50. Chapter 50
Chapter fifty
Istood in my undergarments, hair pinned back and shoes on.
Audrie had been gone the entire day, and I wondered if I would be attending tonight’s party in a chemise.
Finally, she burst through my bedroom door, a smile wider than her face on display.
“Don’t say anything. Just turn around and get dressed.” She bundled the fabric at me and pushed me behind the privacy screen.
When I emerged, the gentle hiss of the fabric on the floors sounded like rain falling. And I loved it.
Audrie audibly gasped when she saw me.
I stood before the mirror, and then I gasped too.
This was the sheer white dress. Or what had been that dress.
The moon-pale fabric now sparkled with hundreds of glass beads arranged to look like exploding stars.
Sleeves had been added using fabric from the back panel, which was now bare down to my hips.
They’d even added a plunging neckline so that my necklace landed on my skin directly.
“It’s perfect,” I breathed, my fingers caressing the curves and lines of the beaded fireworks. I had never considered that clothes could make such a difference, but there were sparks dancing inside of me in this. It felt right. It felt like it was mine.
“And this.” Audrie handed me a hair slide with two shimmering radial stars in crystal white on the length.
“Kaed’s credit in the city is going far, I see.” I chuckled as she slid the piece into my hair.
“Perfect.” She beamed. “You look just like a princess.”
I laughed, but my skin pebbled all over. This would have him on his knees. A devious grin pulled at the corners of my mouth, and I pinched my lips to hide my enjoyment over the thought.
Taking a steadying breath, I brushed the delicate fabric. “Ready to go?” I looked at her still in her smock from the day.
“Not exactly.”
“You don’t say.” I laughed.
Audrie was fidgeting with a loose strand of hair.
“What is it?”
“I’m not arriving with you.”
Oh. I suppose I was arriving with Kaed then. That made sense. We were supposed to be engaged to be married.
I smiled, a little disappointed we wouldn’t be arriving arm in arm. “Save me from him if he’s being gloomy.” I winked, and she smiled as she left me to find Kaed.
After knocking three times on his door, I got no answer. I thought to open it, but I didn’t think I’d survive finding him if he were midway dressed.
Instead, I wandered to the foyer and found Gavrin looking a little dejected.
“Parties are not your idea of a good time?” I surmised.
“Depends on the party.”
“All spines must remain within bodies tonight.”
He laughed and offered me the crook of his arm as we left to take the carriage.
“Kaed … Is he?” I looked to Gavrin. I don’t know why, but I felt foolish. I thought we’d have gone together.
“He’ll meet us there. He said he had an errand to run.”
Oh.
I nodded and tried to bury the disquiet that settled over me. A little part of me was disappointed I couldn’t see him in private before the event that lay before us tonight.
And another part felt the words Eryk had left me with sink deeper into me.
The carriage came to a halt on a rough gravel path just in front of the glasshouse I’d visited with Kaed. It had been beautiful then, but now …
Fae lights lit every panel of glass until it looked like a small sun slipping beneath the horizon. The orbs cast the ferns and palms in a strange, enchanting glow. Parts of the curved roof structure had been opened to the night air, and the sound of music drifted out.
As Gavrin walked us to the ornate ironwork building, I saw there were also hundreds of tiny fae lights dotted amongst the foliage in varying shades of icy blue.
They twinkled as they hid amongst the leaves and fronds that bobbed gently in the breeze.
Luscious floral scents hung in the air, and I felt drunk on the heady pollen that sang to me.
Gavrin stopped abruptly as we were approaching the door. A chill shot down my back, and a ripple of panic swam into my veins.
“What is it?” I whispered, a smile plastered to my face so no one would take notice.
Gavrin actually growled beside me, and his eyes remained fixed dead ahead and through the glass doors. I couldn’t see what he saw. Fae sight right about now would be very helpful.
I nudged him. And he finally looked at me.
“It’s nothing—Nothing. I’m fine. I—Will you be okay for a moment?”
And before I could answer, he’d stormed off.
Would-be celebrators approached me and then kept moving; patrons threw the occasional glance to see why I was standing alone.
And for the first time, the stares, the glances, they fell differently.
Did they all see I was Auroran? Had they always seen that?
I tried not to fidget with the hem of my sleeve as eyes lingered on me.
Warm air of the glasshouse hit me as I found my way inside, cocooning me from the chill of the night.
If I’d thought the jungle-like hot house had been densely packed with foliage and flora when I’d seen it first, now it was like a floral explosion.
There were boughs of flowers like rainbows made real.
I passed under an arched structure built entirely of stems and petals.
It felt like walking through a door to another world.
The railing of the same wrought-iron spiral staircase was entirely covered in orchids in every shade of purple and silver and white until it looked like a tree trunk of blooms. Overhead, waterfalls of night-blooming jasmine and moonflowers trickled down, caressing my face as I passed them.
But the most stunning sight was the dozens of floating flowers.
They were the colour of amethyst and blue chalcedony, like moonstone but warmer.
