Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ROSAMUND
A tree. He hadn’t been jesting. He leads us into a grove of white sospen trees and peers up into the foliage of each until he finds what he considers an acceptable one.
“Is this… a good one?” I frown up at the silvery leaves and white bark. The hues remind me of his hair, the silvery grey and the white streak falling over his brow. “Does it have… good branches?”
He shoots me an incredulous look. “I’m checking whether it has any animals already taking shelter there.”
“Like… wildcats.”
“And darakins and snakes.”
“Oh. So this one is…” I wave a hand. “Vacant?”
His mouth twitches. “You really haven’t been out much, have you?”
I lift my chin. “Of course not. Stepfather always said a lady doesn’t roam outside, except in the rose garden and the maze, and only when there is a banquet, in the company of other ladies and—”
“I got it.” He lifts his hands. “That sounds… sad.”
“It’s not,” I assure him. “I was happy to stay inside.” A delicate shiver travels down my spine. “I feel safer indoors.”
He arches a brow. “Yet, here you are, under the open sky.”
“Indeed. Not by choice, as you know.”
“You were supposed to travel, though,” he remarks.
“By carriage,” I clarify. “Inside it, preferably.”
“As opposed to lying on top of it?”
I snort before I can stop myself at the image because… because I can imagine lying on the roof as the carriage rattles on, staring up at the sky as I did twice already today, and that’s more times than I have in my entire life. I have a feeling it would be a fun thing to do. A pleasurable thing.
Why am I entertaining the thought at all? A thought that feels like a half-forgotten dream, the dream of a girl who laughed a lot, ran about shrieking as she played with her cousins, imagining the days ahead full of light and carefree joy.
“You and I have nothing in common,” he says. “I can’t stand being stuck indoors. Locked up, tied up.” He scowls. “Muzzled.”
“Why do you hate it so much? Being indoors, I mean.” I wince. “Not the rest.”
His square jaw clenches. “Long story. You’re not the only one with bad memories, Princess.”
“Says a lord of the dark fae.”
“You’re shocked we have princes and kings, princesses and queens, aren’t you?
That’s what bothers you. You thought we moved in packs, our routine of hunting, fucking, and tearing our prey to pieces directed by an alpha wolf, the only hierarchy in actual wolf packs.
It bothers you when you find equivalents to your own culture and people. ”
“What if it does, Lord Valerian?”
It’s his turn to wince. “It’s just a title. I’m as far removed from the dark fae throne as you are.”
I shake my head. “Debatable.”
A shadow of a smile tugs on his lips, gone the next moment. “Time to climb.”
“You’re crazy,” I mutter after a lot of swearing and sweating, halfway up the trunk, my skirt a torn and mangled thing around my legs. The branches sway, and I choke on a shriek when I lose my footing for a moment. “I should have you tied up again.”
“Don’t mind me,” he calls out from below, scaling the trunk after me. “I have the best view.”
“What?” Mortified, I scramble higher while trying to look down. “Don’t—”
“Eyes on the target, or we both fall to our deaths.”
“You’re not helping!” I shout.
“No? Funny, I thought I was. Don’t worry, Princess, I was teasing. Nothing worthwhile to see, with the amount of underskirts and undergarments you’re wearing.”
“You’re a barbarous peasant,” I seethe, “a beast—”
He wraps a hand around my ankle, and I yelp. “Keep going. Almost there.”
The uncontrollable, pleasurable shiver coursing through my body at his touch isn’t helping matters. “Don’t touch me!”
“Just giving you a hand up, as it were.”
“Don’t…” Gritting my teeth, I grab the next branch and haul myself higher, refusing to look down again, at the distance from the soil and his smirking, insufferable face. “Let go.”
His hand releases my ankle, and I scramble higher, wondering why I went along with this bad idea.
Oh, right. Because I have no clue how to survive in the wilderness.
“I didn’t know wolves climbed trees,” I say.
“I’m not a natural wolf, Sweetheart. I do what it takes to escape death, including eating with silverware and wearing clothes and mingling with people when I’d rather…”
“Go naked?”
He chuckles. “That’s a thought. I was going to say, I’d rather take a walk by myself.”
“Naked.”
“You seem obsessed with my nakedness. I’d take a walk naked with you, Princess. You only have to ask.”
“You…” I’m smiling again. What’s wrong with me? Huffing, I climb higher, his presence below me reassuring.
He won’t let me fall. It’s a feeling I haven’t had in… a very long time.
Fighting the warmth it brings, the cozy echoes it carries, I pull myself higher, and he pushes my feet so that I’m sliding up on the jutting, wide branch he had spotted from below.
“That’s it,” he says. “Get up there, and I’ll follow.”
“I’ll fall!”
“I won’t let you.”
And that statement, so calm and imbued with certainty, cements it. I shouldn’t trust him, I don’t really know him, and he may have saved my life, but he also brought me out here where I’m as helpless as a baby.
Here I am… placing myself in his hands. Large, capable hands that gently shove me upward until I’m sprawled on the wide branch, panting and terrified.
He climbs up behind me and grabs my waist, pulling me to all fours. “Don’t fight me, Princess. Relax and let me hold you.”
“Hold me?” But he’s already dragging me backward until I’m seated between his legs.
“We’ll both fall,” I whisper, breathless for so many reasons.
“Such little trust.” His breath is warm on my neck. “Have some faith in your bodyguard.”
“You’re not—”
“A deal is a deal. As a wolf and a lord, as a man, I won’t ever go back on it. I’ll deliver you to your destination. I’ll do everything in my power, I swear it, and I know what I’m doing. So rest.”
“I’m the daughter of your enemy,” I whisper.
“Didn’t I tell you not to remind me of it? Sleep, Princess.”
“Valen…” I swallow hard. “I’m so sorry about your mother.”
“Yeah. And I’m sorry about yours. Now, I said, sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”