“What—?”
Before I can finish, he takes my free hand, lifts it to his lips, and presses a kiss to my palm. The gesture is light, but it sparks like static down my spine.
“I should return to those very important council meetings you’re so fond of bringing up,” he says, his voice low, his breath warm against my skin. “If anyone asks, tell them I was detained by chickens and a woman who looks far too good in a borrowed dress.”
I open my mouth—no idea what I planned to say—but the moment disappears as his fingers brush against mine one last time.
And then he walks away. His long strides carry him toward another part of the castle. He doesn’t look back.
I hate how much I want him to.
I stand there like a lovesick girl holding a basket of eggs, watching his broad frame disappear through an archway, the dim light swallowing him whole.
Even then, I don’t move.
Because I want more.
More of that smile. More of the way he slips into my space like he’s always belonged there. More of the man who kisses my hand like it’s sacred and looks at me like I’m something he’s not ready to let go of.
I want more of Alder Hawke in every way that’s ever mattered.
And for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, I think he might actually be ready to give it to me.
Fourteen
I’m lost.
After returning the basket of eggs and joining Bernice and some of the other attendants for lunch, I tried to retrace my steps back to the room I share with Alder—all while secretly hoping his covert, intelligence- gathering meeting was over and he’d be there waiting for me. Preferably shirtless, chest gleaming, and ready to report back on our chances of returning home. But only after we defile every surface we can find. And I have multiple orgasms. And he has an emotional catharsis that finally cracks his I’m-such-a-moody-asshole exterior.
You know…casual weekday stuff.
Instead, I’m somewhere between tapestry thirty-two and tapestry fifty, maybe, wandering the castle’s stone hallways like I’m stuck in a really elaborate, dimly lit IKEA.
Every corridor looks the same—endless stretches of gray stone and brooding images featuring long-dead royals and overcompensating heroes, all slowly being devoured by time and moths. The torches lining thewalls cast flickering shadows that shift and stretch like they’re waiting for the right moment to pounce.
My borrowed slippers, half a size too big and aggressively unsupportive, whisper against rugs as I walk. The runners are obnoxiously plush. The kind I envision in a villain’s lair or the home of someone who enjoys twirling their mustache and hoarding cursed objects.
I run my hand along the cold, uneven wall and turn another corner only to find an identical stretch of hallway.
Nope. Still not my room.
A familiar buzz of panic starts in my chest, fluttering just beneath my ribs. I slow my steps, half hoping that someone will pop out and rescue me, preferably with a tray of pastries and a helpful little map that says: YOU ARE HERE and ROOM WITH HOT MAN IS HERE.
But no one comes.
And it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Not just castle quiet, which I’ve learned is a mix of library plus cathedral plus abandoned museum at midnight quiet, but eerie quiet.
My stomach twists, and my thoughts sharpen in the worst way.
What if I never get home?
It slides into my brain like a slow-moving tide, seeping into the cracks of my composure. What if I really am stuck here? What if this is it? No more morning coffee runs, no more talking to Mackenzie using TikToks and memes, no more drunken late-night truth-bomb bonding sessions with Amanda. No more real world.
Just stone walls. Crowned queens with bad attitudes.And Alder.
Alder, who I am definitely not emotionally dependent on in any way. Obviously.
