Chapter 35 #3
“No.” His shadows tightened painfully around my waist before I could move. “I need you there with me. Everything will be fine. We shall go, show our faces, remain with our allies and keep our heads down. Everything will be fine.”
His eyes were so wild as he said that—as if I might be in danger—as if we both might be, that fear clamoured in my heart.
I somehow managed to tamp it down and force a smile. “Vyr hates balls and it seems you don’t have much love for them either. So desperate to avoid one.”
He smiled tightly. “I confess, I do not enjoy them, and I feel like I will not like this ball in particular.”
“We could dance. That might make it a ball you enjoy.” I like the thought of dancing with him and could easily imagine us spinning around the dancefloor, moving elegantly as we gazed at each other, looking like something out of a movie.
All eyes would be on us.
And everyone would know he was mine.
I couldn’t leash the low, possessive growl that rumbled in my chest at the thought of so publicly staking a claim on him.
His smile shifted towards real as he heard it.
“Dancing with you would be wonderful. I do so enjoy the feel of your curves against mine, and I am feeling rather territorial tonight… Perhaps this wolf mask is bringing out a beast in me too, for I could growl as possessively as you just did. I want everyone to see that you are mine. Perhaps it will not be as bad as I feel it will be.”
“So we go in. We dance. We get out. A solid plan.” I feathered my fingers over his mask and smiled wickedly. “And you can keep the mask on when we get back. I like it on you.”
“Great Mother, you madden me,” he growled. “Now I shall spend the entire ball thinking about taking you while we wear these masks—two wild beasts enslaved by their primal needs.”
I squirmed. “Bastard.”
He grinned and caught my arm as I went to step past him, heading for the carriage before I surrendered to this building need to sweep him away to the cottage.
“You do not want your other gift?” He eased back and slowly opened the box.
Revealing a breathtaking necklace of silver threads woven around rich, deep blue stones that shimmered under the globes of magical light suspended around me.
He lifted it from the bed of velvet and the box disappeared from his free hand as he moved around me, slowly coming to stand behind me.
The power of him encompassed me as he stepped up behind me, close to my back, and his arms enclosed me on both sides.
He held the stunning necklace aloft before me and then wrapped it around my throat, his fingers brushing my skin.
A shiver danced down my spine as they caressed my nape as he fastened it and my eyes slipped closed, my body swaying backwards towards him as my wolf side rumbled in approval of his proximity.
His hands came to rest on my shoulders, his thumbs playing maddeningly near my nape, caressing my bare skin with long, light strokes that set fire to my blood and had me leaning even further backwards, trying to appease the need for more contact between us.
Another shiver skipped down the length of my back as he lowered his head and lightly pressed his lips to the left side of my throat, his voice a husky murmur against my skin.
“Do you like it, my little wolf?”
My fingers danced over the necklace I had forgotten about while lost in the feel of him near me and his power that hummed through my veins.
I forced my eyes open and looked down at what I could see of it, feeling the rest of it with my fingers.
Smaller stones encircled my throat, and then a row of larger ones, and finally a ring of smaller ones that hugged the largest oval stone.
“It’s beautiful, but it’s also heavy.” The weight of it seemed to grow the more I focused on it. I angled my head, wanting to see him, and our masks touched. “Did you get it in Falkyr?”
I hadn’t seen anything like it in the few jewellery stores I had visited.
“It is a family heirloom of sorts.” He broke contact with me and breezed past me, heading for the carriage, where he stopped and extended his hand to me.
I went to place mine into it.
And drew it back again as a thought hit me.
“This isn’t one of those celebrations like the one you made me attend before, is it?”
He chuckled, the warmth of it spilling through my veins, easing some of the tension from my limbs. “No. Not even close.”
“I still don’t get why you’re going.” I took his hand, savouring the feel of his skin against mine and the way his fingers closed tightly over mine.
Kael helped me step up into the carriage as he said, “Because I prefer my head on my shoulders and my backside on the throne of my court. The high king does not tolerate refusals to attend. More than one court has exchanged hands in the past because someone dared to anger him.”
“He sounds like an asshole.” I plopped onto the black leather seat on the far side of the carriage.
“Do not speak of him like that, Saphira. Do you understand me?” Kaeleron’s power vibrated the air around me, pulling my gaze to him, and I flinched as his dark gaze met mine, the harsh line of his lips backing up the anger that had been in his voice.
Or maybe it was fear.
Fear I might be so stupid as to call the most powerful male in this world an asshole to his face.
“I would never say it to him.” I shook my head and reached for him, needing the contact between us again, wanting to soothe him and chase away this darkness in him, drawing back the warm and teasing male he had been before I had put my foot in it.
“Do not speak it at all. You do not know who is listening.” Rather than take my hand, he stepped up into the carriage and shut the door hard enough that the whole conveyance swayed with the force of it. “To speak so freely is a dangerous thing, even in my court. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
He turned a hard look on me. “Say the words.”
“I understand.” I couldn’t hold his gaze, and hated it when I peered at my lap instead, my head slightly bent and my wolf side cowed, withdrawing from him, shrinking away in a way that made me feel weak.
