47. Hot Springs

Hot Springs

" R eady for our next appointment?" I asked Cass brightly, setting my hand on the wall to make a door.

Cass gave me a weary look. "You know how much I delight in architecture," he said drily, rolling one shoulder. "If we're lucky, maybe they'll spend the whole time arguing about drainage again, and I won't even have to try to say anything clever."

I grabbed my surprise out of the shadows and kept it out of his eyeline, fizzing with anticipation. "Maybe so," I said in a comforting voice. "If you're lucky, maybe you won't have to say anything kingly all day. You can just look pretty and I can admire you."

"If only," he grumbled, but he gave me a half-smile and tilted his head towards the door. "Let's go. No need to let the anticipation build."

I stepped through the dark doorway into a snowy glade. Pools of water steamed, the ground next to them bare of snow and all the nearby trees laden with ice from the mist. I looked up at Cass as he stepped through the doorway behind me, and grinned.

He frowned at me, looking puzzled. "Where are we? What is this?"

"We're about eighty miles north of the border with Stag Court, at what is identified on a map I found as Tazajah Hot Springs, and this ," I said in a lilt, stepping backwards with my hands behind my back, "is a date ."

His brows furrowed. "A date? But what about the meeting with the architects, and the one for the review of the granary stores, and that thing with the Serpent Court ambassador?"

"Handled." I did a little wiggle. "I called in Vad and Dani. The Archangels are on it. Your schedule is clear, your splendor."

"You're serious," he said with disbelieving hope, sounding like a prisoner who'd just been told he'd been pardoned.

"Very much so," I assured him. "You have no responsibilities until tonight's dinner with Kettekh. Cross my heart."

One corner of his mouth slanted up. "And you're taking me on a date."

"That' s the plan," I said. The corners of my eyes crinkled as I grinned up at him. "Kingliness is forbidden for the rest of the day. It's you, me, some nudity, and…" I took my hands out from behind my back with a flourish, revealing an old-looking wine bottle and a pair of champagne flutes. "Bubbly goodness, for refreshment."

Cass breathed a laugh. Delighted disbelief roused like a flurry of butterflies, as effervescent as the champagne. "You remembered."

"I did. Memory like a steel trap." I walked backwards a few steps, luring him out into the snow and cold. It bit at me, colder than air had any right to be, but I didn't shiver. I had Cass. "Come on," I said with a teasing lilt. The fizzing pleasure behind my ribs approached giddiness. "No need to linger. It's fucking cold."

"Yet you expect me to get naked," he said, teasing me right back. He started unbuttoning his shirt as he sauntered across the open ground. "Don't you know that the cold does terrible things to a man's pride?"

That startled me into laughter. I couldn't seem to stop smiling, sunlit joy flooding my veins. I set the two glasses down on a flattish stone next to the hot spring and stuck the champagne in the snow next to it. "Does lovely things for a lady, though." I shrugged off my jacket and draped it across a branch. "Besides, you're the one who wanted a venue with nudity," I said, grinning at him. "Is it my fault it happens to be cold as a witch's tits out here?"

He shook his head, laughing at me. "Maybe I need an excuse to be naked," he said. He tugged off his doublet and hung it over a branch of his own. "Maybe I'm shy about my body."

I added my shirt and bra to the branch and started wiggling out of my pants. "I'm not."

He let out a breathy laugh. "I can see that."

Warmth coiled in my belly and tingled at the base of my spine. I bit my lip as my cheeks warmed, basking in the sensation of my soulmate wanting me. "I really like that," I said, a little shyly, stripping the rest of the way out of my clothes before looking back up at him.

Cass had his shirt half-unbuttoned and was watching me with a soft expression, his wings lax behind him. At my regard, he flushed, the heat of his embarrassment redoubling my blush, and started busily undoing the buttons under his other wing. "Being admired?" he asked with his ears dropped low, not looking at me.

"Very much so," I said, not taking my eyes off him.

He stilled and looked back up at me with his dark brows lifting in the center. His longing sang to me, more enticing than any siren's call. "Even though you can feel me doing it?" he asked, eyes on my face. "Even though I'm as unfettered with you as I am?"

A slow smile spread across my face. I turned and sauntered towards the hot spring, giving my steps some sway for him to admire. "Especially because I can feel it." I stepped into the searing heat of the pool and almost moaned from the contrast to the biting cold of the air. It made me shiver as I sank into the water and turned to watch Cass tug his shirt over his head. "Especially because you can't hold back."

