CHAPTER 21
Water dripped from the prince’s soaking wet hair and onto my chest as I remained scooped up in his arms. I wanted to smack his smug face. Clearly, this was all some kind of trick to get me into the pool with him, and like a fool, I had run straight into his stunning faery arms.
“Please put me down,” I told him. My words were short, and I made no effort to hide the anger storming across my face.
“Are you sure?” Arenn taunted, turning us both towards the centre of the pool. “I thought I heard you shout that you couldn’t swim.” Slowly, he began to loosen his hold on my body as we approached the deeper water just ahead of us.
He wouldn’t… Would he?
“Wait!” I thrusted my arms up and wrapped them around his wide shoulders. “At least take me back to the shore first.”
“Relax, Princess. I’d never let you drown.” His thumb brushed against the skin of my thigh, sending a shiver down my body. My heart was pounding, but it was beating in a way that was different to how it raced around Lukas. With the Prince of Drothmore, it fluttered nervously like a little butterfly. But here, in this cave, with my body pressed against Arenn’s chest, the pounding was so intense it almost hurt.
With all the care in the realm, the faery prince lowered me into the water, keeping his hands on me at all times. Carefully, he moved backwards towards the centre of the pool, and I drifted with him, my arms wrapped around his bare shoulders. My feet couldn’t touch the stone floor anymore, but somehow I trusted him not to let me dip under the surface.
“Isn’t this nice?” he breathed, letting his hands rest confidently on my waist. Our bodies were positioned as though we were dancing, and the echoes of our voices against the crystal-filled walls were our music. It should’ve been romantic, but I couldn’t forget how I’d ended up here, entangled in his arms.
“Do you use that trick often to get innocent ladies to enter the pool with you?” I questioned with a scowl.
Arenn snorted. “You know most innocent ladies in your situation would be too busy thinking about how to kiss me.” A smile tugged at his lips, and I felt his grip around my waist tighten. “But not you, little human. Would you rather I apologised for rescuing you?”
“Rescuing me?” I blurted out. “I only came over here because I thought you were drowning.”
The prince chuckled and spun us around in the water. The waves lapped gently against my shoulders. “I’ve been swimming in these caves for as long as I can remember. You needn’t worry about me drowning. And to answer your question, only royals are permitted to enter these caverns, so… no. I have never brought another lady, human or fae, into this pool.”
I blinked a few times. His words sounded sincere, but still, there was something at the back of my mind that seemed unsure.
Arenn must’ve picked up on this because he tilted his head to the side, studying me. “I fear you do not trust me… How can I fix that? I can assure you I have shared nothing but the truth from the moment we met.”
A twinge of guilt tugged at my heart. Perhaps he was right. Maybe I was letting my past knowledge of faeries sway my thoughts. After all, I came here to help my kingdom, and so far, everything on that front seemed promising.
“I think I just need to know more about you,” I answered after a moment of pondering.
“And what would you like to know?” The prince grinned. “For you, I am an open book.”
What did I want to know? Other than the fact that he was a prince, I hadn’t really learnt anything about him.
“How old are you?” I decided to ask first.
“I was born in 1327, which would make me about twenty in human years.”
“Human years?” I repeated. “Do faeries age differently then?”
Arenn’s eyes sparkled. “You may have noticed that my mother and father look remarkably young despite having held the throne for over thirty years. Faeries age like humans do until twenty-five, and then, after that, we age very slowly. It’s the magic that keeps us looking youthful.”
“Right… So if we married, I would eventually be old and wrinkled while you’d remain young until you died?”
The prince chuckled, causing small waves to form in the pool. “There are rituals that can be performed to slow a human’s ageing. You wouldn’t need to worry about wrinkles while I’m around.”
Faery magic was truly amazing. Of course science was wonderful too, but I’d never heard of a herb or powdered mineral that could slow ageing. My breath caught as Lukas’s theory crept back into my mind. If faeries could slow ageing, could they also speed it up? Were they responsible for causing an otherwise healthy, middle-aged king’s body to waste away with sudden ageing? My chest tightened, and I knew I probably shouldn’t ask him this here. If it went badly, we were dangerously close to the deeper water, and I wasn’t lying when I said I couldn’t swim.
“You have another question for me?” Arenn mused as I felt his fingers stroke my waist.
I took a deep breath before speaking. “You said that there are rituals that can be done to slow someone’s ageing… What about a ritual that does the opposite?”
The prince raised an eyebrow. “And what good would a ritual like that be?”
“Well, I…” I chewed my lip, puzzling how best to ask this. “A friend told me that someone they know has started growing old out of nowhere. One morning they were fine, and now they’re like an old man.”
“Are you sure they’re not just ageing naturally? People always say it creeps up on us,” Arenn replied casually, with no obvious sign of any hidden knowledge.
“There’s nothing natural about this.”
The prince shrugged. “There are many sources of magic in this world – and then there are the merfolk and the goblins, too. But if this person is in Drothmore, then it definitely wasn’t from us. Not unless someone managed to sneak out past the guards. You can’t project a ritual onto someone that isn’t here, and you’re the first human who’s visited in decades.” He brought up a hand and lazily threaded one of my curls through his fingers. “Now, do you have any other questions for me? Perhaps something a little more… interesting?” He smiled darkly.
So it wasn’t the fae… I wanted to sigh in relief, but that would’ve drawn too much attention to the question, so instead, I asked the first ‘interesting’ thing that popped into my head.
“What’s your favourite colour?”
The prince laughed. “Why, the perfect ocean blue of your eyes, of course, Princess.” My ‘perfect ocean blue’ eyes wanted to roll back into my skull. He was absolutely shameless.
