37
Aire
As I escorted Aspen to her cabin, we filled the excruciating silence. I spoke of the knights I had felled and the oak’s roots taking their bodies underground. Much to our surprise, the tree had allied with us.
In return, her leaden voice tallied the details of the explosion, including her conclusion about Reaper’s Fest and how the impending revels expedited her actions.
Despite my misgivings about Lyrik, the man supplied Aspen with an effective means to dismantle the armory tent without sacrificing the natural environment.
From her pocket, she withdrew the bottle of fluid from Rhys’s pavilion.
After examining the mixture, I contributed a hypothesis.
The concoction matched a fertility drug Jeryn had shown us in the rainforest, which brought to mind the roundtable following my return to the castle, when Briar mentioned Rhys’s attempts to resume marital relations with Giselle.
Although our clan had dismissed this, it resurrected Jeryn and Poet’s suspicion that Rhys kept one of his heirs a secret.
Illegitimacy was hardly controversial in the lifespan of Royals, provided they married for duty instead of love. Spring, Autumn, and Winter defied that notion. But the tradition of arranged nuptials was certainly the case for Summer.
That aside, the context of any potential dalliance between Rhys and someone other than his wife was where things got complicated.
Aspen had been right to confiscate the vessel. Something about this seemed linked. Why else would Rhys appeal to Giselle for sex? In his position, it only made sense if he suffered from abstinence or required another heir.
His firstborn expressed little interest in the throne.
And if a so-called bastard existed—a person with ambiguous but shocking origins that would tarnish the last vestiges of Rhys’s status—it might motivate His Majesty to supersede this unknown figure, in case they ever sought a claim to their birthright.
Pausing beside Aspen’s cabin door, we idled in the glow of a million pigmented leaves. The object of my affection draped her tongue across her mouth, the visual painful to behold. What I wouldn’t give to kiss her, carry her inside, and wrap her in my arms.
I fisted my hands behind my back. “I wish you had come to me.”
Contrition swept across her features, her gaze softening on mine. “You keep everyone else safe. But who does the same for you?”
My chest clenched. My brethren and the clan guarded my back, but that was different.
She interpreted my silence. “I would do it again.”
“So would I,” I rasped.
Her quest. My rescue. The tower.
For devil’s sake, I should leave before more foolish desires piled on my lips.
Reject me. Claim me.
Ask me to stay. Beg me to leave.
Aspen’s gaze darted to my mouth, then crawled to my eyes. “Goodnight.”
Focus. Discipline.
“Goodnight,” I husked.
My fingers itched to take her hand, kiss her knuckles, and bow my head like a gentleman. Yet tonight, I’d been no such thing, and I forfeited any right to make further contact.
Only eternal lovers did such things.
***
Days and nights passed in a flurry of activity. Try as I might—and I did fucking try—memories took up residence in my head, that frenzied eventide in the woods dominating my thoughts like a recurring dream.
Those luscious tits filling my hands, her legs hooking around my hectic waist, that soaked pussy rippling around my cock.
Her head thrown back in primitive ecstasy, that voice shrieking to the treetops, and the delirium of watching her come.
The liquid flux of Aspen’s climax running down to my balls, the pulsating ripple of her cunt, and her pleasure ringing through the woods while I fucked every sound from those fierce lungs.
The fury. The surrender. The passion.
Never before had it been like that with another. Each dusk, I cursed the Almighty Seasons. Perspiration leaked down my throat, heat flooded my sac, and my dick stood higher than a flag post as I recalled the taste, sound, and feel of her.
So be it. Given the choice, I would not plead for the fantasies to stop. Not when that was all I’d ever have.
We summarized our excursions to Nicu, excluding that hour of undomesticated copulation. In turn, my liege offered his own ideas and repeated everything verbatim that Jeryn ever said about his medical inventory.
Next came Lyrik. Given his voluntary participation in Aspen’s errand, my trust in the man expanded gradually, enough that I had no objections to sharing the contents of Rhys’s elixir.
As a precaution, we omitted to whom the mixture belonged. Keeping Lyrik in the dark over Rhys’s proximity felt necessary, considering we still didn’t know the man well enough.
Some details could be imparted. But not all.
Standing in his alchemy chamber, the rogue surveyed the glass vessel in Aspen’s hand. “You found this where?”
“The armory tent,” she replied smoothly. “I must have missed it the first time.”