His muscles flexed, the broad expanse of his bare chest the sort of vista worth staring at and his pebbled nipples making me want to lick him—though, honestly, most of the time I wanted to lick him. Cass hesitated, blushing again, then turned and put his back to me, hands going to his waist and wings closing to hide the view of his excellent ass.

"This is harder with you watching me," he said. Tension sang through me, a silvery sensation that settled between my legs in a pleasant ache.

"Harder, you say?" I asked, sprawling back and not taking my eyes off of him. "Tell me more."

Cass snorted, his chin dropping. He stripped out of his pants and hung them over a branch. "More difficult," he corrected. He glanced over his shoulder and flashed me a boyish smile. "But also harder."

I caught a glimpse of the side of his bare thigh as he did and bit my lip, a surge of desire that was all mine amplifying the echoes of want I got from him. Goddamn, but those were incredible legs. Him being shy about it was only making every glimpse I got of his body more erotic. I got why ankles in the eighteenth century were titillating when a flash of the side of Cass' naked leg gave me heart palpitations.

"Close your eyes," he said.

I obeyed with a pout and crossed my arms over my chest like a petulant child. His laugh rumbled across the clearing. I heard the snow crunch underfoot and the champagne pop, and then the water in the pool rose and spilled over the rim into the next one as Cass settled into the water with me.

"Can I open my eyes yet?" I asked, when he stopped moving.

He chuckled again, a warm sound. "You can open your eyes."

I cracked one to find Cass sprawled in the pool on his stomach, his weight resting on his elbows on the stone rim of the pool and his body curled in a loose curve around me. The steam was condensing on the feathers of his wings, tracking down the dark metal lengths. The hot water brought a flush to his skin, one that matched the light blush rouging both our faces.

My eyes flickered down Cass' body without my command. He was so there , that long expanse of brown skin impossible not to look at, heavy and solid and as powerful as a tiger. One thigh was pulled forward, hiding his groin but baring the inner thigh of his other leg, and fuck if that didn't do things to me. I wanted my face right there, teeth on his smooth skin, and I wanted to bite him so hard that even my healer-King would feel it. I wanted him to let me—to beg for it; to give me everything without me even having to ask. To lay himself out like a feast for me, and let me devour everything he was.

"Oh, wow," I breathed, unable to haul my eyes away from their tour of Cass' naked body, even half-obscured beneath the steaming water.

He held up a glass of champagne in front of my eyeline. I jumped and immediately turned crimson, but Cass only smiled at me, his ears tilting forward in focused attention. He was wearing the earrings I liked, the ones he thought were too delicate for someone like him. The silver chains swung as he moved. I hadn't even noticed.

"That's quite the reward, lioness," he said softly, letting his fingers brush against mine. His longing fluttered through me like a bright-winged butterfly, all sparkly and delicate. "If I'd known the outfit to make myself the center of your attention was nothing at all, I would've taken you out on a date myself."

I swallowed, hard, gripping the stem of the champagne flute. Condensation dripped down my fingers, chill in the steamy air.

Cass, naked. Inches away. Looking at me like there was no one else in the world for him.

"You don't like being the center of attention," I said, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of sanity. Cass. Naked. Right there. Naked .

His smile broadened into a grin. "I like being the center of yours."

My eyes slid down his body again before I managed to yank them back up to his face. My pulse pounded between my legs, hot and needy, but the only thing I could feel from Cass was total contentment, like he was a cat and I was his patch of sunlight.

"You can't just say stuff like that." My mouth was dry. I took a swig of the champagne, not even tasting it.

He dropped his chin into one hand and flicked an ear at me, making the chains swing. "Why not?" he asked, that lazy, hundred-watt smile not dimming. "Does it trouble my Queen to be the focus of such avarice?"

I drank more champagne, considered the flute, and tossed the rest of it back. "It troubles your Queen to have the Court she wants to conquer sprawled out in front of her while she's powerless to do anything about it," I said frankly, holding my glass out to him for a refill. "You are way too gorgeous not to be troubled about."

Cass took my empty glass and gave me his, instead. "Quyen," he said, breathing a quiet laugh. He licked off the lip-mark I'd left in the condensation with sensuous care. "We're on a date ."

He reached over to pour more champagne, and leaned his thigh against my shin.

