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Maybe it has.
He took me in the early days in ways that still make my cheeks blush, stealing me into dark rooms to slide his fingers over my core, watching my face heatedly as he brought me to orgasm, and shoving me onto his table that he sat at so he could enjoy a dessert not brought from the kitchens but found between my legs instead.
He was very much training my body back then.
And it worked.
Even dancing between awake and sleep, my pleasure climbs with him, my hands find him, roaming the rippling muscles of his back.
I climax with a choked whimper, flooded with stars bursting beneath my skin, yet grogginess too. Daein groans against my cheek, his body tensing against mine, twitching inside of me, then slumps over me.
Afterwards, we bathe together. We’re soaking in the tub when breakfast is brought to us by a house slave, and we stay submerged in the water as we both pick at the tray.
I eat more than he does. I like the food better in these lands—the fruits, the grains, the coffees and teas, and I sometimes even like the small smoke-pipe that’s stuffed full of a fruity substance. Though it does make me cough a little, so I avoid it this Warmth before we set off in the carriage.
Daein sometimes complains about the stink of it that clings to my skin. It remains untouched on the tray.
The messenger comes when we are both dressing for the journey—I wear skin-tight breeches that he’s finally allowed for my wardrobe, and a button-up velvet coat that hugs my waist before my wide birthing hips spill out in a generous curve. I’m dressed more in steed-riding gear with the leather boots that are thin against the soles of my feet, but it makes for a warmer ride back to the dark lands.
The messenger announces that the carriage is waiting, prepared and ready for us, in the courtyard, and that Ember sits in the foyer. My heart sinks at the reminder of her—her fate. A shudder rises up my spine before I shake the thoughts from my mind.
Then she, the messenger, approaches me as Daein fastens up his collar buttons. His eyes follow the servant closely as she hands me a folded piece of thick parchment.
I take it with a frown turning down my mouth. It’s smooth against my still-pruned fingertips and I meet Daein’s focused gaze in the tall mirror he dresses in front of. His hands fall from the collar, leaving the top button undone.
With a bow, the servant leaves as quietly as she came. And I’m left with a letter in my hand that befuddles me since, in all the times I’ve spent in these lands, no message has come to me directly. Everything goes through Daein.
Predictable in his curiosity, hiscontrol, Daein’s tense energy comes around me to my back, and he looks over my shoulder. He waits as I pause, gripping the edges of the parchment in my pinched fingertips.
My heart pulses with hesitation.
My mind is thrown back to Skye, to her implications and knowing in the parlour room. Of what my dear, cruel daughter has revealed to a prince of the litalves.
Can’t stop the tremble of my fingers—and I’m sure Daein notices this before I do—as I unfold the paper. Ink gleams up at me, fresh and damp-looking, fleetingly reminding me of Daein’s royal markings.
At first glance, the inky words make little sense to me, taking me back to a time I could not read in any language at all. Now, I’m able to read extensively in the old human language and the fae languages.
Daein saw to it that I was educated enough to enjoy the library.Bet he’s feeling a tint of regret about that right now, I think with a grim slant to my mouth.
Then the shapes and lines start to come together, and they begin to make sense.
First, I flick my gaze down to the signature—the sender. Skye, as I feared.
My heart has crawled its way up into my throat as I bring my eyes up to the top of the parchment and read. I’m still slow, slower than Daein is, but he waits patiently for me to finish. And since there’s no tension still clinging to his body and energy, I feel somewhat more at ease as I make sense of the letter.
It’s an invitation, an informal one.
She invites me to return to the light lands for the Hunt in seven weeks’ time.
My shoulders slump as relief ribbons through me and I loosen a soft sigh. Daein has lost interest, moving away for the mirror to finish with his buttons and tousled hair.
As he starts to comb the curly strands with a gel-like substance that straightens and smoothens it all out, he tells me, “With guards to escort you, I will allow it.”
My mouth is grim. My eyes are downcast, focused on the inky markings on the parchment. An itch of unease irritates the back of my brain, and I feel there’s more to this than I’m realising.
I read it again. And again.
Distantly, I’m aware of Daein’s disappointed sigh—thinking that I’m not up to scratch with my comprehension skills (that I did struggle with for years) still.
