Page 50 of Atop the Faerie Throne
“You think my tits are pretty, then?” I ask. His cheeks and the double points of his ears darken to almost navy.
“You’ve got five mates, little queen. You know you’re beautiful. If, by some miracle, none of the others have told you yet, then I’ll pay to watch you charm the truth from the dour knight.”
His humour lightens my mood, and I hide my smile against his skin at the idea of charming compliments out of my grumpiest Guard.
Seventeen
Rhoswyn
Somewhere during my slumber, the strong arms which held me have been replaced with soft sheets, and my headache has returned.
Nothing major, but enough to let me know that I’m back in Elfhame—even if I’m being kept away from all the dust. I don’t know how much time I’ve wasted sleeping, but it doesn’t feel like very long.
“I don’t mean to alarm you,” Jaro rumbles, stroking my hair out of my face. “But Lore and Drystan have come up with a plan that they both agree on, and they’d like your input.”
My sleepy scoff is the only reply I have the energy for. Lore and Drystan agreeing on anything is so improbable that if Jaro could lie, I’d say he was pulling my leg.
“Let her sleep a little longer.” Caed’s voice is gravelly, like he’s just woken up.
“If it wasn’t time-sensitive, I would.” There’s more shuffling, and then the lightest of touches strokes down my cheek. “Plus, Lore is getting antsy. If she doesn’t hear them out, she’ll findherself acting out his fantasies in her sleep with no idea how she got there.”
That tickles my curiosity, and I yawn and stretch, blinking open my heavy eyelids to a sea of rapidly flickering gold and chestnut brown.
Jaro presses a soft kiss to my lips, and I swoon.
For just this second, I can pretend that we won. That we retook the city, and everything else no longer matters. His adoration flows swift and strong down the bond between us, his wolf’s contentment hot on its heels.
Both of them would rather keep me in my cloud-like bed, but I’m not immune to his reluctant urgency and the impatience of the others. Rolling gracelessly from underneath the covers, I glance around my garden room in relief.
It’s almost exactly how I left it.
Caed is slumped in a chair across from me, and Wraith is licking his fur clean on the floor by his feet. The barghest raises his head at my movement, surveying me with too-intelligent eyes, before lazily going back to his grooming.
“My rooms weren’t touched?”
“It seems that the palace prevented access to the Nicnevin’s suite the second Elatha’s warriors breached the gates,” Jaro assures me. “They’re also high enough to have escaped the worst of the iron. The Fomorians put most of their efforts into thwarting the enchantments on the treasury and armoury rather than searching up here.”
“Florian?” I remember with a jolt. “Does he need?—?”
“He’s recovering. Kitarni gave Praedra and Gryffin plenty of tonics that will improve his condition.”
“I should heal him.”
“I know, Rosie. If this wasn’t more important, I’d take you to him right now. But he’s stable and well-cared for, I swear.”
No part of me wants to let the matter drop, but Jaro loves my brother like his own. Absolutely nothing would keep him from taking me to Florian if he was in danger.
I nod once. “Okay.”
Someone has redressed me in clothes identical to the ones I was wearing before I died, and I pick lightly at my tunic as I follow Jaro to the fountain that’s become our unofficial meeting place, Caed close behind me.
The greenery up here is wilting and yellowed, but nowhere near as bad as the plants below, and the normally happy gurgling fountain has dried up entirely. Lore and Drystan are sitting on the bench—well, Drystan is sitting. Lore is lying with his back on the floor and his legs propped up on the bench while he amuses himself with bashing his ankles together in the air above him. Bree stands apart from them, crouched with his wings wrapped around him on the very edge of the garden platform.
They haven’t noticed me yet, and that’s why I catch the tail end of their conversation.
“You know, dullahan, I have a proposition for you, now that you’re in an agreeable mood,” Lore begins, fangs flashing.
“Absolutely not,” Drystan replies.
