Many Ruined Vows on a Forbidden Frolic (Spice-tember #4)

Chapter One

Loreleivnna

Yanking my hood over my head, I slide onto a wooden barstool that tilts and wobbles under my weight.

I stifle a yelp and grip a crack in the counter to steady myself.

The seediness is part of this establishment’s charm, and it’s an added measure of safety against King Vyrion’s nosy spiritvine spies, which likely factors into why it’s our renowned hero’s first stop before showing his face in the city.

Not that I’m hoping for a glimpse of him or anything. I don’t even know if he’s coming home this year.

“Brandy.” I cough to disguise my voice. “Please.”

The elf behind the bar does a double-take, but wipes the shock from his warm pine features before nodding grimly.

I might feel bad for putting my friend in a risky position if there was any other way for me to escape Inner Svitaeryl City without a guardian—or worse, involving one of my meddlesome sisters.

Iyllo clinks a horn brimming with murky brown liquor into an iron stand on the counter and slides it toward me. He looks both ways before whispering, “Every day, I regret befriending Svitaeryl’s rottenest princess.”

I roll my eyes. He’s not wrong. It’s a feat of the Fallen that I haven’t been married off or run away, especially considering how often I consider the latter. “Without me, you’d never get into balls with handsome centaurs.”

“Psh,” he leans on his elbows and playfully twirls a lock of long, forest-black hair around his finger. “You’re getting us confused. You know I prefer powerful elven men.”

“Especially when they’re married to my mother.

” I pretend to gag. His crush is mostly a joke to mess with me, I think, but it’s true he usually latches onto elven males in the king’s circle, including some who’ve been on the council since the end of my grandfather’s reign, their hair fading to lavender with age.

Sometimes we get lucky and he’s invited to bed with one or more of their mates, and in the morning he sneaks into the garden below my window to spill all the juicy details. “Trust me, I’m aware.”

Feybells chime at the tavern’s entrance. Iyllo straightens abruptly. A bright, welcoming grin takes over his angular face, but I’m close enough to see the panic it disguises. “Vir Pikquarrys! Welcome home.”

Oh, fuck my petals.

I curl around my drinking horn and stare into its muddy depths, imagining myself diving in, sinking to the bottom until I drown in a sea of embarrassment that I brought entirely upon myself.

It’s rosy, I’m rosy, everything’s rosy. No way he’ll recognize me in the stiff apron dress made of Aevumoon Iris bark.

I wore servant’s garb for a reason. Sure, I’d hoped he would stop at the Mossy Moon Tavern like he used to back before he chose Ashfall Forge over his homeland, but it was a fleeting hope.

Pikr hasn’t been home in fifty-five years! How could I have known I’d be right?

The memory of his last visit sends heat flooding my neck and cheeks.

It was my first Lunaplume Ball advertising myself as an eligible mate.

Most svitayl elves make their eligibility debut at forty, but I was a shrinking violet.

I didn’t announce my debut until I was seventy-six, well into maturity.

Before that, I’d been a shy little sapling clinging to Mother’s skirts whenever the handsome centaur was around—which was often, seeing as he’s Father’s chosen brother.

My grip on the drinking horn grows slippery with sweat recalling that night.

My foolish mind was convinced that Svitaeryl’s blacksmith spellcarver, a decorated hero granted the rare honorific Vir for his role in protecting the realm, would finally notice me.

He did not. So, in a completely understandable fit of blooming madness, I’d ambushed his apprentice, Cadmynthus, a bay stallion two years my senior, and commenced a make-out session that ended with hay in places it’d never been before.

Around that time, Pikr moved to the volcanic forge on the border of Lande and Fyre full-time. Many of my memories before my late seventies include Pikr. He’s a core part of the Slaytir family, but since he’s been gone so long, it’s easy to pretend he’s naught but a figure in Father’s court.

I have no idea if Pikr saw my humiliating display of drunken debauchery that day.

If he did, my life would be over, and I would have no choice but to run away and never look back.

Or worse; what if he’d thought nothing of it?

If anything at all, he’d probably think, there’s the foolish youngest daughter of my best friend, the King, acting like a silly, spoiled brat, like always.

Emphasis on best friend and the King, for those two word pairings are reason enough for my foolish heart to shrivel up like old leaves and blow away like dust on the wind.

“Roots guide you, Keeper.” Pikr’s gruff voice caresses my eardrums from only a few steps away, and I shiver, clutching the horn for stability. “Tall brandy, warm. A lean cut of lystag if you have any.”

“Lystag’s being hoarded for the third week of the festival. I have thunder weasalisk seared in aevumoon butter, served with cranberry goat cheese curds.” Iyllo closes his eyes for a beat, then rubs his brow. “Pardon me, I meant the cheese curds. The goat’s name is Dewberry.”

I bite my lip around a smile. I love Iyllo’s humor. Pikr merely grunts. His palm thumps the counter beside me, and I jump. “That will do.”

Iyllo disappears, avoiding my pleading eye contact. He can’t save me, anyway. Pikr stands inches to my right, and bodies have filled the tavern between me and the door. I’m trapped.

Casually, I lift the horn to my mouth, but it slips from my sweaty palms and clatters on the counter.

“Fuck,” I mutter, stupidly rushing to clean it with my sleeve.

An amused chuff ignites my synapses, but I don’t dare turn toward the sound. I’m buried too deep. I blot the mess with my dress and glance over my left shoulder at the exit, so close and yet so far.

“Settle, lass. The workers here are fully capable. Let him do his job,” Pikr urges, his usually gruff timbre smooth as moonsilk, like he’s dealing with a skittish mare.

A large, calloused hand lands on mine, swallowing up my fingers all the way past my wrist, and my heart swoons and plunges straight into the heat below my pelvis.

“What’re you drinking?” Pikr leans forward and sniffs the moist counter while I stare at our hands. “Brandy is no drink for a petal.”

“I like it,” I snap. I don’t, really. I have no idea why I always order it, when it makes my nose tingle and every sip is a chore.

Pikr removes his hand and raises his palms. I peer at him from under my hood, and heat blooms in my core at my first sight of him in fifty-something seemingly endless years.

The past half-century has blessed his features with even more gallant beauty.

Endearing lines crease the corners of his black-and-white heterochromic eyes, which I carefully avoid meeting.

His beard is as unkempt and wild as the galloping of my heart, and wisps of equally wild hair escapes his long, raven-black braid that drapes over his shoulder to nearly dust the floor.

The piebald-pinto coloring of his pelt and skin paints a splash of white on his right arm that beautifully highlights a tattoo I’ve never seen before.

Unlike the vigorously straight lines of his neck piece, this one features twining luminberry branches that contort with beauty and grace, disappearing under a skull pauldron.

“I meant no ill intent,” he murmurs, smooth as glass. “Lunar cider is more festive, anyway. Allow me to replace your spilled drink.”

His gaze bores into the side of my head. There’s no sign he recognizes me yet, but it’s a matter of time. To stay is to tempt ruin. I shoot another glance at the exit, and Pikr laughs, the deep, robust sound sending a rush of heat to my southern region.

“Run off if you wish. I’ll settle your bill.” Pikr faces the bar, resting those big hands on the counter and letting his shoulders rise and fall. “But the company of a pretty petal before the long day ahead would be welcome.”