Chapter 8 The Courts of Daemonium #3
She stood up, brushing her skirts down and pulling stray bits of straw out of her hair. “I’m sorry, I have had a lot going on lately.”
“Aye, the woes of having all the gentlemen falling at your feet?”
She smacked his chest in response. He laughed at her as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head, walking them out of the barn and into the night.
“Fortunately,” she let out a sigh, “I have not had any visitors for a few weeks now, and I do not suspect I will get any more any time soon. My father tells me I am too intimidating.”
“Well, you are a terrifying woman. They should know by now you’d eat them alive if they tried to make you theirs.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Perhaps they have just given up altogether. Perhaps they have agreed not to try to tame me any longer.”
“For fear of loss of limb?”
A snort escaped her as she tried to hold back her laugh. She wondered if the gentlemen really did fear her. She hoped so.
They reached the turning in the path where Jonathon would walk back to the village, and she would walk back to her house. He held her face gently between his hands and kissed her softly. It was a nice kiss, a lingering peck, and it rose absolutely nothing within her.
He bid her goodnight and Adriana wandered back home, her head tilted up towards the sky as she watched the stars. She enjoyed walking at night. The stillness of darkness gave her a sense of serenity and gave her time to just be, not to think or worry, but to just be there in that moment.
She could see the lights of her house approaching, and made her way round the back to enter through the kitchens, when she saw Striga talking to a figure draped in black.
Adriana hid in the shadows to the side of the house, holding her breath as she listened intently.
She didn’t even need to see his face to know it was him.
“You took your time, boy,” Striga’s stern voice rang out. “The great Lamia leader, driven out of town because of a girl? Now that is a story for the tales.”
“I appreciate your interest in my life, Striga,” Xander said dryly, the sarcasm dripping from his deep voice. “I swore to remain close by and to protect your family, and I have done so in my own way. I am back now, I will not leave again.”
Striga huffed at him, clearly not impressed. “What’s done is done. No matter how I feel about your recent actions, I am glad you have returned. She needs you, Xander. The effect you have on her, the effect she has on you, do not think it has escaped my attention.”
Adriana waited to see if Xander would deny it, but as she watched him shift on the spot, his discomfort of his situation being discussed blazingly clear, she couldn’t help but smile.
He did not admit that he had left because of her, nor did he confirm any feelings he had towards her, but he didn’t contradict Striga’s statements either.
“Her Luciferus abilities have grown stronger,” Striga explained, as she began to walk back inside the house.
“We need her. We know what Caligo can do, what could happen to us all. Only she can truly defeat him and his army. She needs your help finding her balance, to find the light within her. You swore to Thomas as he died that you would help our family, so you will help her.”
Striga closed the door and left Xander outside, ending their conversation and not allowing him to even consider backing out of the promise he apparently made to Thomas.
Adriana knew Xander had been present during Thomas’ last moments, but she’d had no idea her great-grandfather had made him vow to protect their family.
She couldn’t help but wonder if that was the only reason he had helped her that night at the ball, but it didn’t explain his actions that followed.
Nothing could, she wasn’t even sure he could.
As Xander stuffed his hands into his pockets and let out a long breath, Adriana noticed the shadows in which she hid had started to move.
One of them brushed her face in a delicate gesture, a familiar cool touch against her cheek, before rushing back to Xander.
As soon as it reached him, his head snapped up and his eyes met hers through the darkness.
Swallowing down the strange giddiness she felt, Adriana stepped into the dim light shining from the kitchens, coming to stop a few feet in front of the man she had missed. He said nothing, his face gave absolutely nothing away either, as he stared at her in silence.
“You came back,” Adriana stated, trying her best to hide the joy she felt of seeing him again.
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”
She let out an exasperated laugh at his sarcasm. She had forgotten just how annoying he could be, how easily he could get under her skin. With a sigh, she moved to step past him to go through the door to the kitchens, when his hand grabbed her arm under her cloak.
His grip was warm, firm, and she realised that he wasn’t wearing any gloves. She eyed the dark swirling markings of his Nocte brand that stretched down his hand and curled around his fingers as they flexed around her arm. They were beautiful.
