Chapter 28
SAPHIRA
Beliana and Thalina had delighted in fussing over me as they had helped me dress for dinner, and some part of me had delighted in it too as I had impatiently sat before the dressing table in my room, watching them in the mirror as they talked of things that had happened in my absence while pinning the glossy waves of my silver hair into an elaborate knot on my crown.
I had never wanted servants, and I wasn’t sure they would ever really feel like that to me.
I laughed and smiled with them, a fondness blooming in my heart whenever Thalina had spoken of one of the guards who had caught her eye, and Beliana had muttered about him being too old, or too poor, or even too young for her.
It had changed every second. The two unseelie were fast becoming more like friends to me.
I stood alone in my room before the full-length mirror, absorbing the fact I was back here, in a place some part of me had been convinced I would never see again.
Gods, it was comforting. When I had found myself back in my family’s cabin, back in my pack’s lands, I hadn’t felt like this.
I had felt as if invisible walls were closing in on me again.
The second I had set foot on Shadow Court soil, my wolf side—my heart—my soul—had howled that I was home and the world had felt open to me, as if there were no boundaries, no limit to how far I could roam or the things I could see or do.
“I’m home,” I whispered as I took in my room, as my gaze roamed over the arched windows in the black stone walls and that enormous blood-red wooden four-poster bed that had been so daunting at first, to the doors that led onto the balcony and that view of Falkyr town I loved so much.
I drifted to those doors and out onto the small balcony, my hands coming to rest on the stone balustrade.
Below me, lights slowly came on in the windows of the half-timber buildings and the lamps along the road, making the town look as warm as I knew it to be now. “I’m home.”
And it felt good.
I didn’t care that I was keeping Kaeleron waiting as I soaked in that view, as I battled the sorrow that threatened to well up from my heart as I wished my parents could have known about the adventures I had found here.
The freedom. The love. The joy. I drew down a slow breath, my right hand rising to land on the spot on my chest over my heart.
A heart that felt their presence within it.
I was sure they would always be with me in some way, watching over me with my ancestors.
They would always be in my heart.
Stars pricked the veil of night like glittering waves of diamonds, the aurora seeming to chase around them, dancing and weaving between the brightest, and the moon called to me, whispering promises of running in the forest.
Tomorrow.
Right now, I had a date with a king.
I turned from the view and crossed the room, my silk slippers quiet on the black marble floor.
I stepped out into the black-walled corridor, closed my door behind me, and took a breath, stealing a moment to calm my nerves.
I had no reason to be nervous. Or perhaps I did.
I smoothed my hands down the dress I had chosen—one I had asked the seamstress to make me and one she had completed and sent to the castle so quickly that I was certain she had used magic in its creation.
I made my way down the sweeping staircase to the second floor, the satin trail of my gown snaking down the steps behind me like a shadow.
With each step closer to the dining room I came, my nerves rose, and by the time I was outside the beautifully carved wooden double doors, I needed a moment to calm them.
I checked myself over as I battled my fears, telling myself on repeat that this would go exactly the way I had planned—and wanted.
I pushed the door open and entered the elegant gothic room.
“You are late—” Kaeleron froze as his silver eyes landed on me.
Landed on me and widened even as they darkened with hunger, with need and desire that roused heat in my veins.
That was the reaction I had craved and feared I wouldn’t get.
And gods, I had never felt quite as confident as I did as I walked to the long wooden table that stretched between us, as I did when he pushed to his feet, struck mute by the sight of me, looking wonderfully flustered and unsure of himself.
“My king.” I curtseyed, dipping enough that the bias-cut satin of my strapless dress shifted against my curves, clinging lovingly to reveal them, and he got a glimpse of my cleavage.
When I lifted my head, meekly meeting his gaze, and straightened, he cleared his throat and gestured to the seat at the opposite end of the table near me.
I reached for the chair.
“Wait,” he barked and appeared next to me, shadows swirling outwards to merge with the black hem of my dress.
He caught my right wrist, pulling me to face him, and looked me over, his gaze so hot as he raked it down my body that I wasn’t sure we would make it through dinner before one of us succumbed to the need crackling between us. “You wear the colours of my court.”
I looked down at myself and then at him. “I do, and I wear them proudly. Do you think it suits me? It’s more mortal in fashion, but I like it.”
“I like it too.” He stepped back, still holding my wrist, his fine black eyebrows knitting as he raked another more leisurely gaze over me from head to toe. “Mortal fashion suits you.”
“I bet it does.” I smiled at him, my confidence sky high as he tried and failed to take his eyes off me.
I had thought he might be arrested by the sight of me in the navy-to-onyx dress that lacked all the padding and layers of a more traditional fae gown and was more reminiscent of the one I had worn on Beltane, but this reaction from him stole my breath.
And made me want to preen just a little.
“It really does.” He slowly shook his head, his handsome face gaining a despairing edge. “How do you expect me to concentrate on dinner when you look so edible? All I can think about is spreading you out on the table before my seat and feasting on you.”
My cheeks flamed when I remembered his threat to spread me out on the altar at Beltane and do just that. I had been shocked and unsettled by the thought at the time, but now I craved it. I wanted to goad him into doing it and acting out that fantasy he had formed in my mind that night.
“Gods, do not look at me like that or I will do it,” Kaeleron growled and ushered me into my seat. “I must at least allow you to eat first to build up your strength. You have been so busy with your pack that I doubt you have eaten all day, and are more starved than I am.”
I felt sure we were both as starved as each other in one respect.
We wanted to devour each other again, to make wild love and satisfy these hungers burning within us.
My stomach rumbled and I resisted rubbing it, trying not to draw his attention to it even as he gave it a pointed look that said I couldn’t conceal my hunger because his hearing was as sensitive as mine.
“Feast,” he husked and swept his arm out, drawing my attention to the delicious dishes spread out on the table beneath the chandelier of magical globes of light twining around golden vines and leaves.
They were all my favourites. He sank into his high-backed wooden seat at the far end of the table, his gaze demanding and drawing mine to him, and his smile wicked as he purred, “and then we fuck.”
Feast, fight and fuck.
I was sure now that the unseelie did not just one but all three of those things better than my kind did, especially the final one. Not that I had experience of any male other than Kaeleron. Not that I wanted experience with anyone else, or even needed it. I needed only him.
I squeezed my thighs together, deeply aware of my lack of undergarments.
I couldn’t wait to surprise him there too.
Ached to see his reaction when he discovered I was bare down there.
I shuffled closer to my plate as my stomach rumbled again and smiled as I noticed most of the platters of meat had been arranged at my end of the table.
I wanted to dive right in, but I restrained myself, trying to appear the lady.
I demurely sat before my empty plate, waiting as patiently as I could manage for permission from him to start.
The fire in the enormous onyx fireplace to my left crackled as it cast warm light across that side of the table and made the gold accents on the panels and columns set into the black marble walls shine.
This room was one of my favourites in the castle, and it wasn’t only because I was always alone with Kaeleron here.
It was sumptuous and decadent in appearance, and the masterpiece on the ceiling always stole my breath.
I gazed up at it, losing myself in the depiction of dragons and mountains and elkyn grazing in a forest as stars and aurora danced above them.
That painting was everything I loved about the Shadow Court condensed into one image, framed with golden leaves and vines and smaller depictions of nature in the cornicing that surrounded it on all sides.
Well, perhaps it wasn’t everything I loved about the Shadow Court.
I lowered my gaze to Kaeleron.
He watched me, silver eyes intense as he brought his fingers to rest on the wine carafe beside him and the tang of magic laced the air, the scent pleasing to me now as he used it to fill my crystal goblet with rich red wine.