33. Chapter 33
Owain
My rear foot shot out from under me on the frost-rimed hay covering the training ring. I had just enough time to look undignified before I caught myself on one knee, sand embedding itself into my palm.
I’d shown up to spar and train with the men on time.
Except, as the commander, punctuality meant arriving before the scheduled time, not with the men, like I had.
Camrick hadn’t said a word. He’d only looked up from tightening a leather strap, taken in my disheveled hair, and let his eyes do the talking.
Now, he was absolutely dominating me in our sparring session because my mind wasn’t in the fight. It was back in my room—the same place it had been all morning. Still under the sheets, holding a scrap of cloth because I’d taken myself in hand like a horny adolescent several times.
It had started innocently enough. The curve of her jaw.
The dark ring around her lilac eyes. Her mouth when she was trying not to smile but losing the battle.
But the second time had only made my thoughts considerably less innocent.
Those same soft lips had traced a path from my mouth, making their way down my body to wrap around my cock.
The third time hadn’t been about desire at all.
I’d imagined her staying. Waking in my rooms. Trusting me again.
Wanting me without hesitation, without the careful watchfulness she’d been wearing around the castle like armor.
It was that image of domestic comfort, more than the sex-charged others, that had left me staring at the ceiling, composing a letter in my mind, long after I should’ve gone to the training yard.
I’d thrown the napkin into the fire and gotten dressed before I could worry whether sending it to her had been foolish.
Our tête-à-tête this morning, even charged by her anger, had only increased my attraction to her. It had taken every ounce of my willpower to make my feet head back into my room instead of leaping across the gap between our balconies to try to convince her how sorry I was.
Lunette owned all my thoughts in the cool air of the practice arena. When Camrick lunged, sword angled for a powerful pommel strike aimed directly at my temple, I only managed to lift my wooden practice sword to parry the blow at the last second.
He dropped into a crouch faster than I would’ve thought possible.
Whack. His low sweep—the perfect riposte—landed squarely on the side of my calf.
Pain exploded up my leg, forcing me to the ground as my muscles refused to hold my weight from the shock of it.
Camrick’s dark hair filled my vision as I rolled to get into a seated position.
“I can’t believe this,” he scoffed. Then, quietly: “You’re trying to get hurt, aren’t you?”
“No.” I scowled, looking up at the heavy gray clouds overhead. “But hearing you say it, that sounds like an excellent plan. Hit me—hard.”
“Your mind truly is fucked.” Cam wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his leather vambrace. Except his eyes kept drifting to the right, toward a brunette servant walking by.
I pitched my voice low. “My general says, distracted by something he shouldn’t be having.”
Anyone directly under our command was off-limits for personal liaisons—he knew that.
“Well aware, princeling.” His expression and tone were flat until a sudden gleam reappeared in his eyes. “I’ll hit you…draw blood, even, if we can agree to forget my wandering eyes.”
“Deal,” I replied, grinning. Just like old times.
Excited chatter from the other side of the training arena interrupted our brilliant plan. The phrase Fae ears made every fine hair on my body rise in sudden, dangerous awareness.
Cam had his practice sword raised to strike when I shot a hand up, forestalling him. Normally, in a situation like this, he would’ve offered a sarcastic jab about my sudden fear, but my face must’ve warned him to hold his tongue. He stepped back as I reached my feet.
“Stop me from killing someone,” I said—and meant it in the most literal sense.
The nauseating fear of hearing something horrible and irreversible happening hit me first. Because it had no outlet, the fear turned into a cold, calculating rage.
My Nocthel instincts had already identified the most efficient outcome and were now waiting, patiently, for me to look away so they could act without my permission.
Cam’s eyes widened at my tone, but he was already moving, magic already gathering at his fingertips. He knew me well enough to act without asking questions.
“Not all of us can hear like you.” He muttered, “One second you’re asking me to bash your skull in. The next, we’re doing whatever the fuck this is.”
“You’re a good friend,” I replied softly.
“Yeah, no shit,” he mumbled.
I sped up as we crossed the arena. The Assembly had informants in spots considerably more discreet than a royal training yard.
So, if this news had already reached the soldiers, it had already left the keep walls.
The mere thought made the ground beneath my feet feel uncertain.
