29. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Brenna is gone. Roderic is insane. Gethin is about to attack. I have no options.

~King Casimir, personal journals

My entire world is red marble laced with gold. The castle inside of Draenyth that Cole had taken me to was, in fact, the Keep of Flames. One of four Great House castles within the city gates. The entire building is made from what looks like a single mountain-sized piece of red marble that was carved into hundreds of rooms.

It is the residence of the entire court of the House of Flames. Cole's father, Casimir Cyrus, and all of his advisors live here, but because Casimir wears the Painted Crown, it's also the location for all the important Immortal ceremonies and social events.

Steam rises from the water of the inset bath, and the scent of smokey bergamot and citrus fills the space. A thin sheen of bath oil coats the top of the water, and I have to pinch myself to believe this is real.

A month ago, I had been part of the wealthiest family in Blackgrove, and I'd never even seen marble. Now I'm in a castle made of it, about to step into a bath full of luxurious oils, and then I'm going to go shopping for a dress with a prince that will probably be worth more than every dress Hazel's worn put together.

I'm not entirely sure I believe it.

I take a deep breath and start pulling off the clothes that I've lived in for weeks. The long leather boots and thick linen pants. The tunic that's so full of dirt and grime that I'm sure it'd turn the water black.

When I get my underclothes off, the reality of how long it's been since I changed clothes really hits me. A full week and a half. The road from Aerwyn here has been long, sweaty, and tiring in midsummer.

This bath is exactly what I need. I take a step into the steaming water, and the heat washes through me. I let that steaming water purge me of the pain of the nearly thousand miles I've walked in the past two months. A thousand miles of blisters and aching toes and worn-out shoes.

Another step, the water coming up to my calves. A thousand miles of aching legs. Of chilly nights where my legs cramped.

Another. Another. And then I sit down in the water, letting the heat seep into me. I let it pull the stress from my body, something I didn't imagine was possible. The past two months have been exhausting in a way that no other time of my life can compare to. Constant stress. Constant worries and pain and general uncomfortableness.

Now, things are going to be better. No more days of walking. No more worrying about whether we'll make it to Draenyth. We're here. We made it. I did an impossible thing. I crossed the world and now I'm sitting in a bath in a castle. Hazel would be so proud of me.

And jealous. I can't keep the smile off my face thinking about that. She's going to want to hear all about this part of the story when I get home. All the beautiful things in the biggest city in the world.

The bath is massive. Large enough that four or five people could sit comfortably in it at the same time. I'm more than happy to be in it by myself, but the knowledge that Cole is in his own bathroom with only a door between us is at the forefront of my mind. Thin swirls of shadows roll off my fingers.

I take a deep breath and submerge my head, my tension and worries flowing away with the dirt and grime. I run my fingers through my long brown hair, and I can feel it loosening up. Muscles I didn't even know were sore begin to relax.

I could get used to this. The scent of that smokey bergamot and citrus is everywhere. On me, in the water, and in the air. It smells expensive and smells fancy. It's another reminder that I'm betrothed to a Fae prince. A prince. Me. A Wyrdling that no one ever wanted to be around. It really wasn't that long ago that people gripped their iron nails when they saw me, hoping that their bit of iron would keep them safe from me.

How my world has changed in such a short time.

Just behind that chestnut door is an Immortal High Fae who has saved my life twice. He's the singular reason I'm still alive and not tied to some slave merchant's stage to be sold by the pound. This whole betrothal may all be so that I don't die, and I may be a future tool for him to use to save the world. But the betrothal is real, and everything inside me longs to be near him. I can't help but question what would happen if I stood up and walked into Cole's bathing room. Would he invite me into the water? Would he invite me to join him in anything more than bathing?

I can't help but imagine those muscular hands on my body, rubbing away the weariness as his lips press against my skin. As he does the things I've fantasized about. My mind flashes to our betrothal ceremony as it has so many times since then. The way it'd felt to share his body. The thought of pressing my body against his, of our minds and souls intermingling like that again.

When I come up for air, I wipe the water away from my face and let out the sigh that's been building up inside me.

"What do you need?" Cole's deep voice echoes in the bathroom, and I whirl around, my arms tightening against my chest.

