Page 212 of Curse of Darkness
A servant catches a glimpse of us and nearly drops her platter.
“You never saw us,” Thiago tells her with a wink. “And if Thalia asks, we haven’t returned from Eidyn yet.”
“Yes, your Highness,” the young fae girl says breathily, her eyes as large as saucers as Thiago nudges the door to our bedchambers open with his shoulder and then kicks it shut behind us.
“So commanding,” I tease. “You know she’s going to run straight to Thalia though.”
He heads for the bathing chamber set off our rooms. “And Thalia will understand I want a few hours of peace.”
Ah, it was a message for her then.
Conjuring magic into the fae lights that light the bathing chambers, he slowly sets me down. My skirts slide up between us, leaving my lower legs bare. From the glint in his eyes, the move was entirely deliberate.
“Are you going to join me?”
“Thought you might need some help washing your hair.”
I snort, pushing against his chest. “Of course you did. I want to get clean before you… wash my hair. I’ve scrubbed three times and I can still smell the stink of the battlefield upon my skin.”
Someone long ago built an enormous bath of white marble, big enough for three or four fae to fit inside it. Thiago once gruffly admitted that when he’s tired of wearing his glamorized seelie form, sometimes it’s nice to simply shed the glamor inside the safety of his bedchambers. Hence the enormous bed and bath and doorways wide enough to fit his wings.
“Strip,” he commands, bending down to turn the faucets on.
“I love the way that sounds”—a shiver runs through me—“but I think I’d fall flat on my face if I tried.”
“I’ll catch you.”
I pluck the crown from my head—a seven-pointed spiked diadem that pinches the sides of my head—and cast it on the bench. Relief floods through my temples as I massage them, and the sound that comes from my mouth might be embarrassing if Thiago hadn’t heard worse.
The devilish twinkle in his eyes tells me he’s thinking the exact same thing as he pours scented bubble wash in the enormous bath.
“Turn around.”
I comply, shivering as he brushes the heavy weight of my bunched hair forward over my bare shoulder. Thalia sent supplies as soon as the war was won, and while it had been nice to slip into clean clothes, today was a formal situation.
There’s a peacock blue leather corset underneath an embroidered tabard that cuts in from my shoulders and drapes all the way to the floor. Silver embroidered moons and stars wink in the darker blue of the tabard, and a complicated belt system ties it all together.
Sleek midnight blue skirts drape to the floor, gathering just above the knee before they flare around my calves.
It’s gorgeous. Stunning. A warrior queen’s outfit.
But I just want to strip it all off and lounge in my bed for a week.
Thiago unknots the buckles, stripping the belts off. He curses under his breath. “I swear Thalia does this to me deliberately. How many fucking buckles does this thing need?”
“I have no idea. I’m trapped in it until someone else frees me. One must look gorgeous and powerful. One doesn’t need to be comfortable doing so.”
He finally works it out. “Lift your arms.”
The belt is flung to the floor, and then the tabard vanishes too.
Inch by inch, he tugs at the strings on my corset, the material suddenly gaping. I capture it against my breasts, tension knotting through my lower abdomen. Suddenly, I’m no longer tired.
And getting undressed is no longer merely frustrating.
We haven’t been intimate since before Eidyn.
There hasn’t been a chance.