“Odd thing, stashing a cocktail with a bunch of farming tools masquerading as murder weapons.”
“That’s why I took it.”
Leaning against the doorway, I folded my arms. “We wondered if it might be an explosive.”
“Call me flattered,” Lyrik drawled. “Except I know ammunition when I see it. Looks to me like this is something you’d find in an apothecary. Probably a good time to tell you I’m no doctor.”
“And it probably helps to point out you don’t need to be,” Aspen countered. “So long as you have a soft spot for science.”
“Meh. Guess that’ll do. Hand it over.”
Sunrays streamed into the room, colorful glass from dozens of beakers tossing a kaleidoscope of hues through the space. While rotating the object, Lyrik asked, “So how’d the light show work out?”
I grunted. “It was hardly a light show.”
Aspen pursed her lips in amusement. “I wager you know how it went.”
“Blew shit up, did it?” he inquired while dispensing a pearl of oily liquid into the bottle. “Good to know I’m a genius.”
“Or a psychopath.”
“Now you’re really just flattering me.”
His smug lips flattened as the combination activated the vessel’s contents, the blend frothing to the rim.
Frowning, Lyrik pressed a stopper onto the glass.
“Yeah, it’s got reproductive properties.
The quality kind too. Only nobles and Royalty would be able to afford this kind of booty, but I’d verify this with your Winter King. ”
No sarcasm. No deceit.
I stood corrected. Lyrik might be a swaggering motherfucker, but he treated these substances with respect, competence, and a professionalism I’d been ignorant to expect. On that front, I was grateful to be wrong.
***
Another trip to monitor the troop followed without incident. Because Aspen succeeded in destroying the knights’ makeshift weapons, as well as their cache of Summer tinder, the unit was forced to relocate out of the oak’s range. This liberated the tree from its captivity.
A few miles north of their original hub, the soldiers hunkered down to nurse their injuries.
After predicting and then confirming this move, we made haste to scribe a letter with Nicu, then dispatched it to the clan with a messenger hawk.
It would take time for the avian to reach the castle, then additional time for Poet and Briar to enact a plan and set out for the enclave.
In the interim, I ran laps across the crossways and maintained fighting drills. Often, I encouraged Nicu to participate, to further his training. Aspen elected to practice on her own or separately with my liege, and the enclave’s architecture inspired her to sketch new weapon designs.
As a unit, we earned our keep in The Lost Treehouses. If this complex welcomed us, we would repay its hospitality by restoring the architecture.
For Nicu’s part, he strove to acclimate himself to the layout, from the multi-level platforms to the minute details.
I warned Lyrik about keeping each item in the same location, then forsook my own advice.
In the communal kitchen, I left a pair of shears where a mound of cleaning cloths had originally been stacked.
Not registering the distinction, Nicu grabbed the sharp tool, misidentifying it and intending to wipe his mouth with the blade’s edge.
Lyrik’s expression tightened. His hand shot out before mine or Aspen’s could, plucking the offensive item from Nicu, trading the shears with a textile so quickly my liege didn’t notice.
From across the island, our gazes halted on the man. Aspen nodded to him, and I inclined my head in gratitude.
At once, the alarm branding his features vanished. Feigning nonchalance, the alchemist lifted one shoulder, as if to say, “It’s no big deal.”
I disagreed. He paid attention to Nicu and acted swiftly. That was no small deed.
The next afternoon, our opinion of the cocksucker unfortunately changed once again during a communal walk.
At one point, Nicu stalled, unable to decipher between a picturesque lodge and an overpass.
Bafflement twisted his features when Lyrik sighed and walked on as if he couldn’t be bothered, thus cutting short our excursion.
Aspen seethed. “I’ve got an axe with his name on it.”
However, Nicu’s astonishment faded. Offense and something omnipotent rippled across his visage, polishing it with a determination luster. Refusing to be so easily disregarded, his tenor hardened into an unbreakable substance.
“No,” Nicu grated. “He’s mine.”
And because his temper could rise as quickly as his enthusiasm, my liege stormed after the ruffian. “Turn and face me!”
Partway down the mossy boardwalk, Lyrik spun with a grimace. “Did you just give me a fucking order?”
Nose-to-nose, they spewed muffled words. From beside Aspen, I balled my fists and prowled forward.
“Don’t.” Aspen grabbed my shoulder. “You heard Nicu.”