Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lila has just placed the keys in the niche when there’s a pounding on her door. We share a glance, and then she’s pressing the fabric over the hole and leaning against the wall.
“You answer,” she says. “And do whatever you can to make them go away.”
On the other side of the door stands Carter, in a rumpled shirt, laces undone at the top. The moment he registers it’s me, standing in Lila’s bedroom, his mouth goes slack.
I raise my brows. “So you’re the competition?”
“Avery!” Lila yelps.
I keep the door tucked close to my shoulder. Carter coughs. “No, I—What’s with your eyes? You know what, never mind.” He holds out an envelope. “From the king. He laced it to the Mouth, and it’s addressed to Lila.”
My friend squeaks behind me.
“Is she okay?” Carter leans to the side, but I lean with him.
“Yes, she’s just spent. How’s the king in general? We felt the…” I glance up at the ceiling.
“It’s fine. He found a new outlet.” He shrugs, then departs, and I close and lock the door. Lila comes away from the wall, crossing her arms.
“Was that necessary?”
“Was what?” I smile.
Lila gives me a look as she plucks the letter from my hand. Her exasperation disintegrates to a darker emotion: dread, fear, resignation. Each time my friend rereads the note, her light dims just a bit more, frown deepening.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
Before she can tuck it into her pocket, I snatch it back.
“No,” she says. “No, it’s fine—”
Scrawled across the parchment is just one word.
Bedchamber.
It yanks the air from my lungs.
Bedchamber?
My vision blurs with rage. My head snaps up, and I try to meet my friend’s eye, but she just hugs herself, staring at the floor.
“This is not fine,” I snap. This is worse than not fine.
For all his drama and noise and pity, the king acts as those he condemns.
“It’s not what you think,” Lila snarls.
I take a breath. “I do not judge, Lila. I just care for you.”
“You misunderstand. He’s brought a new fae into his bed.”
“What do you mean?”
Lila shifts. “He makes me watch sometimes, for an audience. His guests like it, too. They seem to enjoy my discomfort—perhaps believe it turns me on.”
“And they make you—”
“I’ve never joined. Sometimes the guests request it, but the king always declines.”
The strange feeling congeals in my stomach. I remember Maxian’s warm, honeyed words the night I wore the oil.
Who’s it for? he murmured. Don’t be nervous, Avery, dear.
I am nervous now—nervous for Lila. For myself, I feel pent up with new power, like a dam ready to burst. I think of the look the king gave me in the training halls. His full weight pinning me. His bruising grip on my arms.
Something swells up in me, an emotion I can’t identify.
“I’ll go,” I say.
Lila grabs my arm. “Do not.”
“I’ll say you weren’t feeling well and so I’ve stepped in.”
“No.”
“Lila.” Now the nerves are for us both. “How many times have you stepped in for me? Let me do this for you.”
“It’s not just that.” She bites her lip. “It’s your disdain. Lately, it’s been leaking through.”
“My disdain?”
“It’s dangerous. It’s the one emotion Maxian cannot handle: when a faerie looks at him with disgust.” Shaking her head, she says: “You cannot slip once, not even for a second.”
“I won’t.” Taking a few deep breaths, I rein in my genius and emotions. “How are my eyes?”
“Normal again. Brown.”
So there is a connection between all three—my genius, my emotions, my eyes.
I’d rather the king not ask questions for which I have no answers, even if I want to inquire after his features.
I remember during our clash feeling the skin on his back, ridged and knotted.
How the king had turned into someone else afterward.
Never do that again. I can’t fight the intuition that there is a secret there to uncover.
And perhaps learning whoever is in his bed can be useful to Kassandra.
Most of all, the king made me feel powerless. And now it is my turn to do the same.
—
Lila brings me to the door in the servants’ hall that leads to the king’s chamber.
“Please don’t do this,” she begs.
“How many times have you done it?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I can handle it once,” I say. “Now, get back to your room—you’re ill and need rest.”
Lila gives me one last look, squeezes my hand, and disappears into the hall. I do as she instructed. I bite my lip, bringing color to the skin, grip the knob, and speak: “Solil.”
The normally sealed door glides open, revealing a glowing chamber and warm parquet floors.
To my right blazes a veined marble fireplace carved with leaves, berries, and a rising eagle in the mantel’s center, clutching a branch and whip.
A sultry glow comes from above, and I expect the night sky again, only to find hundreds of floating candles, their collective radiance like that of the sun itself.
