Chapter Eleven #3
“Sorry,” I called after it. My voice sounded off. Probably because I could no longer breathe through my nose. “Are my eyes swollen? They feel swollen.”
“Let me see.” Onyx stopped on the path and turned me to face him.
While humor lit his eyes, something else did too: a warm affection I normally saw from my men but never from him.
Until now. He lifted a hand and caressed the edge of my left eye, then trailed his finger beneath it and down my cheek.
“They’re a bit pink but not swollen. If I would’ve known this path would torture you this way, I would have chosen another. ”
“It’s fine.” I tried sniffing to unclog my nostrils, to no avail. “But how much longer will we be here in the forest of pain and misery?”
When he laughed, the musical cadence made me temporarily forget about my snotty nose. He retook my arm and continued forward. “We’re nearly on the other side.”
“The other side to where?” I padded along beside him.
“You’ll see.”
“Hopefully not the place with the bog vipers.” I dropped my gaze to the ground, searching the bushes and thick foliage and hoping a snake wasn’t curled up somewhere. “Phantasia told me they’re aggressive.”
“Not nearly as aggressive as I am.” Onyx’s eyes appeared to flash a brighter shade of red before dimming once more. “Rest assured none would dare attack you with me by your side.”
“That doesn’t mean we should temp fate, you know?
” I released a nervous, somewhat nasally laugh, and sniffed again.
“One of them could go rogue. Get a wild hair up its snakey butt and be like, ‘you know what? This realm needs a snake lord, not a demon one,’ and then bam. It lunges from the bushes and—”
Onyx grabbed me by the nape and slammed our mouths together. Putting an end to my anxious rambles.
I melted into his kiss, enticed by the heat of his body and his soft, yet firm, lips. Horror then struck me front and center.
“No!” I flung backward and pushed him away from me. “My runny nose!”
“I kissed your lips, Evan, not your nose,” he said, cool as a cucumber. As if he hadn’t just made out with the snot-nosed muffin monster.
I curved my hand over the lower half of my face, covering as much as possible. “I need a mask like Draven’s. Stay back. It’s for your own protection.”
“My protection,” he repeated, taking a step toward me. It was slow and predatory in nature. “Mistaken once again, little bird. For it is you, not I, who needs protecting.”
“You say that now.” My voice was muffled by my hand. “But what if I’m like one of those frogs with the poisonous goo on their slimy little bodies? One touch and you’re toast.”
Onyx sighed. “Must you always be so dramatic? Come here.”
“No.” I turned my body inward, my eyes stinging as another tickle went through my nose. “Run and save yourself, my lord. I feel another attack coming on, and you don’t wanna be here when it—achoo!”
Silence followed the echo of my sneeze.
He stared at me for a few beats, close to laughing by the look of it, before sighing again and lifting the sleeve of his robe. He tore off a piece of the fabric. “Take this. For your nose.”
“You just ripped your robe,” I said, both shocked and touched by the gesture. “Your very pretty and super nice robe.”
“Clothing can be mended.” He placed the fabric in my free hand. “Now blow.”
“Wow. I usually don’t get that command in such a bossy way.
” I turned away to shield him from the sight of me using his robe as a tissue.
The relief was too great to be upset about ruining it for long though.
I could almost breathe through my nose again.
After dabbing at my nostrils to catch any remaining grossness, I slipped the mock-tissue into my pocket.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” I took a deep breath and put my hands on my hips with the exhale. “I feel like a new man.”
“Good.” He offered me his arm again, and I took it. “Off to see the bog vipers, we go.”
“What?” I squeaked, clinging onto him tighter.
He smirked, clearing teasing me. The butthead.
Through gaps in the overhead branches, I noticed clouds rolling in, passing over the sun before floating past. Some were the puffy white ones, while others were gray. I narrowed my eyes at them.
“Why do you frown?” Onyx asked.
“Because me thinks those be storm clouds, my lord,” I answered in my best attempt at a pirate accent. Why the accent? Who knows. It just happened sometimes, much like the time I used a Cockney accent with Draven and Reign. “We best batten down the hatches.”
He stared at me in a stunned silence before, ever so slowly, his lips curved. “You never fail to entertain, little bird.”
“It’s a gift.” I sighed and peered back up at the sky. Glared, really. Allergy attacks and storms would not ruin my spring, dammit.
A rustle came from the basket over my arm before a twig poked up from the cloth, followed by a fuzzy orange head and big green eyes. Raspberry juice covered Pumpkin’s mouth. Callum had been spot on. It looked like blood against his fur.