He's there, a towel wrapped around his waist, his eyes downcast and not trying to look at me. "I… I felt you call me. Do you need something?"

There's not an ounce of frustration or annoyance in his voice. It's just confusion and a lack of direction. I look at him. At those taut muscles that shift as he breathes, the scars that twist over his back and across his shoulders. The way his hips seem to point the way toward…

"I didn't call you," I say, trying to put shock into my voice. "I was just… thinking."

He shrugs. "I heard you call me, Maeve. Not your voice. I heard your soul ."

Damn it. What am I supposed to say? I can't lie to him and say he's making it up. "I thought about you, but…"

How do I finish that thought? I can't tell him I was thinking about him running his hands and lips over my body. The thought of him being in this bath with me is making the shadows creep out of my fingertips, and there's nothing I can do to stop them. No, I certainly can't say that.

"That's fine. I'll go back and dress in my room." He says it, but he's waiting for me to respond. To tell him yes. Or no. There's only one reason I'd want him to stay here, and that's for him to join me. Without the towel.

"I think that would be for the best," I say, but deep down, I know what I want .

He nods, not saying anything, and he turns to leave. I can't look away from the sunburst scar across his shoulder. Bright red forever.

His hand goes to the door handle, and he pauses. Then I feel it. The need that rolls through me. Desperate need. Not for sex. Not for kisses or anything truly intimate. Just the feel of my skin against his.

That's when I realize that it's not my need any more than it was my terror on the night of our betrothal. "Why?" I whisper.

"Because… I…" He shakes his head, and then he's gone, slipping through the door and into his own bathing room. I don't understand. That desperate need had struck like lightning flashing through me, but it doesn't leave immediately. The afterglow of that feeling makes me want to crawl out of the bath and go to him, to fling myself at him and touch him from head to toe so he doesn't have to feel this way.

Instead of doing that, I turn back around in the bath and stare ahead. I'd felt so completely relaxed, like I'd found a moment of peace, but now, I just want to get clean so I can be done. There's nothing relaxing about the bath now because, deep down, I feel like I should be sharing it with my betrothed. Even if we're only connected like this to save my life.

Everything in me says that I should go to him, that I should crawl into the bath next to him and press my body against his. I don't know why he felt like he needed my touch so badly, but there's no denying it.

I don't move, though. Vesta's words roll through my head like thunder. Emotions are the storms of humanity . I need to embrace my Immortal side, not my humanity. I should let cold logic steer this ship, not my betrothal bond.

It still tears at me. Cole felt so desperate for my touch. Why shouldn't I go to him? Because I'm not ready for what comes after that. He told me before our betrothal that I should still be wary of him. He said that I had to protect myself.

I try to regain some semblance of the willpower and strength I've had so far on this journey, but it's difficult in the relaxing water. We may have made it to Draenyth, but the journey isn't done, and Hazel isn't healed. Soon, I'll be able to relax, and maybe then I'll invite Cole into a bath with me. Until then, I have to keep my eyes ahead and focus on the reason that I left home not that long ago.

Cold and calculating. I need to embrace the Fae blood inside me and ignore the emotions that race through me at the thought of that male. I just don't know if I'm strong enough to manage that.

My traveling clothes feel strange on my clean body. My hair's tied back, but it's still dripping wet. When Cole walks into my room, he's back to the stoic man that I've traveled with, not a glimmer of the vulnerability that he'd shown in the bath.

He's not wearing the same traveling clothes he had on earlier. Gone are the rough leather pants and linen tunic that hugged his body so tightly. Now, he's wearing a brocade tunic similar to Rhion's, except instead of gold, it's a red velvet that changes from orange to red depending on the light and angles. He looks magnificent, like actual royalty, and I feel even less assured of my place here than I normally do.

Yet, when he walks toward me, he doesn't stop a few steps away like normal. No, the corner of his lip curls up, and I freeze as he puts his hand into my hair. We're inches away, his body's warmth radiating through that narrow space between us. His fingers spread through the brown strands of my hair, and his fingertips press against my scalp. That drum inside me pounds so hard that I can't tell quite how fast my heart is racing. Goosebumps run down my spine at the unexpected and very welcome touch. "Don't move," he whispers, that grin spreading across his face.