And they were floating. Everywhere. Tiny beads of fae light seemed to cling to them like pollen clinging to a bee, and it was causing them to bob and bounce through the air like they were fire lanterns drifting into the inky sky above.
I looked around for Kaed amongst the kaleidoscope of petals. I saw councillors, wives and husbands, humans and fae. All in beautiful dresses and ornate tunics that danced in the fae light as they moved.
Sparkling wine fizzed around me on trays carried by neatly dressed staff.
But no Kaed.
The hem of my sleeve was between my fingers again as I passed amongst the revellers.
There was such finery here, such wealth.
I didn’t really belong here. Kaed’s presence, his touch, sometimes made me forget that.
But when he wasn’t around, the truth of how much I didn’t fit into this world forced its way back into my thoughts.
I found myself backing up against a wall of greenery, watching as people mingled and sipped on pale golden wine. Their chatter rose and twined with the stringed instruments hidden somewhere in the curated garden room.
Just as I was about to step into the fray again, something caught me by the hand and pulled me backwards.
In the confined space of the hidden canopy, I found myself face-to-face with Kaed. Or rather, chest to face.
The heat of the hothouse couldn’t compare to the heat I felt at Kaed’s nearness.
He pulled me closer to him, his fingertips skimming the bare skin of my back. His metal rings felt like ice kisses to my warm body.
“Where have you been?” I reprimanded him.
Kaed’s finger landed on my lips, and I stilled, but my heart thundered beneath his touch. “Shhh,” he murmured. “I pulled you in here for privacy, and you want to announce to everyone we’re here?” He laughed in a whisper.
“Where have you been?” I said again, matching his whisper.
But I didn’t care about the answer because I finally took in the sight of him.
Kaed was dressed head to toe in black. So black it seemed to devour the light.
Everything was cut perfectly to show off every hard line of his chest, the angle of his shoulders and that seductive tapering where his abdomen disappeared into his belt.
Across the shoulders of his tunic were hundreds of glass beads.
They looked like stardust. His lashes looked as though they were darker too.
Kohl maybe? And his hair fell in soft folds around his temples.
I couldn’t stop my hand as it reached to swoop his hair away from his scar.
My fingers traced the line from his brow to his cheekbone. I had wanted to touch it before. But tonight, I didn’t stop my fingers as I finally allowed myself to trace the line.
The scar had been bad enough to mark a fae. Remembering how I felt about my own scar, I dropped my hand with shame for touching his.
Kaed clutched my hand as I tried to pull back.
“Does it bother you?” Tension vibrated in his voice, a strained cord as though he’d felt that before. Like if I said yes, something might crack. Of course, it didn’t bother me. Scar or no scar, he was beautiful.
I shook my head. “I like it.”
That made him smile, wide and playful. “You like it?”
Why did that make me blush?
“Who am I to judge?” I said, holding up my arm. The sheer fabric sleeve slipped back to reveal the white scar that curved along the fine bones of my wrist.
Kaed captured my wrist in his hand. Shadows reached out to caress the sensitive skin. His thumb traced the scar up and down, heat buzzing where his thumb scorched me that had nothing to do with the heat of the hothouse.
“I like it.” He echoed my words with a dip of his head.
My entire body shuddered as though it were pleading with the forgotten gods for him to kiss me again. Touching him felt like fire in my veins. But kissing him felt like fireworks.
Instead, he turned my hand over in his and slid something cool onto my finger.
“I want you to wear this.” His voice was seductive as it played with the words. “It might help us play this little game.” He chuckled.
I gasped. Encircling my finger was a silver band with a pale blue diamond. The faceted raindrop glinted in the fae lights as I held up my hand.
But that scorching heat that had been taking over me suddenly went out, doused with cold water.
Eryk’s warning cut through me.
Game. This was a game to him.
This feeling. The touch of him under my hands, his hands on me. The heat in my blood.
All a game.
This wasn’t real. How could it be? The falsehood of my presence in a place like this, of being with someone like Kaed …
Just a game …
This ring was only a visual reminder of that. We might have moved past prisoner and jailor, but where did that leave us?
“A wife-to-be should have a ring.” He hadn’t seemed to notice the sting I felt from wearing it. And I was wringing out the confusion in me over that. It was just a ring. But the sentiment of a false engagement now felt different as I held the weight of it on my finger.
I tried to pull it off and give it back, but his hand closed over mine.
“Please,” he said, “wear it. For me.”
There was no pain in this for him. This was all a game, a stratagem.
I gave a tight nod, my voice thick as I said, “Of course.”
He smiled, and the beauty of it hurt me differently now.
I realised that this was as close to Kaed as I would get. Eryk had said there would be a price. And I was certain, the price this time was my own pain.
It would always be a game to him. A means to an end.
He might seem like he enjoyed tasting me or touching me, but that was it.
And it terrified me to realise that was no longer enough for me.
In just a few short days, my body had moved through a thousand different emotions for Kaed.
Hatred, disdain, obligation, lust and now …
something so much more captivating than all of those.
I wanted him for more than his body. And only when I’d seen the physical representation of our false roles in this city on my finger, did I realise it fully.