I went totally still, because if I moved then Cass might notice that he was touching me. Then I wouldn't get to feel the strength of his focus, the way the heat shimmered along his wings, his eager anticipation, the perfect, silvery, glittering feeling of touching me—

I made myself breathe. He knew. Of course he knew. Even when he was alone with me, it was hard for him to drop his guard. He had his leg against mine because he'd put it there on purpose.

The realization made tears sting my eyes and my throat go tight. I had to blink fast to hold them at bay, and even then, one slipped out from between my lashes to splash into the water.

Anxiety tightened my chest, Cass' breathing going shallow. "Did I do something wrong—" he started.

"No—god, no," I said, a heavy breath escaping, wanting to be a sob and a laugh at the same time. I scrubbed the heel of my hand against my cheek, wiping away the tear. "No. It's just… you're touching me on your own. I didn't have to ask."

He relaxed, the tension going out of our shoulders. "You invited me," he said, aching happiness in the words. "You cleared my schedule so you could take me on a date. You cleared your schedule. You surely know Vaddy's going to call that favor in, sooner or later."

"Of course I did." I dropped my hand down to his thigh and ran the backs of my fingers along his skin, melting into his happiness. "Everything's been awful, except for you. You're kind, and thoughtful, and you keep giving me flowers, and I thought…" I blushed, embarrassed without knowing why, feeling far more exposed from the way Cass was looking at me with his heart in his eyes than from the nudity. "I thought maybe you'd like a break?" I said shyly. "I just… I wanted to see you smile again."

His smile broadened, his dimple showing and eyes shining. "I can't seem to stop," Cass said. His thigh leaned a little harder against my leg. "Am I forgiven?"

"Oh, Cassie." I kept running my fingers along his thigh. "There's nothing to forgive, sweetheart."

"'Sweetheart,'" he murmured. "I like that." Cass ducked his chin, looking down at his champagne. "Do you maybe have any others?" he asked hopefully.

"I could come up with some," I said, giving him a playful little drum of my fingers. "I tend to pick one and stick with it, though. You're lucky you get 'Cass' and 'Cassie.'"

Cass laughed, shifting so he was closer to me. "So I got stuck with 'splendor,' is it? I suppose it could be worse."

"I really do think you 're splendid," I said. All my skin was hyperaware of his nearness, my focus on him and the Court helpfully supplying me with exact measurements of how close he was to me. I could feel him on the rocks and in the caress of the water. Even the steam that curled around him told me about him, every hair it clung to and every breath that stirred it.

I can be a splendor for you , he whispered into my mind.

My eyes flew open in surprise. I hadn't even realized I'd closed them. "You…" I started, unsure of what to say.

"Thank you for this, Quyen," he said softly. He pushed himself closer, his heart beating too hard and his breathing going shallow. "Dani and Vad spent months thinking the other didn't want to love them, because he was too scared and she was too shy to be the one to reach out—but you did. I'm terrified of fucking this up, but after all my teasing for what a dumbass he was about love, perhaps I should learn from his suffering and keep from making the same mistakes."

Cass set his glass down, then reached over and took my hand. He brushed his callused thumb across my knuckles in a tender caress.

I sat there, heart pounding, staring at him.

"I've spent most of my life barred from the kinds of relationships I crave by the same magic that makes me need them," Cass said, touching me; letting me feel his tangled fear and longing in the way his heartbeat picked up and chest ached. "You know how much I've struggled to keep my emotions under my skin. I channel so much power that it's easy for me to become unmoored from this world, losing time and risking madness, and it's far worse now than it ever was before I was bound to the Court. I need anchors. Reasons to come back—to stay."

"Vad and Dani," I whispered.

He smiled, soft and slow. With his dark lashes lowered across his black-and-gold eyes, Cass leaned down and pressed his lips to the back of my hand. "You," he said, with the same quiet fervor of a knight swearing fealty.

My heart all but stopped. It hurt to breathe, my ribs locking in place. Cass let out a panting sound, our stress amplifying each other's, and didn't pull away.

"You're the one, Quyen." He rested his nose and mouth against my hand for a heartbeat before sitting back again, his leg still touching mine. "It doesn't matter how it came about. In all of Mercy, you're the only one I'm meant for. I shouldn't be scared of that. You stayed for me, and you demanded I give up my distance and come to meet you. You made a place for me, and invited me to come be with you." Cass bit his lip and gave me a nervous smile. "I'm here, lioness. I'd like to court you. Will you let me?"