Adriana’s breath caught in her throat as he tugged her closer, bringing her attention back to his dark glare.
He dipped his head down for a moment as if he might kiss her, and for a fleeting second, her heart seemed to stop beating entirely.
Then, he dropped her arm and stepped back abruptly, a sour expression upon his face as he shook his head.
“I can smell him on you,” he said in a low voice. She frowned at him, confused by what he meant. “Your stable boy, his scent is all over you.”
Adriana gave him an incredulous look, before stepping forward and crossing her arms over her chest. “Well then, perhaps you should not have left.”
Xander raised an eyebrow at her comment, before his face slowly split into his signature smirk, a devilish glint in his eye. He stepped to meet her, closing the gap between them.
“Would that have made a difference? Would you have come to me instead of that inexperienced boy who is clearly not enough for you?”
He brought his hand to her face and his touch burned through her, igniting a heat within her that she hadn’t felt since he had left. His bare knuckles brushed against her cheek, leaving a warm glow from within her skin in their path.
“Would you have preferred that I had stayed? If I had not left you that night, would you have wanted me to stay with you, to touch you, to kiss you until the sun rose?”
She could hardly breathe, all she could do was stare into his eyes and listen to his deep voice as her body moved closer of its own accord, her hands reaching up to his chest and fisting the lapels of his coat.
She moaned as his fingers trailed through her hair before grabbing her loose braid, pulling it slightly to tilt her head back as he leant in again.
His other hand reached inside her cloak and held her side, rubbing circles over her hip through her skirts with his thumb.
“Tell me,” he growled, his breath fanning over her face. “Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me that I am not the only one feeling like this.” He pulled her hair tighter, eliciting a soft gasp from her lips at the sweet pain.
The sound seemed to snap something within him and he quickly stepped back, breathing heavily through his nose as his eyes roamed her body. She held a hand to her chest; her heart was beating wildly.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, his eyes averting hers. “What happened that night was wrong of me.”
“Are you apologising for kissing me? Or for leaving?”
“Both,” he quipped back immediately.
Adriana shook her head, biting her lip as she held back a laugh or a sob, she didn’t know which. She wanted him to be sorry for leaving, not for kissing her, because then she’d have to apologise to herself for wanting him to do it again.
“At least Jonathon was waiting for me,” she said smugly. “Otherwise who knows, maybe Lord Abbot’s scent would be on me instead.”
Xander’s eyes flared, a muscle in his jaw ticked as his teeth audibly ground together.
“That pathetic excuse of a man will not be bothering you ever again.”
His calm, cold tone sent chills within her. The rumours that Abbot had left town, they’d all been speculations, no one had actually known what had happened to him. But Xander knew. She could see it in his eyes. He knew exactly what had happened.
Before she could say anything else, Xander reached a hand inside his coat and produced a small box wrapped in a purple ribbon, holding it out for her. As she reached to take it, her fingers brushed his for a split second before he wrenched his hand back, his brow pinching as he watched her.
He backed away from her slowly as he quietly said, “Happy Birthday, Adriana,” before turning to walk off into the night, his shadows gathering around him.
Adriana rushed inside, locked the door behind her and rested her forehead against its wooden panels. Abbot was likely dead, and Xander had more than likely killed him. She wasn’t sure how she was meant to feel about it, how she was meant to feel about anything anymore.
With trembling hands, she unwrapped the ribbon from the box to find a small vial of perfume with her name scribbled on the label tied around it.
She twisted the silver stopper off and held it to her nose, expecting to find a common scent that the women in town used.
But instead, the unmistakable smell of lilies and lavender filled her nostrils, her favourite flowers that she grew in the gardens and often kept vases full of in her room.
Beneath the florals, she detected an undertone of another smell, a heavier, muskier scent. A whiff of sandalwood, a hint of amber, all encompassed by the smell of the trees after a storm. She couldn’t place what it was exactly, and yet it seemed so familiar to her, so beautiful. So him.
She knew she should be terrified of him, of what he had practically just admitted to. And yet, she noticed she was still not afraid as a small smile played on her lips.