Page 91 of Beneath a Shattered Sky
“Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” Drystan mutters. “I’ll ensure Prince Bram’s remains are taken care of delicately and pack our things.”
“She was right,” Caed points out, as I leave the room. “Rose had a feeling that we should leave.”
Drystan only grunts, like it physically pains him to hear.
It’s easy enough to follow the trail of devastation left by a giant furry beast. People have been knocked over, someone has died—though I suspect, given the stab marks, that was Lore’s doing—and servants are quivering.
A second later, a piercing scream pushes me to move faster, and when I round the corner, there’s a maid pinned to the floor of the next corridor by the pile of angry white fur. Her dark hair is splayed around her, her youthful face pinched with fear.
“Don’t let him eat me, please! Don’t let him eat me!” She sobs. “I’m just a maid.”
Lore crouches beside her head, petting Wraith’s ear as he regards her in false confusion.
“So you didn’t put a box of nathairs and a severed head in the Nicnevin’s wardrobe? Are you very sure?”
“I would nev—” Her voice chokes off at the lie, and she gasps. “I swear I have no—” Another choke. “I’m innocent!”
That catches my attention. If she’s innocent when she clearly committed the crime, that would suggest she wasn’t responsible for her actions.
Rubbing my hand over Espen, my tongue transforms in my mouth, flicking out to taste the air.
Her perfume is strong, painfully so, and I grimace as the notes of it hit me. There’s something there, beneath it all. Something nauseatingly familiar. Gin and rosin and sex.
“She’s been charmed,” I whisper.
My wings are out before I can fully process it. The urge—the need—to get to Rose is so undeniable that I break into a sprint, heading directly for the window at the end of the corridor.
I smash through it and out into the sunlit forest, wings beating as I grab hold of the Call in my chest and follow it to her. Perhaps I’m racing to conclusions. Perhaps I’m going mad.
All I know is that Torrance—a known agent of the Summer Court—said he was departing for the Forest of Whispers, and now, there’s an assassin who claims to be innocent yet clearly committed the crime. A pretty one who wears his scent in an intimate way.
It has all the hallmarks of my father’s handiwork.
The crowd scatters as I drop down onto the doorstep of the tailor’s shop and shove inside.
Jaro is there, between me and our mate, in a flash.
“Don’t.” The urgent undercurrent in his tone conveys what his quietness doesn’t. “She’s only just stopped crying. If you’re here to bring her more bad news?—”
“I’m not,” I swear. “I just have to see her.”
Jaro steps back, surprising me once again with how smoothly someone of his bulk can move. “She’s behind the screen with the seamstress.”
Hearing the unspoken order not to disturb them, I draw a glamour over myself and step just around the edge.
Rose is standing stock still, her expression pensive and her eyes closed as a high fae female uses her magic to stitch a heavy fur mantle around her shoulders. Her grief is etched into her body in a hundred invisible cuts, and I curse myself all overagain for not catching the sounds of those snakes faster. If I’d just stopped her from opening the wardrobe…
Then the clothes slip from her frame, folding themselves and leaving her in just her underwear as more fabrics whirl past. The seamstress tuts, testing the tones against her creamy skin.
My eyes drink her in, hating and loving in equal measure the scraps of lace concealing the most intimate parts of her from me. Ever since she last welcomed me into her body, I’ve wanted to fuck her again, and I’ve been terrified to, in equal measure. It seems too good to be true. Surely next time, something will go wrong.
Good things like Rose don’t happen to people like me.
Only the presence of the others allowed me to go as far as I did. Honestly, I can’t believe that none of them have mocked me for how quickly I finished, but then again, I suppose they understood.
It’s not like I was the only one enraptured by her in that bedchamber.
I want to fuck her again, and again. Both with the rest of the Guard, and alone where I can take my time. I want to kiss every inch of my mate and worship her like the miracle she is and maybe regain a little of my pride by lasting longer next time.
