Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
ALLERIA
An hour has no right to feel this long. It should pass quickly, especially with the wine in my blood, and the Guard laughing around me. But Cairn’s mouth at my throat, his voice in my ear, and every word he said are still repeating in my head.
I’m going to spend a great deal of the night reminding you whose claim you accepted, until you cannot tell my name from your own.
“I’m sorry, what?”
I’m trying to follow whatever Serath is telling me, but this is the third time I’ve asked her to repeat herself. From the exasperated sigh and the glance over my shoulder, she knows exactly why I’m distracted.
They all know. Everyone in the courtyard probably felt him pull me across it through the bond. They all saw me sit beside him and drink from his cup.
Gods only know what they think he said.
I take another sip of the Moonlace wine Cairn sent me off with. It’s dark and rich and sweeter than I expected, with an undertone that warms the whole way down, old and expensive and faintly dangerous. Like most things in this place.
Like him.
My gaze goes to him against my will.
He’s still slouched in that dark stone chair, one elbow resting on the arm, his goblet held loose between his fingers, talking to Therin, but the moment my eyes find him his attention cuts to me.
My pulse jumps. He doesn’t smile, he barely moves at all, but those golden eyes shine, and a pulse of heat reaches me through the bond.
My fingers tighten on the goblet I’m clutching.
Therin glances at me then back at him, and says something I can’t hear.
Whatever it is, it gets a smile out of Cairn.
A small and dangerous one that threatens to take every sensible thought from my head.
“He has barely looked away from you since you left his side,” Serath murmurs.
I swallow. “He’s relieved to have everyone together, that’s all.”
“Is that really what you think?” Vessara comes to stand beside me.
“Well … yes.”
Vessara gives me a look full of amused pity. “No. He’s watching you because you are his.”
“The magic chose you for the Guard,” Serath adds. “But that isn’t why he’s watching you, Alleria. He hasn’t looked away because he is starving, and you’re the only thing in this courtyard he is hungry for.”
“That’s not … He isn’t …”
“Oh, it most definitely is.” The deep, rich voice comes from close to my ear, and heat rushes up the back of my neck. “Moirthalen, your hour is up.”
Serath and Vessara don’t look surprised at all. Unlike me, who didn’t even hear him cross the courtyard.
“How long have you been standing there?”
He doesn’t answer me, holding out his hand. After a second’s hesitation, I put mine in it. His fingers close warm and firm around me, and my next breath comes out uneven. He hears it—of course he does—but he turns without a word and draws me along with him.
“Eldráfn,” Therin calls out as we pass. “Thirra sa nareth an threnna thae morndhael.”
“Nael ir vorrath an thael,” Cairn replies.
The Guard erupts into laughter.
“What are you saying? What is that language?”
“Old fae. The common tongue is used more widely, but some of us keep up the practice.”
“And what did it mean?”
“He told me that I should leave you enough voice to curse me in the morning.”
My cheeks heat. “And … what did you say?”
I regret asking as soon as the words leave my lips.
One corner of his mouth curls. “That I cannot make that promise.”
We leave the laughter and music behind, stepping into the quiet of the great hall.
The stone beneath my feet is cool, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating through the rest of my body.
I’m hyper-aware of him walking beside me as we reach the main staircase and begin to climb.
When we reach the first floor landing, my feet automatically turn left to take the passage toward my room.
His fingers tighten on mine, stopping me after a single step.
“Not that way.”
“But my rooms are that way.” Apparently I can still state the obvious while being half-drunk on fae-wine and wanting.
His mouth twitches. “I know where your rooms are.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Up.”
He draws me on, toward the next curve of the staircase, then stops, looking down at me.
“You can go to your own rooms, if you’d like. I’ll take you there.”
“I never said I wanted to do that.” My denial is immediate.
The two bonds linking us flare briefly, one sending heat through me and the other satisfaction, then both vanish faster than I can grasp them.
The stairs go past my floor, then another, and higher. I lose count of how many landings we pass as the stairs narrow and the air grows colder. My dress whispers around my legs while his hand stays locked around mine, his thumb moving against my skin every few steps.
I’m on the verge of asking if we can stop to rest, when we reach the top.
The stairs end at a set of double doors made of blackwood and glass so dark I can see only the faint reflection of us in it. Me in silver. Him at my side, still and watching.
