Page 61 of Avalon Tower

I want to tell them I’m fine, but I can’t seem to move. Maybe she’s right. Am I dying?

“She’ll be fine,” Raphael says firmly.

“Well, warm her up, then, for fuck’s sake.”

“I will. She will be fine, Freya.” His certainty is unwavering. “Throw more blankets on us before you get up again, will you?”

A warm body wraps around me, and powerful arms enfold me. The tension in the muscles beneath that smooth, warm skin belies his certainty. A tightness, tautness beneath the surface. Is he naked? Am I naked?

I’m trying to stay in the moment, but I float away again.

My mind slides back through the years.

I’m outside the library in the château. For three years, we visited, and for three years, I lingered near Raphael, standing where I could hear him and watch him from the shadows. He and his demi-Fey friends seemed like gods to me. All aristocrats—beautiful and untouchable. Princes of the château. So sure of themselves. I’d skulk in the corners of the library, pretending to read but listening in to try to understand what they said in Fey.

Raphael was only ever with them at night, his long limbs draped over the velvet chairs, sipping wine. He was only a year older than me, but he seemed so grown up. Sophisticated. I wondered how it would feel to be that relaxed and comfortable with myself, to let the ever-present knot in my stomach just melt. To smile with ease. Raphael was a little more serious than some of the others, sometimes contemplative, dreamy. But never nervous.

It felt like an ache in my chest to hear their camaraderie while I stood by myself. I wanted to be one of them more than anything—like the gorgeous demi-Fey girls who hung out with them, flirting and teasing them.

It wasn’t until our third summer that Raphael spoke to me. I was seventeen, hanging around the library, hoping he’d show up.

One night, when he wandered in alone, I could hardly breathe. He smiled at me. It felt like I’d been raised in the dark, and for the first time, I had sunlight on my skin. He asked what I was reading, and I talked for far too long about my favorite poet, who’d died by drowning, then rambled on about how his wife had removed his heart, saving it before his body burned on the funeral pyre.

Raphael’s eyebrows rose, and I remember my cheeks heating. Then he asked me if I wanted to meet him the next day. I was so unsure of myself around him, I almost said no. But I managed to nod, and the next day, I followed him through sun-drenched fields. He told me about the history of the château—that it was called Douloureuse Garde, a sorrowful fortress. During the Hundred Years’ War, the English army had massacred everyone in the castle. Back then, they called those massacres the chevauchées, the harrowing, scorched-earth raids of the English. The kind that led to the capture of Joan of Arc.

And after the chevauchée, only one person was left here. The viscount had hidden in the dungeons while the rest of his people were slaughtered. He stumbled up the stairs to find the stones of his castle bathed in blood. So, it became the Douloureuse Garde.

Raphael told me about happier things, too—the château’s alchemists and magicians from seven hundred years ago, who could predict the future by the stars. They foretold the rising and falling of empires.

He talked about the language of wine: how the vintners read messages in the leaves, how the roots and soil murmur secrets to the grapes. And under stress, when the earth whispers of famine, the grapes grow more flavorfully than ever. The vintners would purposefully try to stress their vines to make them thrive and burst with flavor.

In his beautiful Fey accent, he asked what I did for fun. All I could tell him about were the books, but he seemed to like hearing about them.

I remember the gold of his skin, and the cold silver of his eyes reminded me of the sun’s rays breaking through storm clouds. I stole glances at his beautiful pointed ears and breathed in his masculine scent, faintly spiced like cedar wood and forest soil. That gorgeous scent is all around me now…

That day, he led me to the dungeon of Douloureuse Garde. He took me down beneath the earth where shadows swallowed us and told me the stone chambers were haunted by the viscount. The guilt had driven him mad.

When I was scared, I leaned into him, and he wrapped an arm around me.

His silver eyes shone even in the dark. Half-lidded, playful.

Beneath the earth, the air was freezing cold, but I felt the heat radiating off of him.

I’m still cold, the air piercing me, shaking me. Making my lungs freeze. Hard to breathe when everything stops moving, the air still as ice…

We wandered from the dungeons, back out to the sun-dappled grass under a yew tree, and lay flat on our backs. Our arms stretched toward each other. When our fingertips touched, I heard words in my mind: Beautiful. Beautiful. That time, I wasn’t scared of the voices because they described what I saw before me.

But everything changed after the kiss. The kiss told me who he really was under that beautiful, golden-tongued exterior.

Warm arms pull me in close against a steely chest, and I gasp for breath.

Everything is moving up and down, a rocking motion. Normally, this would make me feel relentlessly queasy, but right now, I feel warm and safe. Magic thrums over my skin, making my pulse speed up. There’s something particularly enjoyable wrapping around me.

My eyes flutter open. Bare skin on bare skin, Raphael’s naked body pressed against mine. One of his arms is hooked around my waist, pulling me back into his abs. His arm is tight around my ribs, and my camisole is pulled up to just beneath my breasts. I’m not totally naked, I realize. I’m wearing underwear, but nothing else. I think it might be the same for Raphael behind me. My exposed lower back curves against his stomach, and his legs are wrapped around me. Blankets cover us.

I turn to look at him, and a tendril of my dark hair falls before my eyes. He looks back at me from under his long eyelashes.

“You’re awake, pixie,” he whispers. There it is again, a note of sweetness in the nickname. A half-smile flits over his lips.

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