Page 88 of Crown of the Courtesan

Sighing, Ashland says, “Come here.” He grabs me by the waist—a motion that is now growing familiar to me—and folds me into his arms.

The action is so sudden that I have little time to think, let alone react. But his warmth is generous, and I’m more tired than I thought, so I take the moment to relax against his chest and just breathe for a second. My heart rate slows.

“Why are you crying?” Ashland asks.

That’s when I realize I am crying, fresh, hot, wet tears all down the front of his bare chest, soaking into the dark hair that grows there. “I don’t know.” I nuzzle deeper into his arms, and he places his chin on top of my head, holding me tighter. His breath shoots down at a steady pace. “Because of everything…” I whisper, clutching his forearm, sliding my palm up his wide muscles.

Ashland tenses. “Don’t.”

But I’m tired of not being in control. Tired of everything always being a struggle—and so this is the only way I know. I reach for the fastening of his pants, but he pulls my hand away, interlocking our fingers.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, peering up, our faces dangerously kiss-close as I remember the way he tastes. Teardrops still cling to my lashes, making my vision blur slightly as if I’m looking at him through distorted glass.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he says hoarsely.

“But I’ve seen the way you stare at me in the training yard, in the corridors, in the drawing room playing the piano for you. You watch me everywhere I go. I’ve even felt the need behind hands and your lips, yet you harbor such hate for me that you’ll deny yourself something you clearly want? Now that I’m freely offering it?” My breath catches in my throat. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Refusing you has nothing to do with denying myself.” He inhales deeply, an irritation boiling over in his restrained tone. “But you’re right about some things. Including the fact that I would fuck you every damn day of this pitiful excuse of a mortal existence—if I didn’t distrust everything about you. If you knew the depraved things I wanted to do to you, if you knew how desperate I am to simply taste you and claim you as mine, you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions of me. No, you’d be too needy and embarrassed because no one in Alexandria could ever say the filthy things I’d whisper in your ear, and they certainly wouldn’t elicit the same response, quivering between your thighs, dripping for me, wanting me. I’d rub your clit until my fingers came back covered in everything that makes you… you. Then I’d make sure you weren’t looking anywhere but my eyes as I made you beg for my cock to fill you. I would bury myself so deep into you that you’d scream my name so loud that the Fae Realm would split open once more. Every realm across the land would hear my name on your tongue.”

I pause, taking in every filthy word and then stammer, “Why don’t you just come out and say it already?”

“Say what?”

“You disdain my past. The things I had to do to survive.”

He blinks hard. “That’s not what this is about. We made an agreement that you would be my courtesan, not my whore. And I don’t go back on my bargains, Tabitha. No matter how badly I want to.”

“And what’s so wrong about being with a whore? Or is it that I’m not Adele? Or Valora’s sister? Or any of the other Stormwatch members you’ve so casually bedded on a whim? You think I haven’t heard them whisper about your rakish ways on the shore? Yet you’d rather throw me in a dungeon than let me touch you. You’d rather fake a tryst than take me for real.” Each accusation sends my heart racing, spreading an uncomfortable burn beneath my skin.

“We shouldn’t pretend either of us is a blushing virgin.” He holds up a hand before I can offer a rebuttal. “But let me be very clear, so that you finally understand this, I’m never going to allow you to cloud my judgment with what’s between your legs. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t want you.” The vein in his neck pulses. “It’s too easy to fall into your trap. You’re like the dewdrop in a spiderweb, waiting for me, and war is not the time to fuck the enemy, no matter how you beg, so I suggest you stop asking fucking questions you don’t really want the answers to.”

I jump down from the bed, my voice high-pitched and oddly strained. “I think it’s time for you to leave—thank you for checking on me. It’s no longer needed.”

Ashland flips his long legs over the edge of the mattress, shaking his head and muttering to himself. “It wasn’t my intention to upset you when I came to you tonight.”

“You didn’t,” I lie, pointing at the door. “Please, go.”

“Fine,” he concedes, standing up and striding across the chamber. “Be sure to get some rest. We have breakfast with the commanders first thing. I wouldn’t want them to assume there’s trouble when you show up with puffy eyes.”

In the next moment, Ashland ducks because a very large novel hurtles at his face in a wave of pages and fury. My arm reaches for another from my bedside table. The assailing books have hit him three out of four times by the time he reaches the adjoining door. I let out a half-sobbing laugh as the lock latches between us.

Forty

The next morning dawns cold and bright. I try to put the nightmare out of my mind, but it’s difficult. I can’t stop thinking about how I awoke this morning to a roaring fire and a large stack of firewood and kindling in the cache. Luckily for me, though, Valora is oblivious to my turmoil as we stroll through the castle on our way to the shore.

“Come on, we’d better hurry.” Her pace quickens. “We don’t have much time to train today. The commanders are getting antsy. And antsy means earlier and earlier morning meetings.”

Trying to keep up, I whine, “Yeah, earlier for you maybe. But I don’t want to cut training short. It’s my only reprieve from the mundane day ahead.”

“Enjoy the mundane! It means we aren’t fighting for our lives⁠—”

I abruptly stop, clutching my scalp—a searing, lashing pain cutting through it. My fingers wind through my hair, pulling the strands to relieve the pressure as my throat tightens and my heart quickens.

The whispers flood my mind: hurry hurry hurry.

Something—no, someone—running through the castle’s main double doors in the opposite direction collides with me. My ears violently ring from the impact.

A taller, older woman peers down at me. Blood splatters her plain skirts, the crimson as vibrant as the fae-moon. It cakes onto her face, settling into the many lines time has etched there while her silver eyes are wide with fresh terror.