Gods, I hated it. I hated how easily he could make me feel this way, the power he wielded with only words, and I wanted to do as he had pushed me to earlier.
I wanted to snap my fangs and be fierce.
He loosed a long sigh that reeked of tension as he tilted his head back. I glanced at him, tracking his gaze to the foothills of Noainfir. To that little cottage nestled in the woods there. So far away from this world of politics and power.
“I am sorry,” he murmured, silver gaze still fixed on that distant spot I wanted to ask him to take me to instead of the ball. “This night weighs heavily upon me.”
Did he want to be there again too, alone with me, away from everyone? Just the two of us.
I placed my hand on his knee and lightly squeezed it. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave, right?”
He nodded, but didn’t look at me as he gathered the leather reins and gently snapped them, and the elkyn moved off, banking right around the castle and heading towards the garden.
I waited for him to guide the beasts towards the main gate, but instead he snapped the reins again, harder this time, and they took off at speed, heading towards the fountain.
“Kael.” I gripped his knee with one hand and the side of the carriage with the other as we thundered towards it, and as we closed in on it, the elkyn running faster rather than slowing as the distance between us and it narrowed to nothing, I flinched away, turning my face towards him as I braced for the collision.
One that never came.
The sound of hooves striking stone disappeared. Stillness reigned around me, the only sound that of the breeze against my face and the huffs and grunts of the elkyn as they raced onwards.
“Tsk, little lamb. Show me those fangs of yours, for you might need them tonight,” Kaeleron murmured in my ear, making me tremble as the air cooled and chilled my skin.
I bravely cracked my eyes open.
And couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The elkyn charged through the air on silver threads that burst from beneath their hooves, flowing into ribbons that swirled beneath the wheels of the carriage before dying out a short distance behind us.
I looked there, at the black towers of Falkyr Castle and the warm lights of the town as they grew smaller and smaller, so far below me.
Kael watched me closely as I struggled to take in the amazing view and how crazy this all felt to me.
“We’re flying.” I glanced at him and back at the view. “We’re flying. How are we flying?”
His chuckle rasped against my shoulder as he placed his arm around me, tugging me flush against him, and crossed his legs, his hold on the reins casual now as the elkyn took the lead as if this was perfectly normal for them and they had done it a thousand times. “Magic.”
“Magic,” I echoed. He used it to teleport, and to walk through walls, so why couldn’t he use it to make beasts run on the wind? I pulled a face, shrugged and slightly shook my head, still struggling to comprehend it. “Of course. Magic.”
I recalled him saying that kings couldn’t teleport into other courts. They had to cross borders in a physical way. Was this what he had meant? They took the Lucian equivalent of a plane to neighbouring courts?
“Is this your magic?” I glanced at the lead elkyn, watching as that glittering trail of light emanated from beneath his hooves, beginning in a shower of sparks whenever one struck the air, and recalled what Kaeleron had said about this magnificent ancient beast.
He could run on the wind.
I had taken that to mean he was fast.
But Kaeleron had meant this.
He confirmed it by shaking his head, his sharp silver gaze remaining fixed ahead of us. “It is his.”
“It’s incredible,” I breathed, swept up in the waves of awe and amazement that ran through me as I watched the elkyn run, carrying us higher into the starlight sky.
I glanced down at the dark, glittering swath of the sea that met a pitch-black shore punctured by a cluster of lights that hugged the coast near another mountain range.
“Belkarthen.” Kaeleron glowered at it.
I gripped his knee a little harder, wanting him to know I was there and I knew the pain that place carried for him.
Pain like it lived within me now too, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to go back to my pack’s lands in Canada without feeling it intensely.
I could understand now why he didn’t like to visit the coastal city where he had been raised, where his life had been filled with warmth and love.
Warmth and love that had been ripped from him, devastating him and moulding him into the male seated beside me, watching me closely.
“Are we flying all the way to Ereborne?” I peered into the inky distance, unable to make out anything.
“No. The restrictions have been lifted for this evening and everyone is expected to arrive by carriage, although all other attendees will travel by ground in one. We kings have been given permission to summon waygates into Ereborne. While you were dressing, I created one outside Falkyr for Jenavyr and the others to use.”
I frowned at him. “So we didn’t need to fly? We could have just gone through that one like everyone else?”
“But how would I impress my little wolf by travelling in such a pedestrian manner?” His grin was feline.
“I am quite impressed.” I looked at the glittering sea, and the land far below me as we crossed over the mountains into the neighbouring court.
“Then my work here is done.” Kael leaned away from me and looked below us. “Now should be fine. Hold on tightly to me and do not let go. Now it is time for my magic.”
I gripped more than his knee, taking hold of the breast of his tunic as he tightly clutched my shoulder and the dark power he always exuded built around me.
Shadows replaced the silver light dancing from beneath the hooves of the elkyn and billowed around us, and Kael’s grip became bruising.
I glanced up at him, at the tight line of his jaw and his compressed lips.
He sneered with effort, flashing straight white teeth.
And then the shadows devoured us.