Chapter Twelve #2
I still don’t know. It’s temporary, whatever it is between us, but also joyful enough to last me a lifetime. Because temporary is so much more than I ever thought I’d have when I was sneaking Sparger a bread bowl last week.
A sudden memory makes me gasp. Sparger. He was in the spice closet that day I decided to use the spices in the daisy cakes, or was it the day before? But no. He couldn’t have left the poison. He’s as close to a friend as I have.
“What is it, love?”
Cian’s touch is tender as he swipes my hair back from my face. His touch, his voice, the way his lips lift, the softness as he looks at me. I don’t want to trouble him, and yet...
“I’ve just remembered something. I don’t know if it means anything. I hope it doesn’t, but...”
Immediately, Cian is all royalty again. He sits up, his cock sliding from me as he grabs my arms and drags me up with him. His face is a masterpiece of distrust. “Tell me, Ayala. Tell me the truth. I presume by your expression that this has to do with my poisoning?”
This time, I’m the one searching his expression, looking for something that tells me I can trust him with my friend’s life.
We know each other so little for knowing each other so well.
“I’ll tell you so long as you promise me that you won’t jump to conclusions and torture and kill someone without serious proof. ”
“Tell me.”
“Promise me.”
A rumble of discontent growls from his throat. “If you think I won’t send you to the dungeons again just because I like fucking you, you’re wrong. If you know something, or even think you might know something, you will tell me now. This is too big for discretion.”
I suppose it is.
Reluctantly, I nod. “Fine, but I’m trusting you to be deliberate and not kill or maim to get your answers.”
Another growl. This one travels up my spine like icy fingers as he pulls magick from the earth and wraps it around me like a shroud.
I push at his chest. “Stop that.”
To my utter shock, and to his too, I think, he does.
Slowly, I say, “I have a friend. Sparger. He’s a very weak stag, barely able to shift, but obviously stronger than I am. The day I made the daisy cakes, or maybe the day before—I don’t remember, he was in the kitchen pantry when I returned from taking an order to the Inn of the Barking Mad.”
“Does Sparger have keys to the pantry?”
“No, I don’t think so, but... he said I left the door unlocked.
The thing is, I don’t think I did, though there were a couple other times the knob turned without my unlocking the closet door.
Since everything looked okay within, I assumed that maybe Roffey had simply forgotten to lock up.
He’s—he was—often distracted by his pursuit of Fawn Freeborn. She led him on a merry chase.”
“I see.” Cian settles back, looking more contemplative than murderous now. “Roffey and Fawn. Hunter would say that I should pay more attention to gossip, and I’m beginning to fear he might be right.” His expression turns thunderous. “Hornbeam tried to rape you.”
“Only because your attention to me made me seem more attractive to him. He’s very interested... was very interested... in power. Fawn is a much higher-level doe than he is a stag. Was.”
It’s still hard to believe he’s dead, and because of me. The same hands that hold me so gently belong to the same antlers that speared him with ease.
I should mind. I do mind. And yet...
As if reading my mind, Cian says, “Any stag who tries to rape a doe in my kingdom dies. My laws are clear. It’s not your fault or mine. It was his.”
I nod. I’m still going to carry the image of Roffey bleeding and broken, tossed like garbage from the rack of the stag I’m coming to love.
Like. I like Cian, that’s all.
I’m not sure who I’m trying to kid. I shake my head to loosen my thoughts.
“Anyway, it’s a bit odd that a doe with a higher standing would choose an association with a stag so much lower, but Fawn did chase Roffey.
I saw it for myself. She often found her way back to the kitchen and into his office.
I caught her once sitting upon his lap, her tongue in his ear. ”
“Not an image I’d like to keep in my head.”
“No.” I shrug. “Maybe he was kind to her. Kindness can win a good measure of loyalty.” I know. Just look what Cian’s has done to me.
“Perhaps. Though it’s axiomatic that a strong doe seeks a strong stag, just as stags seek weaker does so as not to sublimate their protective instincts. It’s how we’re made.”
“And you’re extra protective. Maybe that’s why you feel as you do with me.”
“I don’t know. I’ve come to admire your inner strength.” He shoots me one of those toe-curling smiles. His cum is still leaking onto my thighs, and I want him inside me again.
Focus, Ayala.
“Right. Back to the topic at hand...”
“You don’t take compliments well, do you?”
“I don’t know. You’re the first to ever give me any. So why would Fawn, who could have her pick of the uppermost class of stags, you included, pick a stag at least three levels beneath her?”
“Access.”
“You think...?”
His long fingers tap secret messages onto my thigh before stroking them out. “Who had access to the pantry?”
“Roffey. Me. And Sparger, apparently, though perhaps, given the door wasn’t always locked, everyone did.
But there’s something else.” I take a deep breath before continuing.
Saying the next part might well seal my friend’s fate, though if he did indeed try to poison the king, I’ve little sympathy for him.
“Sparger was the one to encourage me to make the daisy cakes for you. He appealed to my vanity, and I took the bait. Maybe he intended me to poison you, or maybe it was simply coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“No.” I don’t, either. “Why do you believe me?”
For a moment, his face puzzles until his expression smooths. “Because if you’re lying and you really tried to kill me, I’ll be devastated.”
In the next moment, I’m under him again, and a second after that, devoid of my robe. His hands rub magick into my skin, pulling out need I never realized I harbored and spinning it back inside me like a corkscrew.
“Fuck me,” I order, when I can’t take the climb up the mountain anymore.
Another beautiful smile traces his beautiful face. “I thought you’d never ask.”