I had to stop all rumors about her here and now.
The four men in question stood near the weapons rack, padded practice helms tucked beneath their arms. Seeing their unlined, almost innocent faces encouraged the agitated energy building inside me to subside somewhat.
The air crackled with tension the moment they sensed my approach. I stopped a pace away and tried not to look too imposing. The unified snap to attention was so quick that the sound of leather on leather cracked through the entire arena.
“Prince Regent,” the eldest said.
My conscious mind knew that my current reaction was overblown.
Yet instinct demanded I find the source of the threat and tear it out by the root—violently.
My heart was racing so fast that the world seemed to vibrate before my eyes.
The thought of the Assembly coming for her rang inside my skull as if the bond itself had seized my mind and refused to let it go.
Accepting the violence in my blood might be the best first step toward shedding the heavy expectations of the man I thought I was before meeting Luna.
So I indulged in the thought of throwing each man against the wall like I wanted to but only folded my hands behind my back and relaxed my shoulders.
“At ease,” I said evenly.
They relaxed by a hair’s breadth. Not a single one moved their eyes from a point somewhere over my shoulder.
“I couldn’t help but overhear part of your discussion,” I said, my tone clipped and professional. “Something about Fae.”
Four throats bobbed in unison. The youngest decided to be brave. “Yes, Your Highness.”
I purposefully let the silence stretch. Not speaking was its own kind of pressure—the considerate type that made a person squirm without threats.
They exchanged a look before the eldest finally broke down. “There was a rumor circulating during the soldiers’ breakfast, sir. Regarding the healer summoned for His Majesty.”
“Clarify.”
“They say she’s a Fae of legend.” He rushed the last words as though they were the most exciting thing ever to have happened to him. “Some of the men say they glimpsed her ears when she was tending the king. The other healer was there and saw it too.”
A faint murmur of agreement came from the others.
I locked my jaw so I wouldn’t say anything irredeemable, like ordering Thibault executed on the spot.
A second young man said, voice almost reverent, “They say her power was nearly divine. Like the stories.”
Each word sent a shiver down my spine.
Mystical. Other. Gods below, Lunette was being labeled a fairy tale come to life. Exactly the sort of person the Assembly would cage and call it protection.
I kept my breathing measured. Slow in. Slow out. Do not overreact.
The logical part of me appreciated the awe in their voices. That would keep interested eyes on Lunette. Many eyes on her would ensure that if anything happened, I’d know immediately.
Yet awe was just as dangerous as contempt when the wrong ears were listening. The Assembly didn’t need malice to act—only justification. Four soldiers openly marveling at a grand magus with Fae blood was justification enough to send a delegation with a writ of oversight.
I already hadn’t trusted Thibault. This put me in a dangerous position.
A second, updated letter about her was probably already headed to Caervorn making her even more valuable in their estimation.
I could probably count on one hand the days we had until Vaustin Maeron showed up with his traveling band of mage hunters.
It was too late to stop the rumor, but it was never too late to sway minds.
“The woman tending your king was summoned because she is exceptional at what she does. That is where your respect should lie, not in rumor.” I scanned each man, letting my gaze linger on each one. “Speaking of a woman’s lineage is beneath the dignity of men who serve this Crown.”
I was unable to prevent my jaw from clenching on the last word.
“Yes, sir,” they said as one.
I shifted my stance, projecting a calm I didn’t feel. “Magic is a responsibility in Larethia, not spectacle. Those who carry it serve the Crown as you do—with discretion and a mind for the greater good. I ask nothing of her that I do not ask of every one of you.”
My voice had hardened ever so slightly on the last. A hairline crack in my composure that hadn’t gone unnoticed—one of the four exchanged the briefest glance with the man beside him.
What I couldn’t say in front of dozens of men was that she’d been afraid of exactly this. That she’d rejected the idea of coming to the Tir in the first place for this exact reason. Now the world had proven her right.
I would spend whatever currency—gold, reputation, pressure—I had to in order to make it right.
“I understand the impulse,” I continued. “But we are better than that. Any tavern style gossip about women under my protection, even when you are not under my direct orders, will lead to serious repercussions. Am I understood?”
A chorus: “Yes, Your Highness.”