Page 51 of Cursed Shadows 1

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Each time he is in this bedchamber, Daxeel comes close to learning what it would be like to be buried alive by chiffon and silk. He would choose a warrior’s death over suffocation from all things cream-toned any day.

Yet, Daxeel finds himself in this exact bedchamber too often.

The scent of lavender is overpowering. It’s meant to mask the sex in the air of the harem, but to Daxeel—and any dokkalf male who enters these curtained rooms far at the rear of the garrison—both scents burn at his nasal.

Scent is one of the many fae traits that the dokkalves outperform the litalves in. And it’s a light one Daxeel has come to see this First Wind, a halfbreed concubine he’s visited every phase since the wicked Narcissa came to Comlar.

This concubine—Willow, he thinks her name might be—is a coveted one. She has a special skill that places her above the rest. One that has her tucked away in a small room with plush bedding, forever fresh sheets, a copper washtub, and a by-appointment-only schedule.

Dax has his slots booked for the rest of the two months.

All down to her specialty.

She’s something of a brewer. Wherever she learned to make tonics and potions, he doesn’t know—and he doesn’t give it a thought as he leans against the wall and folds his arms over his chest, his face utterly impassive.

Willow, if that is her name, is quiet as she studies the long chestnut hair he handed to her when he entered the bedchamber. She turns it over in her hands, eyeing the kinks and waves of the hair strand, and running the pad of her thumb over each almost imperceptible groove.

Satisfied, she turns her back on Daxeel and makes for the table pushed against the wall opposite. On it, a fist-sized cauldron bubbles something foamy and plum-purple. With the hair pinched between her fingers, she lowers it slowly into the potion. It sizzles with a hiss.

Then, in only a silk robe, her icy blond hair falling freely down her back, she turns to Daxeel. His gaze meets hers, and like always in the moments before he has her services, there’s nothing to be found in his eyes. No spark of recognition, no cruelty or kindness, he simply looks at her like he would an ordinary vendor at a market.

Daxeel pulls from the wall. He takes one step before the toe of his boot nudges against the bag he earlier dropped on the floor.

“Wear that,” he tells her, and his tone is as distant as his eyes.

With a practiced smile, she comes to lift up the bag then disappears behind the parchment screen. Behind it, she’s vanished from his sight. But he watches the thick beige parchment as though he’s watching the whore herself. Not because he’s watching her, but that he is waiting to see the one he lusts after.

Some moments pass in silence.

The brew in the cauldron stops sizzling. Its foamy surface settles into a filmy layer; the deep purple hue shifts into something golden, then settles on chestnut brown.

A slender, pale hand reaches out from the side of the parchment screen.

Daxeel’s gaze is glued to this routine he’s witnessed a few times already. She reaches out for the cauldron now that the potion is done, and she tips it out into a teacup. Every last drop. Still hidden behind the screen, she steals away the teacup. He listens to the soft slurps and swallows as she downs it all.

The light thud of the teacup tells him she’s set it down on a wooden chair, then more ruffles of the bag as she fishes out the clothes he brought with him.

Daxeel starts his part of the routine.

First, he reaches over his head for the scruff of his neck, then grabs a fistful of his sweater. He pulls it off in one, fluid tug. It’s tossed aside to land on the armchair, forgotten by the time he’s kicked off his boots and tugged off his belt.

Only his combat trousers cover him when Willow steps out from behind the divider. But it’s not her he sees. He smells the concubine—but he sees Nari.

His lashes lower over onyx-flecked oceans.

There it is. Willow watches the first spark of feeling come to life.

Before, he looked at her like she was a mere candle on a mantle, a cushion on a chair. Something there, but not anything he would think twice about. Just a furnishing, just an ornament.

Now, he looks at her with eyes so intense that, like each time with him, her insides twist. He smells it, too. His mouth hardens, as though the scent of her arousal is displeasing to him. Shesupposes it is, since she stands here as someone else entirely, and her scent is a reminder that this isn’t real.

The disappointment of reality keeps his mouth set hard as he advances on her. His steps are slow, and finally his gaze tears away from hers.

He takes her in, assesses the green skirt she wears, the one with a split up the front of her thigh, and the satin bodice that matches, one with straps so thin that her shoulders might as well be bare, and a cleavage drop so low that he can see that freckle between her breasts.

Nari’s breasts. Nari’s freckle.

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