Страница 100 из 105
Opal
Featherlight, fingers danced across my brow, smoothing back my hair, gliding down and over my cheek.
I curled closer to that touch, knowing whose it was, wanting more—needing more.
Warmth engulfed me, a strong arm at my back pulling me into a firm chest. When I woke, he was still there, waiting, eyes bruised but faint, sleep lining his mouth and lingering upon his mussed hair.
My relief was instant, profound, as I reached for that face, that hair, then paused when my arm slid over something rough on his chest. A bandage. I blinked hard, bloodstained memories arising.
The battle.
Reading my panic, Dade cupped my cheek, his voice gentle but not reassuring. “It’s over.”
But for how long, I wondered, and knew he was aware by the dimming of his blue eyes. “We worry about that later.”
Later. A bland word had never sounded so sweet. A promise I’d taken for granted my entire life.
Looking into those eyes, feeling his touch, so real, so warm, so blessedly alive upon my skin… “Dade—”
The doors crashed open, and I twisted to them with a wince.
“Opal,” my mother cried, hurrying into the king’s chambers as though she had every right. “Stars.” Stopping beside the bed, she lowered and reached for me, stole me from the king and hauled my body to hers. “It’s been days,” she whispered in strangled explanation.
“How many?” I mumbled against her sweet-scented shoulder.
Her hand rubbed down my back, fingers carefully untangling some of my hair. “Four. I thought, I feared…” She pushed me away and clutched my shoulders, tears cloaking her eyes. “You’ve never done that before.”
The glowing. The ancient healing that, up until now, many had thought only a rumor spun into fiction with the black swan.
“It has been said that such a thing has ended your ancestor’s existence,” she whispered. “They would fall just like the honey bee after using all of themselves.”
“One of them,” Dade supplied curtly, as though a
Father knew I could do that, I didn’t dare say, as it no doubt began to dawn for her too. The way he would evade me and make plans for me as though I were a waiting bomb, the nickname…
I swallowed thickly, not remembering much, but enough of the tingling desperation that had radiated from me, the flood from that broken organ inside me, to know I never wanted to do so again.
My mother eyed Dade distastefully. “And how would you know?”
I didn’t need to look at the king to know he was smiling. That dry humor soaked his voice. “I know a great deal of things I’ll wager you wish I did not.”
Mother’s eyes narrowed, then she looked back at me and brushed her hands down my cheeks. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” A quick glare at the king as she muttered, “You may leave.”
He did no such thing as the last creature I expected to see entered the room with a small pile of cloths and a clean nightgown.
Linka. Gwe
“Is there something wrong with your hearing?” My mother stood and tugged the bedding from my body.
I wanted the warmth back but refrained from reaching for it when Dade said, “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
I snorted and turned to smack him, then remembered his wound and stopped.
He caught my hand on the bed, bringing it to his mouth. Endless turquoise stole my eyes, my breath, the beating of my heart as those silken lips glossed over each scratched knuckle.
My stomach flipped and heated, the sensation of wildfire spreading throughout each limb too fast to stop. Still, I mouthed to him, “Go, please.”
His nostrils flared with displeasure, then his eyes grew and hooded as he no doubt scented something else.
I flushed and looked down at the crumpled bedding as he chuckled and rose. “Fine. I’ll go.” Rounding the huge bed, my mother chattering away with the pixies in hushed tones, he then smirked and readjusted the band of his low-hanging pants at his toned waist. “After I’ve washed my mate.”
The pixies froze, stilling entirely.
My mother’s spine turned to steel. “You will do no such thing.”
“I’m sure it will boil your blood to know that I’ve done far wonderfully worse.”
“Dade,” I hissed, embarrassment scoring through me.
He ignored me as though he hadn’t said anything incredibly untoward. I wondered if perhaps he wasn’t aware it was. Until now, my glare said when he glanced my way.
He winced a little, but my mother’s fuse had been lit, and she was three seconds away from blowing. “You repulsive beast, how dare you—”
Linka surprised us all by stepping between them and lifting her hands. “Both of you, out.”
The king and my mother sent withering looks her way. I wanted to clap when she did not cower. “The princess has only just woken up. She does not need the stress of your bickering, nor does she need either of you present for a task I’ve been employed to do.”
Dade’s brows rose, his smile twitching with both anger and humor. “Queen. She is the queen of Vordane.”
My mother opened her mouth, but Gwe
Linka gave Dade an impatient look.
He squinted, eyeing her a moment, then moved back to the bed. I was torn between pulling him over me and reprimanding him for his disobedience, but then he kissed me. Soft and breathing me in, his lips lingered upon my forehead, and before I could reach for him, he was sauntering through the closing doors.
Linka busied herself with soaking some cloths, then gestured for my hand. Removing my unfocused gaze from the doors, I gave it to her, her touch cool and reassuring. “He worships you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing as she squeezed out a cloth and laid it over the rim of the pail upon the floor. She helped me stand, and though my knees quaked, each step was a little easier as we headed to the table between the windows. The heavy black drapes were half-drawn, remnants of daylight splashing in slivers across the room.
I carefully lowered my stiff limbs to the chair and unbuttoned my nightgown. “Never,” she said, as though worried someone might overhear. It would not surprise me if Dade was right outside the doors. “Never have I seen a male so frightened, so ready to claw at anyone who so much as neared these rooms.”
I contained a snort. “I’m surprised he was a male and not his beast.”
“Oh, he was,” she laughed, gathering my hair from my neck to begin washing me. “For the first three days. After that, your mother demanded he shift back or she’d take you home.” Another soft laugh, the warm cloth against my skin so welcomed that I nearly purred. “So, of course he shifted back in a rage just to argue with her.”
A knot lodged in my throat as I imagined it, the two of them at odds, as they would be forevermore, yet… perhaps that would not be so bad.
“Then,” Linka went on, offering the cloth for me to wipe my face. “Your breathing changed, as though you’d left the healing dark and had entered the realm of dreams, and I wondered if he would allow the tears in his eyes to fall.”
I handed her back the cloth, gazing up at her own wet eyes in question.