makes me want to vomit.”
I went to pass him.
He stepped in front of me, his arms falling to his sides, his cold blue gaze raking over me from head to toe, each sweep of it cranking me tighter and increasing my need to get past him and far, far away from him. In case he noticed something. In case I gave away the fact that Kaeleron was here.
I needed to be more careful, more aware of my surroundings now that he was here. I couldn’t risk slipping up and making his presence known to anyone in this court.
Lorien gracefully lifted his hand and turned it over, lowering it so he was pointed at my skirts. “You have a stain.”
Panic sank icy talons into my chest and I pulled at my golden dress, looking for it, sure he was lying and trying to rattle me.
But sure enough, there on the skirt of my dress was a grass stain.
“I fell.” I let my skirts fall again and tried to get around him, but he sidestepped into my path.
He studied me again, a grin blooming on his face as I kept trying to pass him and he kept blocking me. Frustration mounted, blending with the fear I had already slipped up as we kept up our irritating dance, Lorien refusing to get out of my way.
“You fell?” He didn’t believe me. It was right there in that vicious glint that warmed his cold eyes.
“I fell. I tripped on this stupid dress when I was on my walk and fell in the grass. It’s very easy to do. Maybe try wearing one sometime and you’ll see.” I tried to pass him and he moved at an angle this time, so I bumped into him.
He chuckled as I pushed him back, shoving him in the chest, and I reached for my dagger as soon as there was an inch of space between us.
“You are very defensive for someone who merely fell.” Lorien’s grin widened to flash his straight white teeth. “Your appearance looks less like you tripped and more like you had a little tumble in the grass. Have we been visiting the Pleasure District, sister?”
“Eww. To both your suggestion I need to visit a whorehouse to get laid and to the fact you keep calling me sister.” I drew my dagger and pointed it at him. “Now, are you going to get out of my way, or am I going to have to stab you?”
This wasn’t exactly being careful as I had promised Kaeleron, but I doubted Lorien would do anything to me here, where so many people were watching us as they passed.
“There is no shame in visiting the Pleasure District. I am just off there myself. I find it helps me keep a clear head.” Every word that left his lips made me want to stab him a little more.
“Please stop talking. I don’t want to picture you like that. I don’t want to picture you at all.” I waved him away with my dagger. “Get out of my way. Go do… whatever disgusting things you like doing.”
He chuckled. “Uncle says our bloodline has dark tastes. Do you not find that to be true? I am sure you do. I am sure that is why you enjoyed yourself while that unseelie was fucking you raw.”
I shoved my dagger under his chin, the tip poised to bite into the soft underside of his jaw as my heart pounded and my head reeled, and I had to remind myself that everyone was speaking about what I had apparently been through in the Shadow Court.
He didn’t know about Kaeleron. He didn’t know he was here and that we had just been together.
“One more word about what happened to me, and I will make sure you can no longer speak.” I lifted the blade, almost cutting him.
The bastard just grinned at me, as if he knew I wouldn’t go through with that threat.
But then he backed off, towards the main thoroughfare, and gracefully bowed his head. “I take my leave then.”
“Good. Fuck off.” I stormed past him, heading for the gate to the highborn houses. “And if you keep following me, I will kill you, brother.”
My heart didn’t slow until I was almost at the main gate of the castle, and my hands kept shaking even then, trembling as I finally sheathed my dagger.
I had to be more careful.
It wasn’t just my life I risked now.
It was Kaeleron’s.
And the entire Shadow Court.