Chapter Nine #2
Since Hunter has no more answers, I push through the door into the darkness. On the shelf beside the portal lies a lamp. With the flick of a switch, a flame ignites within the clear crystal.
Hunter crosses to the table, surefooted in the dark, and begins laying out the meal. “Rise and shine, little doe,” he sings in a loud voice. “You’ve got meat, an unexpected luxury, drawn by the hand of your king. Snap to it.”
But his voice wobbles as I punch him in the arm before I cross to the bed. Ayala is only a tiny naked bump on top of the covers. Grabbing an extra velvet throw from the trunk at the end of the bed, I cover her.
Hunter and I have shared myriad does and other kinds of female shifters. Ayala is different.
Like a little bird, tiny chirrups fall from her kissable lips as she stretches.
I sink beside her. “Come, love. Eat, and then you can return to bed. You’ve all day to sleep while we go on our mission. I’ll return tonight, though likely late.”
Those beautiful violet eyes open and blink at me. “Cian?” But at the sound of a plate hitting the table, she looks past me and gasps before clutching the throw to her.
I smell Hunter’s interest before I turn.
I don’t intend to move, but suddenly I’m across the room, shifted into full stag, the robe left in tatters hanging from me. With a roar of displeasure, I lower my head and push him against the wall on the point of my antlers.
Eyes wide with disbelief, he makes no move to defend himself. Not that he could. Not against his king. Any move he made would be a challenge, and I’d be forced to answer it with blood.
“Calm down, Cian. What the dubnos is wrong with you?” He turns his head, though he can’t see Ayala from where he stands, and shouts, “Is this your doing, witch? You’ve bespelled him to kill his best friend?”
I roar again before pressing my points into his skin, drawing blood. I rage into his mind. “Don’t you dare look at her, smell her, taste her, imagine her. She’s mine.”
“What in dubnos are you talking about? I don’t want her.” His inner voice rings into my head.
I see truth and untruth.
I roar again. “Mine. Your king’s. Obey me.”
Even I’m surprised by my demands. I’ve never once pulled rank on him. I’ve never needed to before.
The feel of his alarm grows. He starts to dart a look back toward where Ayala lies, but stops. He snaps his mind closed, his emotions off, hiding from me. With his lips, he says, “Yes, Your Majesty. As you will it.”
Breath works its way through my nose as I strive to calm myself, but everything in me wants to ram my points through his body before throwing him like refuse to the wind.
Suddenly, his eyes widen. His lips round with shock. “Oh! Oh—you’re in love.”
The ridiculousness of the statement works to calm me as nothing else could. “What are you talking about?” I ask in my head, but my control returns. Slowly, it returns.
“Well, you think you are, anyway. You’re jealous.”
“Now who’s talking nonsense?” I step back and shift into human form again.
“You just put your horns to my chest, ready to kill me for simply looking at your plaissance.”
“With lust.” My hands fist. I compel them to loosen. No sense in proving his absurd conclusion by mistake. Moderating my tone, I say, “Ayala is likely the weakest doe in the kingdom.”
He nods. “Which is why you can never mate her.”
“I never said I wished to.”
“Didn’t you? My mistake.” But though his words are light, his expression is stormy. “When we arrive at the monastery, we should ascertain just how much power you’ll lose by mating with one so weak. Just in case.”
“There’s no need to consult the Aurory about a circumstance that will never come to pass.”
“Sure, except I seem to remember something about a power exchange for mates of too-distant levels.” His face screws up as he tries to remember before he shakes his head. “Never mind. It’ll come to me.”
Calm. Control.
I cuff him on the shoulder. “Let me know when it does. Now, get the hell out of my rooms. I’ll meet you downstairs in a quarter of an hour.”
When he bobs his head and slips around me towards the door, he takes care not to look in Ayala’s direction.
I walk back to the bed and sink onto it. Ayala is a mess of disorganization. Her hair is still damp and resembles a bird’s nest of golden-brown straw around her pretty face. She has creases from the pillow on her cheek.
And I’ve never seen anything sexier.
Fucking Hunter and his ridiculous ideas.
“I want you to eat all the stew. Promise me.”
She nods, her demeanor more reserved after a night filled with passion. Uneasy, perhaps, wondering whether I’ll keep her or send her away.
“When I return later,” I add, trying to smooth out some of the tangles in her hair, “I hope you’ll welcome me back to bed.”
“I’m your plaissance. I’m here at your pleasure.”
Which is true, but for some reason, her words annoy me. “You have the position and the protection it brings. There’s no requirement attached.”
“You won’t send me packing if I deny you?”
Will I? With anyone else, I would, but with her...
“Are you seeking vows, love?” I make my tone mocking.
“N-no.” Her eyes widen. “I just...”
I brush a kiss against her lips, deepening the embrace when she melts under my assault.
Pulling away is difficult. More difficult than it should be.
She’s new is all. She’s... different.
That’s all.