Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Aeris and I went upstairs to my bath to wash off the tiring target practice. My attendants already had the water hot, steamy, and scented with oils, while Eadaoin and Talulla stood by with my dinner tray. Aeris sent the tray away while the attendants undressed me. I long since stopped arguing with them about dressing and undressing myself.
If compliments don’t work on the empty-chested man, what will? What else did Papa do to woo Mama?
My mind went through the stories she told me as I stepped into my bath. The doors blew out, snapping me out of my memories. Bradach walked inside.
“Bradach,” I cried, slapping my hands over my exposed bits. “You’re back.”
“That I am, my queen.” He bowed low, wings crowning and spreading the calming scent of wind, rain, and pine. “As proud as I would be to die for you, I can happily report I did not.”
“That’s great, but”—I flapped a hand—“would you mind?”
“Mind what?”
“Leaving! I’m naked.”
“Oh, right. If you insist.”
“Thank you.”
He then proceeded to strip off his clothes. “Now, where was I?”
I gave up.
“Aeris, my blossom,” he said, kneeling beside her sitting on my chaise.
“What?” she snapped.
“I missed you most of all.”
Her eye roll made me giggle.
“I can’t apologize enough for scaring and being away from you for so long, but I hope this comes close.” Bradach got something out of his pocket and covered it, holding up his closed palms to her.
Aeris tried to seem disinterested. “What is it?” she breezed, gaze fixed on a spot on the ceiling.
He opened his palms. “It’s a snowflake from the highest mountain peak in all of Wind and Wild, where the stars still shine. I encased it in everlasting glass for you.” He placed the beautiful silver necklace in her hand. “If the stars won’t shine on you, my love, I will bring them to you. My wings will carry you until the day your heart flies side by side with mine.”
“Wow,” someone breathed.
It was me. Was that the kind of sweet, flowery stuff Papa said to Mama, because if it was, I understood why she said she’d never known a love like theirs.
Me, Eadaoin, and my attendants fixed on them—wide-eyed and waiting for Aeris’s response. She reddened under our gaze.
“Will you wear it?” he asked.
“Well, I mean...” She roughly cleared her throat. “You— Nothing you said made any sense,” she cried, “but if you went through all that trouble... I could... I could possibly wear it.
“Thank you,” she mumbled so low, I almost didn’t hear her.
Her tomato-red cheeks shone brighter than an orblight as he lifted her hair, and carefully placed the necklace on her feathered collarbone.
“You’re beautiful.” Bradach bent and pressed a featherlight kiss to her lips.
Aeris’s eyes fluttered shut—the softest sigh escaping her.
Then her lids ripped open and she shot up, spinning her back to him. “Bradach, you forget yourself in the presence of our queen. Leave us, you’re making her uncomfortable.”
I blinked at them. I was feeling something, but discomfort wasn’t it.
“Very well.” Bradach rescued his clothes from the floor, and bowed his way to the door. “I’ll save you a seat at dinner.”
I was suddenly very glad to be attending that dinner. Why had I dismissed Bradach as the court’s jester? Aeris did nothing but snap and bark at him, but given a few sweet words and ice off a mountain, and she was ready to have her way with the man right there on the chaise.
Mama’s stories were of friends falling in love, but Alisdair was never going to make it easy. I wasn’t wooing the banished heart of a man who was half in love with me already. I was trapping and capturing the heart of a beast who swore to give me anything but.
Besides, I mused, following Aeris and Eadaoin down to the dining hall. Bradach is Alisdair’s companion. Who better than his bedmate to teach me the ways of seducing him?
A flash of anger roared in my chest at the thought that Bradach was still his bedmate. A thought I’d been trying hard to ignore. Alisdair marked me so that another man couldn’t touch me. I had no such marking on him, and of all the promises he made me during the mating ceremony—fidelity wasn’t one.
Together, we entered the dining hall, and my eyes blew wide. Beasts. Savages. Can’t control themselves.
Aeris was being kind.
There wasn’t a single utensil in sight. The faeriken tore at the meats, cheeses, bread, and vegetables with their bare hands, while snarls, snaps, and demands for more filled the air. A ring of masticated remains surrounded the long, oaken table and high-backed velvet-covered chairs. All the makings of a beautiful, formal dinner in a royal palace—if not for half the guests scrambling over the table to tear apart a turkey, and attacking each other for the bigger piece.