For a heartbeat, neither of us moves.
Then the doors swing open, and every bit of breath leaves me at once.
The room is made of the night. That’s the only thing I can think.
The glass walls curve up into a ceiling that gives itself entirely to the sky, and the moon pours straight through it to silver the floor. A large, low bed sits among scattered furs. In the center of the room, a stone pillar rises with a hearth cut into it.
Beyond the glass, the whole of Nightward falls away beneath us.
The courtyard is a small bright ring far below.
The cliffs drop into black water where the waves break silver against the rocks.
Paths thread through the stone like dark seams, and past all of it lies Underhill itself, stranger and more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.
I step forward, my hand falling from his, and turn in a slow circle. The sea is on every side of me. The sky is over my head, and in that moment, I understand something new about Cairn.
He doesn’t watch things from below. He puts himself where he can see everything all at once.
“Gods.” Awe laces my whisper.
The doors close behind us with a soft thud, and then I feel his warmth at my back. His fingers find the silver chain woven into my hair.
“I let them have you all evening.” His head dips to press a kiss against my shoulder. “Now it’s my turn.”
He takes his time unthreading the chain from my hair. I feel each tiny pull give way, each loop slipping free. Every brush of his fingers along the back of my neck sends heat down my spine.
The moonstone above my brow drops into his palm.
He sets it aside, then draws the chain away entirely so my hair falls loose around my shoulders.
His hand slides into it and closes just enough to tip my head back.
My gaze lifts to the glass ceiling, to the stars scattered across the dark sky, and then to his reflection standing behind me in every wall at once.
I turn to face him before I can lose my nerve. He’s watching me, his eyes shining bright. The marks at his throat pulse faintly silver, and I lift my hand to lay it against one of them.
His hand lifts to cup my jaw, his thumb dragging over my lower lip. Then he kisses me.
His mouth opens mine, and his tongue strokes deep, his hand fisting in the hair he just freed, tilting my head back so he can take more. I make a sound—a gasp—and he answers with a low rumble that I feel under my palm.
The bond opens between us and I get the echo of his wanting layered over my own until I can’t tell which heat belongs to me.
When he finally breaks the kiss, I’m gasping for breath.
“Now.” His fingers find the first place the moon set the fabric against my skin, at my shoulder. “Slowly, so you remember.”
He peels the dress from me a piece at a time, the way it came on, following each strip of silver-white and smoke-dark with his mouth as it falls away. My shoulder. My collarbone. The base of my spine. The curve of my hips. Every press of his lips leaves a point of heat behind that doesn’t fade.
When the last of it slides off my hips and pools at my feet, I’m left naked in the middle of his glass room.
For the span of a heartbeat, I can’t move.
Moonlight covers every inch of me. It spills over my shoulders, my breasts, my stomach, my thighs, turning my skin silver in the glass around us. There’s nowhere to hide. Every wall gives me back to myself. Every pane gives me to him.
Cairn stands before me in every reflection, dark and still, his gaze moving over me with enough heat to make my legs unsteady. I go to cover myself.
“Don’t.”
The word stops me. His hand closes around my wrist gently, yet firm enough to make me remember how easily he could hold me there if he wanted to.
“Look.”
My face burns. “Cairn.”
“Look.” He moves to stand behind me, and I force my eyes to the glass in front of me.
At first, all I see is myself standing naked in the moonlight. My hair is loose around my shoulders. My lips are swollen from his kiss. My skin is flushed everywhere his mouth has touched.
Then he steps closer, and his reflection fills the space behind mine.
His hand slides over my hip and settles low across my stomach, pulling me back against him.
He is still fully dressed.
Somehow, that makes everything worse.
His mouth brushes the side of my neck. “This is what I saw in the courtyard.”
I swallow, watching his fingers spread against my skin. “I was wearing a dress in the courtyard.” My voice comes out breathy.
“I saw through it.”
Heat floods my face.
He lifts his eyes to mine in the glass. “Every time you looked at me, I knew exactly what you were thinking.”
“You did not!”
His fingers move lower, slow enough to turn my breath uneven. “You were loud through the blood bond.”
“I was not.”
“You thought about my hands.”
My eyes close.
He laughs softly against my throat. “You thought about my mouth.”
“Cairn.” Mortification makes his name come out in a choked whisper.