Yet there’s no faerie around to maintain them—only a fae.
There’s a huff to my left.
As I pivot, I take in the enormous white-and-gold tufted bed, stories-tall drapes crowning the headboard. A tray of sparkling wine and two glasses rest on a side table.
Sprawled across the bed is a dusty-rose fae with pert features, magenta curls tumbling over one shoulder. Though she wears a thin shift, her curves press against the white fabric. When I meet her glittering black eyes, she sighs, rolling over.
“Max,” she whines. “I wanted the pretty one.”
A deep, soft voice slides along the plane: “What, you don’t find Lila—”
The king’s head rises from behind the female’s shoulder, then stops. His cheeks are flushed, hair plastered to one side, lavender tunic askew, cock thick against his thigh. His eyes flash in shock, brows pinching, and then he smooths his expression into one of cool indifference.
“Avery,” he says.
“Your Magnificence.”
His eyes flick to the fae in his arms, then to me. I give nothing away, schooling my expression, and wait for him to speak.
“I sent for Lila,” he says eventually.
“She’s ill.”
The female fae sighs again. “I think I’ll leave.”
“Come on, now.” The king wraps an arm around her back, drawing her closer. “We can still have fun.”
I wonder whether the tunic will come off. Perhaps he always hides whatever is on his back.
A giggle. “Yeah?”
“Yes, my love.”
“Love?” More giggling. “I do like the sound of ‘Lady Reign.’ ”
“I do, too.”
Lucan’s Tree. I feel queasy at the talk alone. Maxian dips his head, capturing her mouth in his. He pushes her onto her back, climbing on top, mostly clothed. They lie facing the foot of the bed, facing me.
As they grind, she squeaks out empty sounds.
I push down my disgust. Is this what they have Lila do?
Just stand there and stare? I guess it works for some.
If I wanted to put on a show, I’d at least make it entertaining.
Distracted, I let my genius unfold in my mind, frenetic and frenzied, energy prowling beneath my skin.
The plane shifts, picks up in vibration.
When I refocus on the act before me, my breath catches.
The king watches me. As his thumb twists the nipple of the female, he watches me. As his mouth finds her neck and sucks, his eyes search mine for any sign of desire, any heat that he is the greatest lover in the land.
According to the forceful, pitchy moans of his bedmate, I know he is not.
I keep my expression dull. As the king pushes harder, his touches growing desperate and sloppy, his partner tires of her own performance. They wanted to be seen. They never specified in what light. I stifle a yawn.
The king crawls off, and his lover pushes herself up. “Why’d you stop?”
“Just wanted a change of pace.” He meets my eye. “Avery,” he snaps, the sound cracking through the space like a whip. “Come closer.”
I circle the bed until I stand at its side.
“Kneel,” he commands.
I drop to my knees, lean back on my heels. The fae’s attention flits back and forth between us.
He nods. “Good. Shall we continue?”
The fae hesitates, then gives way. She pulls her nightgown over her head, shaking out her sunset hair.
Her nipples are hard, hips curving into thick thighs.
She is beautiful, and regardless of what she’s said about me, I feel for her.
She needs something, wants something, and also must put up with Maxian to get it.
I do not judge using the king. He uses everyone.
“My turn on top,” the fae coos, and Maxian grins, leaning back against the pillows and headboard. She climbs on top of him, bracketing his legs with her own. He runs his hands up her thighs, and she flips her hair to one side.
They dive into their show again, smacking and groaning, the sounds and gestures growing more exaggerated, more desperate, but not for each other—rather, for a gaze they attribute to me, one that is only really in themselves.
Planes, no wonder his litany of lovers can stretch around the palace thrice over, something males always like to brag about. No one came back for seconds.
As they flail, the power of the fae deflates before me.
These statuesque, striking creatures—the most alluring in the land—cannot enjoy pleasure.
Even in their desire, the fae will not messy themselves, will not grasp and beg for and earn the body of another.
They will never worship and never be worshipped, and so then, what is the point?
To value the look of sex over its feel is to misunderstand it.
And the king never takes off his tunic.
They steal glances in my direction, distractedly, and fumble with each other, and suddenly it is not enough. It’s not enough to know that I am a better lover than the king.
I need him to know it, too.
I let my bored genius stretch its wings, buzzing, unsatisfied, along the plane.
The female breaks apart. “Okay, I can’t do this with her staring at us.”
“Is that not the point?” I ask.
“It’s the way you’re staring.”
“How’s that?”
“Like a dead fish.”