A warmth flows through me, barely any different from the bath, except this time, it's radiating from his hand instead of water. His face is inches away from mine, and he's grinning down at me. I drink in the sparkle in those ice-blue eyes, but neither of us says a word as he stands there for a few moments, his hand wrapped around my hair as though he were going to pull me in for a kiss.

Yet, he releases me without going through with it. "Can't try on new dresses with wet hair, Maeve. I learned that when I was barely allowed in my father's court. Seamstresses are more terrifying than any king or queen because they're all sadists, and you have to let them poke you with pins for hours. So don't piss them off by showing up with wet hair."

I put my hand against the hair I'd tied back, and it's dry. Completely. Like I wasn't just soaking in a bath five minutes ago. "That's a nice trick," I say, trying to recover from the overwhelming feelings coursing through me at his touch. I curse myself as I try to regain some of that coldness I'd decided to embrace at the end of my bath.

This is going to be harder than I'd expected.

"You should see some of the other tricks I have up my sleeve," he says and turns around to walk away. I'm shocked at the changes in him in the last fifteen minutes since he walked out of my bathing room.

He takes a couple of steps and pauses, looking back at me. "Are you coming? We have to get you a dress, and sometimes that can take a while."

Right. A dress for a dinner with the King of the Fae. The most powerful person in the entire world other than Calyr, who also happens to be Cole's abusive father.

Yet, a part of me is excited. Everything's exciting about this place. The market, while terrible and disgusting because of the slavery, was incredible because of everything else. The city is dangerous and wonderful at the same time. I'm sure that dinner with Cole's father will be just as conflicting.

After dinner, though, I'm going to share a bed with Cole. I don't even know how that's going to work. When I follow him, I can't help but think of the way he'd looked in just the towel. Stripped nearly bare, in more than just his clothing. He'd felt so… human. The masks that he wears constantly were gone. A handful of seconds of the Fae behind the masks, behind the titles and training.

I'd seen him when he was just a male who craved his betrothed, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

We walk through what feels like miles of that same crimson marble flecked with gold. This time, instead of silence, he points out places. A library this way. The servants' quarters that way. An art gallery above a stairwell. I try to take it all in, to make mental notes of how to get places within the Keep of Flames. It's difficult, as most of the corridors and halls are so similar. There's barely any carpet or decorations. Very few random paintings are on walls, and almost no vases sit on cabinets. Other than the specifically placed objects far from the normally walked path, this castle is nearly bare.

It almost appears they couldn't afford to furnish the castle, except that I know that's not true. Then it clicks. How many young or untrained House of Flames High Fae walk these halls? And how many times did someone walk on a rug and accidentally catch it on fire? I bet they just got tired of replacing the furnishings.

And yet, there's still so much to see. It's hard not to stop and appreciate the art and architecture. I know they don't matter as much from a functional perspective, but I've never been anywhere with this much beauty in it. We should hurry to get to the dressmaker, but the only real paintings I've seen were the ones that Hazel made for me.

So I stop when one catches my attention. A painting of a hawk rising from a fire, its wings aflame, adorns a wall. "Who painted this?" I ask as I stare at the image. The bird is flying with burned feathers away from the fire, but it's obvious that the fire will eventually catch it. The expression on the hawk is one of pure determination, though.

"I don't know." His words are soft and rumbling behind me, and I expect his hands to be on my waist at any moment, but they never touch me. "Why do you ask?"

There's nowhere for the bird to turn, no place for the bird to hide, but the expression on the hawk's face tells me that there's no way he'll give up. "It reminds me of you."

He's quiet for a few moments, and then he takes my hand. Softly, his fingers entwine in mine, and I look up at him as he steps forward. A single question flows silently from him to me through that magic of our betrothal. The bird or the fire?

I'd never even considered him as the fire even though… I guess anyone from the House of Flames would associate themselves with the fire rather than the bird. But that just doesn't fit Cole.

"Bird," I whisper.

A smile crosses his face, and he nods. "Let's go get you a dress. I'd like it if your clothes were as beautiful as you are."

I blink. Did Cole just compliment me? I don't know how to take that. It's so shocking, I let him drag me through the house silently. All the while, I can feel Cole laughing at me.

This whole betrothal bond is going to be a lot more complicated than I'd expected.