Chapter 17
Castor
Before me lies a revolting scene.
A pile of gold coins glitters on the bedside table.
The lighting of the red room is dim and romantic.
Candles in the fireplace, roses on the bureau, chocolates, and untouched wine on a serving tray.
Maddox with bloodred lips, wearing a glittering bodice of sapphires, black garter belt and garters clipped to thigh-high stockings.
I feel a flush move over me and rip my gaze from her legs to the sycophantic man who works for my brother, seconds away from blowing my cover.
Archer scrambles to his bare feet faster than a lizard wriggling free of a hawk’s talons. He folds forward into a low bow. “Your Highness. I wasn’t— I didn’t—”
“Leave,” I grind out. “Now.”
“Y-yes, Your Highness.” He bends to snatch his shoes off the floor.
“Leave them,” I say. Archer’s reddening face snaps up, pupils engulfing the amber. I swallow the rancorous laugh crawling up my throat. “Go.”
Relinquishing his shoes, he nods. Maddox watches our exchange from the bed with a measured gaze. Then Archer ducks past me, running barefoot through the parlor, past a startled Daisy.
With Tamarind at my heels, I step inside the room, closing the door behind us and casting vines of silence across the threshold.
Maddox sits slowly up, brushing her hair back from her forehead.
Either she thoroughly re-dressed after whatever they’d just done, or she never removed her clothes in the first place.
I resist the urge to ask. After all, she doesn’t know she’s meant to fall in love with me.
Her forehead smooths. “I wasn’t finished with him, you know.”
“You never should have begun with him.”
Mild annoyance builds to burning fury in her eyes. “Need I remind you a second time that you are not my pimp, Your Majesty?”
My chin lifts at her audacity. If I were Durian, her head would have already left her body for speaking to a king this way. But I am not Durian, so of course I’m just busy forcing my face into anything other than intimidated and uncertain.
And, still, she continues, “You have no say over who I do or do not begin with. I’m repaying my debt to you by working for Madam Debray. That was the only stipulation.”
I don’t believe her for a moment. As a self-proclaimed lover of dryad parties, she likely jumped at the chance to play with us even longer. One of those mortal thrill seekers who thrives on adrenaline and danger. That could either help or hinder my endgame.
“I don’t believe that your duties include pleasuring the man my brother hires to capture innocent mortal women—women Durian has his way with before he wipes their memories and leaves them dazed in the forest.”
“Your brother hires?”
My stomach plummets at my own blunder, avoiding Tamarind’s belated warning glance. Yes, I know I’m bad at this. I don’t need to be reminded.
Luckily, I have not drunk quite so much wine as usual, and my mental faculties are able to configure a decent explanation. “Yes…my brother. I may be king, but the prince has his own games he likes to play. None of which are illegal in this kingdom.”
The blood in her cheeks drains. “It’s not illegal to have mortal women brought to your door like they are nothing more than a pizza delivery?”
Truth be told, I’ve always been a bit revolted by Durian’s idea of fun.
The number of mortals I’ve had Tamarind sneak out of the kingdom before the king could lay hands on them is staggering.
But if I say this, it would look like I’m a terrible king who lets the prince walk all over him.
And that story doesn’t add up. Best to go with dryad lore and things mortals can’t understand.
“Our laws are centuries old, Maddox. Mortals have been the enemy of dryads for nearly as long.”
“Why? Because we don’t have magic?”
“Because you cut down our heartwoods and homes and murder innocent dryads to build your houses from their corpses,” I retort with quite a bit more venom than I intended. “Not you, of course…just—”
“Just people I loved,” she snarls, then stops, shaking her head.
“Believe it or not, dryads have lost people they loved as well.”
Upper lip curling, she swings her legs off the bed, straightening her arms by her side. “Fuck them.”
I hate her. Physically, unequivocally hate her. The day she falls in love with me cannot come soon enough.
“Eloquent sentiment.”
She fixes her eyes on the ceiling. “I’m not trying to be eloquent.”
“That is clear.”
“I thought the Redwood Kingdom didn’t give a shit about what the mortals did to the forests, since they don’t touch any of your trees.”
My voice darkens. “From whom did you hear that?”
Maddox’s shoulders stiffen. “Like I told you before…dryads talk at parties. Especially around mortals. It’s almost as though they think we can’t understand them.”
“Most mortals don’t.”
“So I’ve heard.”
The tension in the room is thicker than tree sap.
Both our chests rise and fall with angry breaths.
This isn’t how you make someone fall in love with you.
The image of the Bloodwood Tree looms over me, and Tamarind’s gaze burns into my back.
And now that Durian knows who I’ve chosen—knows she thinks I’m him—the pressure feels all the heavier.
Tam, Evodia, Durian. So many eyes on me now, watching and waiting for me to founder.
I take a steadying breath. “I apologize for losing my head. I meant no offense…I suppose you and I have a lot to learn about each other.”
Casting me a sidelong glance, she focuses in on the steaming mug I’ve forgotten in my hand. “That smells a lot like coffee,” she mutters.
“That’s because it is.”
“I thought you didn’t have coffee here.”
“We don’t drink it much, but we do have it. We have many mortal things.” Stolen from their mortal cities. I extend the mug to her. “I brought it for you, actually.”
Wary desire lights her features. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“And the middle of your shift. I can dispose of it if you don’t want it.”
Sighing, Maddox captures the mug from my hands.
“I’ll take my chances, I suppose.” She breathes deeply in through her nose, then takes a sip.
A low, indulgent moan escapes her lips, and I’m hit with an unexpected shock of arousal.
Then she whispers, “Fuck,” and I decide it would be best if I sat down in the bloodred armchair wedged in the corner for a moment.
