As he pulled away, the promise of more shimmered in his eyes, leaving me unable to move, let alone think straight.
Legs made of cotton, my mind remained scattered, and it took a long moment before I managed to gather myself enough to slip into my room.
Of all the things I had expected from the night, kissing him was not it. And of all the ways I had imagined his kiss, none had come close to the reality.
Rough, yet tender. Demanding, yet yielding. He gave, only to take it away again.
Then, cruelly, he left me aching for more.
My gaze fell on the gleaming crystal bottle waiting on my nightstand, the word 'repellent' scrawled across the label in thick black ink by someone clearly amused with themselves.
Spraying myself lightly, I smelled it to check whether it really carried no scent. Undetectable. But as it clung to my skin, I realised with a start—I wasn’t sure I wanted to repel the king at all.
Sleep didn’t come easily. When it finally did, it dragged the taste of him with it.
Waking after a night like that felt like a triumph for someone whose mind rarely slept, even when I did. It had taken me hours to drift off, and even then, my sleep was restless, haunted by fragments of memory. The kiss. The strange, shadowed man. The court whispering that I was a whore.
Mostly, though, I dreamt of our moment of passion. And each time I woke, a thunderclap of anxiety struck my chest. What did it mean, and did it mean anything at all?
When the clock chimed half past six, I was almost relieved to rise, shower, and slip back into my routine until I remembered that my routine involved a great deal of the king.
Did he think I was easy? I’d let him kiss me without so much as a stutter. I had no intention of becoming one of the king’s mistresses. My heart couldn’t bear it when he eventually found his queen, an inevitability his grandmother had already sown into my thoughts.
Classing the day as one when I would rather not stand out, I chose a dark grey sweater and loose jeans before heading to breakfast. With a little luck, the eager assistant from yesterday would be absent.
‘Good morning!’ Michael called cheerfully from his seat, waving me over.
Stepping in hesitantly, I asked, ‘Where is everybody?’
‘You wound me. Yesterday you said you never get enough of me, and today you cast me aside so easily…’
The theatrics clearly ran in the family.
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it.’ My lips betrayed me, curving into a smile. ‘Where have you been lately?’
Michael sipped his tea before responding, ‘Here and there. Spy business. Digging up what I can about that evil mother of yours. But enough about me, I’ve heard the news…’
Shit. I assumed River had gone to sleep after our kiss, and we hadn’t discussed keeping it private either. But sharing it with his brother so soon? It felt premature.
I didn’t want to go into details. ‘Yeah… it just happened.’
‘Spectacularly as well,’ he sounded proud. ‘Grandma said they were vast enough to engulf half their house if you cared to.’
I nearly choked on my tea. ‘What?’
Michael’s eyebrows shot up as he clarified, ‘Your flames?’
‘Oh, yes. The land helped,’ I whispered, ashamed that my thoughts kept circling back to the kiss, one River probably wouldn’t even consider worth mentioning. ‘I finally have them. Now I just have to hone them.’
At my words, the power surged to the surface, eager to perform, thrumming with pride beneath my skin, as if it too wanted to impress the friend who smiled at me now.
Though eager to explore it, his demeanour shifted when his phone chimed. ‘Emily will be here soon. I have to go.’
‘What? Already?’ But he was gone before I even finished whining.
Though I waited for someone to join me, after a while it proved useless.
Upon finishing my usual avocado toast, I decided to keep busy until the afternoon session with River. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to do what I’d been meaning to for a long time—connect with the land.
