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His eyebrows puckered. “But you’re Papa.”
Meaning, I never got scared. People feared me, not the other way around.
But Nicu didn’t know how untrue that was. My son terrified me, as Briar terrified me. Except they did so in an unconditional way.
I chuckled. “Aye, I’m quite the enigmatic ideal. Regardless, I have my fair share of shitty nights.”
“Shitty nights,” he repeated, nodding. “So we’re the same.”
“But there’s a secret to battling those demons.” Nicu scooted closer, committing this to memory, cementing it verbatim, as he did with most dialogue. “The secret trick is this: Just because your mind took you somewhere bad, that doesn’t make it true. When we mortals sleep, sometimes we see our wishes, other times our fears. But upon awakening, we get to decide which are real and which are lies. The choice is yours.”
I wouldn’t ask if he understood this. Despite his challenges, Nicu was smarter and more imaginative than the world gave him credit for.
“Youarea hero,” I told him. “Because you tried. You, my exquisite fae, braved the darkness to help Briar Patch. The attempt is what matters.”
As the meaning sank in, my son’s eyes softened. Someday, he would be quicker than me, wiser than Briar, and stronger than every nation on this continent. As the princess had said before she left, maybe Nicu would be the one to save us all someday. Whether or not that happened, I would spend my life making sure he believed it was possible.
When he was an infant, reciting verse had been the only way to get my son to fall back asleep. With that in mind, I lowered us onto our sides, so that we faced each other. But instead of a simple poem, I murmured a passage from the princess’s favorite series, part of the collection’s final book, which she’d been hunting for years to find.
Eventually, I’d located the book and given it to her during our hideout in The Royal Retreat near The Pumpkin Wood. To this day, the volume remained at the house, where we’d left it before all hell broke loose with the Masters.
I remembered one striking passage. The only bit of verse on the pages.
From the sacred wild, she will reign.
In the hidden trees, is her domain …
Nicu’s eyes drifted shut, a peaceful expression slackening his features. I’d never lied to him, and I wouldn’t start now. On and off over his life, my son had lost too many people. His mother. Old Jinny. Sometimes his father, whenever I’d left him at the cottage, needing to return to Spring’s palace.
And now Briar. But not for long. Wherever she was, I would walk to the end of this earth if it meant reuniting them.
A pile Briar’s clothing nestled between us. Nicu balled his hand in mine whilst I mumbled the last lines of verse, my own lids hooding and my body succumbing. Yet before either of us drifted into blessed rest, I cradled his face and hissed, “She will return.”
My son’s chest rose and fell, and he whispered back, “I know.”
He might as well have commanded me to act. Just like another Royal I worshiped.
***
Alas.
Days became weeks. Weeks became months.
In that time, not a fucking thing. In between raising Nicu; meeting with Avalea about Rhys and the castle’s confidential passages; conferencing with the council for a thousand other matters; kissing the court’s principled ass; and monitoring the treatment of born souls, in addition to Summer’s mad, I stalked every acre and square foot of this complex. I ransacked each shelf and studied every map in the library wing, then scoured the books in Briar’s suite. I manipulated conversations in the throne room, stalked courtiers through the halls, and interrogated the Royal advisors.
To say the least—and I never said the least—I did everything short of dismantle this fortress to the last fucking hinge. Only one woman in this bedeviled world could evade the Court Jester with success, get him to run in circles, and drive him out of his bloody mind.
I had told Briar I would find her, but would I? Did she want me to?
Only now did I recall one important fact. One crucial nugget from that moment, when I’d mouthed those words to her, just before she left.
I had made that promise. Yet she hadn’t responded.
***
Her fingers sizzled a path to my cock. Blood rushed to the head, coloring my skin a ruddy hue, and the length of my erection broadened. I arched into her palm, groaning as she encircled the column in her grip, a slender thumb rolling over the glistening slit at my crown.
Hectic pants rushed from my lungs. I fisted the sheets, realizing a pair of scarlet ribbons bound my arms to the bedposts. Hissing, I locked my gaze with those steely eyes, the irises brimming with desire.