“You act as though you think I might have poisoned it.”
“Well, you are evil, apparently. Or at least that’s the vibe I got from your brother’s mortal-snatcher.”
Anxiety spreads through my chest like rot. My thoughts go to the nepenthe in my pocket. I was hoping she would have somehow forgotten about Archer’s words. I’d caught them just outside the door.
“Why is he so afraid of you?” she asks.
My heart thumps harder, mind venturing down a million possible avenues. I settle on verity. Sort of. “Rumors of my supposed evil deeds have spread across Sylveris like verticillium wilt. Few of them are even close to the actual truth.”
Maddox takes another sip of coffee. “And what is the actual truth? If you aren’t as cruel as they say…why would Archer behave like that? Like you were some kind of monster?”
There goes the verity, slipping away like silk sheets sliding off the end of a bed.
The word monster stings even more coming from her mouth.
My fingers tap out a quick beat on the arm of the chair.
Then I clench my fist. “If you must know, my brother is not the only Sempervirens with a fearsome affliction.”
Wonder if the expert liar can sniff out the vestiges of my falsehood. Or the subtle tremor in my voice.
Wrapping her hands more tightly around the mug, Maddox leans forward, enhancing the fullness of her décolletage. I tear my gaze away, ignoring the heated blood rushing south.
“What do you mean?”
Taking a moment to allow my traitorous lust to recede, I rise from the chair and move to the carefully crafted bureau topped by a vase of red roses.
Holding her gaze, I place my palm flat on the top.
Veins of blackness course down my arm and into the wood, traveling across the surface like ink in water.
Decay eats away at every natural thing until the integrity of the bureau breaks down, and it collapses in on itself.
Maddox takes in my destruction, silver eyes tracking the shattered petals of the now-withered roses. The mug of coffee lowers from her agape mouth.
My voice comes out quiet. “You see why creatures of the forest might fear me.”
Leaving her with this dawning understanding, I head for the door before she can ask anything else.
“Thanks,” she says suddenly, “for the coffee.”
“Of course,” I tell her without looking back.
Tamarind holds the door open for me when Maddox says, “Castor?”
I turn in question. For once, she doesn’t look guarded or dangerous. Merely curious. “Why would you spare me when you believed I came here to murder you?”
“Honestly?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, lie to me.”
“To be honest…I spared you because when you kissed me the world went silent, and it’s been rather deafening lately.”
Her mouth turns lopsided. “So you spared me because you hoped I would kiss you again?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“But you aren’t not saying it.”
“Good night, Maddox. Be wary of who you choose to invite into your bed. You may never leave it again.”
~
The iron door to Evodia’s room slams shut behind me. I slide down it, immediately lighting my nepenthe and taking a deep pull of the burnt-sugar smoke.
Evodia casts vines of silence without looking up from whatever letter she’s composing. “Your plan is going well, I take it?”
I allow the nepenthe time to deaden my sizzling nerves before responding.
“This plan is damned. Archer nearly destroyed everything tonight. After they slept together, might I add.” I look pointedly at her.
She doesn’t look back. “And what precisely is the woman who is meant to fall in love with me doing in bed with a visitor? I thought her duties revolved only around bookkeeping.”
Evodia’s leaf quill scratches across the parchment, eyes on her words. “I imagine Miss Oleander is taking advantage of the perks of her new position.”
“Sleeping with Durian’s mortal-snatcher is far from a perk. It is a detriment. A hazard.”
Signing the bottom of the letter, Evodia sets her leaf quill patiently down and peers up at me. “Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
I hold the smoke in my lungs as long as possible, letting it stream out through my nostrils. “You detect a hint of vexation. That woman is a plague.”
“Your task is proving to be more difficult than you anticipated, is it?”
Rubbing the end of the nepenthe out on my knee, I flick it into the iron bin by the marbled bureau. “It is going horribly, thanks for asking.”
“Surely it isn’t all that bad…”
My face deadpans. “I yelled at her about mortals killing dryads, and then I showed her my inner darkness, if you will. I owe you a bureau in the red room, by the way.”
An exasperated chuckle. “Ever the dramatic prince you are.”
“When I’m locked in the Bloodwood Tree, make sure Tamarind has somewhere to work, will you?”
“Stop that. Don’t go giving up already. You just need to get the girl to open up to you.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Figure out what she craves. Go out of your way to visit her, to bring her things she would like. Speak to her as if you are entranced by her beauty and charm. And for the love of the forest gods, don’t look at her like you did last night. She is observant and will see the revulsion in your eyes.”
I lean my head back until it cracks against the door.
Dull pain, numbed by nepenthe, throbs from the impact.
“How can I not look at her like I despise her? She clearly loathes dryads even though she likes to revel with us. She betrays no hint of emotions or fear or anything. Plus, there’s the fact that she tried to murder me. ”
“The same way someone can look at you and see past your curse.”
A million horrified faces flash across my memory.
Dryads dashing into shadows. Arborfae flying off paths.
Whispers and quick shuffling feet. Glances filled with trepidation or disgust. Durian shaking his head at me after Cyperus’s death.
Tears well up, choking me. I almost can’t swallow them this time.
“Except people cannot see past my curse.”
“Tamarind does. I do.”
“Well, you are both fools.”
“Look at me, Castor,” Evodia demands. There’s frustration and a weary fatigue in her expression, but no hate, no fear.
Perhaps there is even a bit of compassion, maybe more than a bit.
“You see what you expect to see. I know you think it will be torturous, but some nights you drink yourself sick, yet wake up the next day and order a glass of the same wine that ailed you.”
“That’s because wine is the love of my life.”
Candlelight dances in the glossy shine of her amethyst eyes. “Then pretend she’s a glass of wine.”