“Have a nice nap?” I petted the arbordu’s head.
Pumpkin closed his eyes and accepted the pets. His tail swished, causing the cloth to shift even more and expose the turkey sandwich with bites taken out of it.
“Hey, that was my afternoon snack, you little booger.” I gently poked his nose. “How rude. It’s a good thing you’re cute.”
Cheep. Pumpkin nuzzled my finger before leaping out of the basket. He scurried across the forest floor and dashed up the trunk of a tree, sinking into the leaves. Poor little guy stood out though with his orange body.
“Will he be okay?” I asked Onyx. “Varys said he was more than likely cast from his nest because of his fur.”
“The arbordu will be fine,” he answered, guiding me around a corner and helping me over a fallen log. And by helped, he just picked me up and moved me, probably not trusting my clumsy feet. “He has a little bird watching over him after all.”
“And a demon lord?” I rested my head against his shoulder as we continued down the path at a leisurely pace.
“Yes.” Onyx pressed a light kiss into my hair. “One who understands what it’s like to be… different. Feeling as though you don’t quite belong.”
I peered up at him, stunned. “Is that how you feel?”
“It is,” he answered, expelling a breath. “I may rule over this realm as the demon lord, yet the blood of a dragon also flows through my veins.”
Wait. What?
“Dragon?” I stumbled in step. Did I just hear that right?
Onyx nodded. “My father was a demon, and my mother was a princess of the dragon kingdom.”
My heart knocked in my chest. Then came excited zaps in my belly as I processed the new information. Onyx was half-dragon. Was that why he smelled like woodsmoke to me? Something warm and comforting, not to mention the heat of his body.
Maybe fire flowed through his veins after all.
“If your mom was a princess of the dragon kingdom, how did your parents meet?” I asked, the curiosity to know more buzzing in my skull.
He faced ahead and entwined our fingers. “King Ryu of the dragon kingdom traveled to the Shadow Realm to request aid in dealing with the elves.”
“The elves?” I felt my eyes bulge. Rowan had mentioned them before, but it was still surreal to know all the magical beings I’d once read about in fantasy novels were actually real in this world.
“Elves and dragons are at war and have been for as long as I can recall,” he explained, brow becoming heavier.
“My father accepted the request for aid and sent an army to aid the dragons. He even fought in the war himself. After the battle was won, King Ryu invited him to the castle for a celebration feast. That’s when fate intervened. ”
Fate.
“He found your mom?” I guessed.
“More like she found him.” Onyx’s breath held a subtle shake.
“My mother claimed that a path of red lilies appeared and led her straight to my father. And from what I hear, all it took was one glimpse of her to have my father enraptured. When he sailed back here to the Shadow Realm, she came with him.”
“Have you ever visited the dragon kingdom?” I asked.
A shadow passed over his face. “No. King Ryu banished my mother when she chose my father as her husband.”
“What?” I stopped in the middle of the path. “Why?”
“Dragons and demons were allies for many centuries but never united through marriage,” he explained.
“The dragons are proud creatures and didn’t wish for demons to taint their royal bloodlines.
So, as you can imagine, having their princess wed a demon lord was quite the scandal.
Even more so when a child was born from that union. ”
I frowned. “So they cast out your mom because of who she loved? That’s shitty.”
“That’s life,” he said. “It can be cruel.”
“What about when the human and demon war started? King Ryu was surely pissed off when his daughter was killed, right?”
“Yes, he was.” Onyx nodded. “However, his anger was directed at my father. King Ryu blamed him for her death and refused to send aid when we needed it most, thus ending the alliance.”
He kept an indifferent expression as he spoke, but I caught the slight ache in his voice. I clung tighter to his arm and continued with him down the path.
A few paces later, light came through the trees up ahead.
The sound of rushing water reached my ears too, growing louder with each step forward.
We reached the opening and passed through it, leaving behind whatever horrible irritant in the air that’d tortured me and turned our romantic stroll through the forest into a snot-infested one.
The grudge didn’t last long though.
“Holy crap,” I said, awed by the sight in front of me.
A waterfall cascaded down a rocky overhang, the crystalline water gathering in a sort of grotto surrounded by soft grass and colorful wildflowers. Willows stood like sentinels on either side of the pool, their long branches rustling in the spring breeze.
“Worth the snotty nose?” Onyx smiled at me. There was something boyish about it that draped over my chest like a heated blanket.