Page 117 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
“Hmm. That’s a good point. Well, you should still tell him. Let him know why you’re being so…”
Aislinn looked up, and saw Caer leaving the tavern. Not thinking, she leapt up from her spot and hid under a deserted market stall. She couldn’t face him. Not like this.
“Or hide under a table,” Beau continued. “Of course. What a marvellous solution.”
“Beau?” Aislinn could hear the frown in Caer’s voice. She stared at the points of his shining boots, praying she could go undetected whilst guilt quivered in her gut. “Have you seen Ais?”
“Um… so… funny story… Ihaveseen her, and I know where she is, but—”
Caer sighed. “She’s hiding from me, isn’t she?”
“Look, Caer,” started Beau, his words slurred but soft, “it’s a bit complicated, and not quite my place to explain, but…”
Another sigh eased past his lips. “If you see her again, please tell her to speak to me? I’ll come by her room later.”
His boots turned, and he disappeared back into the crowd.
Her room, her room, her room.The one place he absolutely could not go—not whilst she was like this.
“Well, Ais,” said Beau, once Caer had vanished completely, “you heard the man.”
Aislinn crawled out from underneath the table, her eyes prickling. “I can’t… I can’t explain this to him!”
“Are you crying?”
“HOW IS THAT A HELPFUL OBSERVATION?”
“Sorry, sorry!”
“He’s cautious enough around magic as it is…” Aislinn sniffed.
“I’m not sure being in heat counts as magic… animals do it all the time.”
“ARE YOU COMPARING ME TO AN ANIMAL?”
“No, not me!”
Aislinn dabbed at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I’m a freakish monster.”
“Some people are into that,” Beau remarked absent-mindedly. “But you’re not a freak, Ais. Whatever you do or don’t want to do tonight… he’ll understand.”
Aislinn nodded, battling against her tears. She’d go back to her room. She’d have a cold bath, get control of herself. She’d explain this to him, calmly and rationally.
“Want me to come with you?”
Aislinn shook her head. “Please go and enjoy your night.”
Beau shrugged, waiting just a second before disappearing back intoHorns and Hoes.
Aislinn began the walk back to the palace alone.
This was monstrously, stupidly unfair. To curse her with being in heat now, with the one person she wanted to do it with in a place where she couldn’t cast any contraception spells… and did she really want their first time together to be a frenzied panic? Sex in heat was intense and quick and animalistic. She’d had it before. She remembered that, in the moment, it had felt like the best thing ever, only for the memories of it to be dulled the morning afterwards, hazy with lust.
That wasn’t what she wanted. Not with him.
She forced herself to think of snow and cold showers and mud and other unpleasant things, but her mind kept conjuring up beasts to be slayed in these icy landscapes, with a handsome young prince helping her with the kill, their lips locking together over steaming bodies and tumbling into softly lit caves and making love in the firelight whilst the world crisped around them—
Stop it, stop it, stop it—
