Chapter 23
“Where are we going?” I pulled free of Ace’s grip. “Your warm bed is that way.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of Perga.
Ace reached out for my hand and twined his fingers with mine. “Something Sley said.”
“Sley? What made you think of her?”
“Well, not so much what she said as something she had. That tapestry.” He pulled me forward. “We need to go to Vitor.”
“Vitor?” Gales, I sounded like a halfwit.
“That flirty loverboy from your brother’s army knew about Phaantasia. He said he was from Vitor, didn’t he?”
“He said they hadn’t destroyed everything about Phaantasia like Wast.”
Ace nodded. “I don’t think that tapestry showed a random fae woman. I think that’s Queen Mab. We need to go to Vitor.”
“Tonight?”
His lips quirked up in the corners. “There’s a hunting lodge ahead. We’ll stop there and then cut through the forest. We can be there in a few days.”
I knew very well where the hunting lodge was. I patrolled these woods. It wasn’t really a hunting lodge. It was more of an emergency shelter if caught out in the elements and it was too late, or the weather was too severe to make it to Perga or Wast.
Vitor usually took a week to travel to by road, but Ace was right. If we cut through the forest, we could halve the time. It was still a long time to be away from Nala.
I remained still on the path and let the wind whip around me as the rain pelted my skin. Ace turned fully toward me and sighed.
“If I promise I can make the bed warm, will you stop fighting me on this?” Ace arched a dark eyebrow.
My body instantly heated with the promise in his words. “Gales.”
He chuckled and pulled me along the path. But, in all honesty, there was little pulling now. He’d already convinced me to go along with the plan. “What about Nala?”
“She’s with a healer and she’s too sick to come with us. Maybe she’ll be better by the time we return. Maybe we’ll learn something about familiars that can help her.”
The rain was really coming down now, plastering my hair to my face. I had slid the map from O’Reily’s cabin back in my pocket before we left. Hopefully, the leather would protect it long enough to make it to the shelter.
My mind drifted back to the tapestry in Sley’s cabin.
I’d stared at it countless of times, often with a glass of wine in my hand.
I always felt drawn to it, but the tapestry didn’t have any words on it.
No secrets inscribed along the cloth. “What was it about the tapestry that made you think about Queen Mab?”
“It was the way the artist depicted the woman,” Ace said. “Something about her expression like she knew something King Oberon didn’t. Now we know that thing was you and your brother.”
“I really love it when you refer to me as a thing. Really does it for me. Keep this up and you’re going to find that bed very, very cold.”
He shook his head, a grin spreading across his face as he continued to forge forward on the path.
“That tapestry couldn’t be that old. That means someone in Vitor knows the truth or at least suspects it.
They don’t have Oberon ruling the city—maybe some of the history wasn’t erased.
We should find out as much as we can before going to the queen. If we go to the queen.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand. The war ended generations ago. The tapestry shows the final battle. How can I be Queen Mab’s daughter?”
Ace paused for a moment, visibly collecting his thoughts. “Maybe she survived and hid and had you later. I really don’t know, Mouse. But let’s try to find some answers.”
I nodded and focused on the path in front of us as it became more muddy and slippery.
We forged ahead, navigating the forest until we reached the small hunter’s lodge.
Someone had a perverse sense of humour calling it a lodge.
It was a one room, wooden shack with a covered stack of logs outside.
The last person to use the shelter hadn’t restocked the wood pile, so we had limited supplies.
We stumbled into the stark cabin, drenched to the bone and shaking from the cold. I peeled off layer after layer, letting the clothing fall in a pile on the floor.
Ace closed the door behind us and stood near the entrance, his gaze scanning my body.
I let the last of my clothes drop to the floor.
His gaze darkened but instead of closing the distance between us and warming me up, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
“What?”
“Just wondering if you’re going to demand I bow before you.”
“Demand?” Cold rain continued to drip down my body, pebbling my chilled skin. I lifted an eyebrow and stepped toward him. “Are you saying you don’t want to go down on your knees before me?”
His lips quirked. “Demand might’ve been too strong a word.”
“Mmm.” I took another step. “You would be lucky if I permit you.”
His gaze flashed. Now that I knew he housed a wolf inside, I saw the feral animal streak across his gaze.
“That seems like an abuse of power,” he said.
“The only abuse of power is you withholding your heat.” I jabbed my finger into his chest. “I’m standing naked and cold in front of you, and you haven’t done anything about it.”
“You’re also wet.”
“That seems to be a perpetual problem around you.” I lifted my chin. “Are you going to do anything about it?”
He did in fact do something about it. Multiple times.