“What’s your real favourite colour?” I insisted with a smile. No matter how much I thought I hated his constant flirting, I couldn’t deny how much my body lapped it up.
He winked, leaning closer. “Like I said, I’ve never lied to you.”
We spoke for another hour or so, until I began to shiver – the warm water no longer feeling so warm against my skin. Arenn took my hand as he led me out of the pool. With every step, my soaked dress dripped puddles onto the stone floor. Twisting the fabric in my hands, I attempted to wring out some of the dampness from the skirt, but it didn’t do much.
“Need some help with that?” the prince asked tauntingly. Before I could respond, a gust of hot air swept up from the ground, catching my skirt. I could’ve sworn I heard Arenn huff as I slapped my hands down against it, stopping it just moments before it lifted and put my undergarments on show. “Nearly,” he grinned wolfishly.
“If Theo were here, you’d be bleeding out on the floor,” I joked as I ran my hands along the now very warm and dry fabric of my dress. “But thank you for fixing my gown.”
“You’re so welcome,” Arenn said graciously before casting another wave of hot air to dry himself.
While he reached for his shirt hanging from one of the rocks, I reluctantly tore my gaze away from his perfect chest to explore the walls of the cavern. The countless multicoloured crystals almost seemed to sing with life as I stepped closer, letting my fingertips brush their smooth surfaces.
“This place is so beautiful,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
Behind me, I heard footsteps against the stone floor as Arenn paced over to my side. Without speaking, he pressed his hand against the rock wall and then slowly dragged his palm away. In the place where his hand had been, dozens of midnight blue roses suddenly sprouted from the cracks in the rock.
A soft gasp escaped my lips. The mysterious roses continued to grow, their stems weaving around each other until they reached the same size as the roses in the grounds of the Steel Palace. Once the flowers had fully bloomed, Arenn leaned forward to pluck several from the miniature shrub. He held them for a moment in his open palm. Then, the stems began to wind around each other, weaving and changing until they formed a perfect, thornless circle.
“A crown fit for a princess,” he announced, proudly presenting me with his final work. In his hands was an enchantingly beautiful flower crown. Delicate streaks of silver ran between the blue roses, partially hidden by the near-black stems.
“Thank you,” I said breathily. My head dipped as he raised the crown to place it on my head. Of course, it fit perfectly and was so light I could forget it was even there. “You’ve shown me so much today, so many things I never even thought were possible… I’d love to learn more about your magic.” I lifted my head to stare up at him.
A playful glint flashed across his features as he answered in a low voice. “Faery magic can do many things, although I’d prefer to keep the true extent of my powers a secret for now.”
“I thought you said you’d be an open book today,” I reminded him with narrowed eyes.
The prince laughed softly before leaning closer. I felt like a tiny mouse as he towered over me. “My dearest Naria,” he murmured. “How pretty you look dressed in my gifts.” A smile tugged at his lips while his fingers delicately traced the curve of my chin, tilting my face towards his. “Almost too pretty for me to allow you to return to your foolish prince.”
I laughed nervously, the sound echoing through the cavern. He didn’t join in; instead, he swiped his thumb across my lower lip, his smile fading into something more serious.
My stomach dipped. “What is it…?” I managed to whisper, but I barely had enough breath to speak as he drew even closer, then pressed his lips against mine.
A whimper caught in my throat.
My eyes fluttered shut, and at first, I couldn’t move, couldn’t believe that this was even real. Inside my chest, my heart pounded with a strange rhythm of both fear and excitement. The feeling made my knees tremble under the dark rose petals of my skirt.
As if sensing my hesitation, Arenn slipped his hand around my waist, pulling me closer.
“Is this all too much for you, little human?” he whispered, his lips still pressed against mine.
“Not at all,” I replied, almost too quickly, just as guilt began to squeeze my racing heart. Visions of deep brown hair and steel eyes danced through my mind.
Silently, I cursed my thoughts. Lukas didn’t matter. I didn’t want to think about him anymore. And as if to prove a point to nobody but myself, I wrapped my arms around the faery prince’s shoulders and deepened the kiss.
The second I parted my lips, Arenn’s tongue invaded my mouth. It was as though he was hungry to explore every inch of me. Everything slowed in the now too-heavy air around us, until all I could feel and all I could taste was him. The wildest of flowers and the sweetest dustings of cinnamon overwhelmed my senses. Everything about him was pure magic. His tongue continued to stroke mine as his grip tightened almost possessively around my waist. Then, his hands slid along the fabric of my bodice, slipping dangerously low to my hips. A gasp escaped my swollen lips when one of his roaming hands gently squeezed my backside.
“Humans are so much softer than fae,” he said in a silky tone. He pulled his lips away for just a second before ending our kiss with a final brush of his lips on mine. “But we should stop now… I must return you to your grumpy guard before we do something you might regret later.”
My breath was heavy, and I knew he was right, but tearing myself away from him felt like waking up in a cold room after the most wonderful dream.
“Don’t look so sad,” he teased. “You know, there are only a few more nights until Luminessia. I trust you will be attending?” His hands slipped back to my waist as he waited for an answer.
“It depends.”
The prince’s eyebrows shot up.
“It depends on how many other ladies will be there with pretty flower crowns made by charming faery princes.” My arms dropped from his shoulders, but before I could step away, his hand snatched my wrist. Gently, he brought it to his face and placed a shy kiss on my palm.
“There will be only one, dear princess.” He lowered my wrist before tucking it around his waiting arm. “Now, you must let me return you to your silly guard. If we don’t leave soon, I might not be able to stop myself from kissing you again.”
With a smile, I nodded. After taking one final glance at the shimmering crystal pool, I allowed Arenn to lead me out of the chamber.