AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You know you’ve nothing to be jealous of, Nava,” he whispered close to her ear, enjoying the way her skin pebbled beneath his breath. Then he grasped her elbow and turned her away from the painting to face him.
“I’m not…”
He touched her flushed cheeks and pulled her bottom lip free from beneath her teeth. She always did that when she was nervous or overwhelmed. “Tell me what you’re thinking?”
Nava sighed, glancing at the offending portrait as if it might come alive at any moment. “When we met for the first time—you were about the same age, then. I see this picture, and I can’t help but wonder if I ruined a relationship you had before me.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“You don’t remember what happened.” She turned away, clearly not wanting him to read her as only he could. “Maybe if I hadn’t been out gardening that afternoon when you came to speak to my mother, you would have stayed with Faria.”
“I was never hers to begin with.” Orion lowered his face enough that his lips were a mere hairsbreadth away from hers. Nava’s breath stuttered, but yearning softened her features. “I’ve been yours from the moment I first laid eyes on you. Since before I understood who you were to me.”
Nava crushed her lips to his in a kiss that caught fire as soon as he got a taste of her. It was right—perfect even—to chase her lips and marvel at the way she gasped for air as they broke apart.
“Stop saying things like that,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to be mad at you.”
Orion grinned. It was as if the weight of all their lies and problems had dropped off him, leaving him lighter. He felt drunk on a feeling he wasn’t used to, on his love for this beautiful woman who belonged to him as much as he belonged to her.
Nava’s hand traveled across his chest, pausing over the spot where the soulmate mark rested. Her touch was light, but even through his clothes, it sent a ripple of energy dancing over his skin.
Judging by her shivers and how her lips parted, she felt their connection, too. But then she stepped away from him, breaking the spell, and continued down the hallway until she stopped in front of the first door to the left. “Is this where Devon is staying?”
The double doors of the room were shut, hiding away the huge chambers inside. “Yes. It’s the best room in the house, normally taken by high-ranking officers.”
“I heard you were pretty high up in the ranks.”
A smile curved his lips. “Was I?”
“Devon calls you the golden boy, and Roman used to say you called the shots. But you’ve never told me much about…any of this.” She shrugged one shoulder, her eyes darting away again.
“It’s hard to feel proud of being part of the Crows,” Orion admitted. He didn’t like to see that frown on her face, knowing the sadness it was hiding—or that his actions had put it there. “What do you want to know?”
“How many times did you come to this house before Fael found you?”
Fael—the guard who Orion had once thought of as a friend. Who’d betrayed him.
“I came here just once. The Society didn’t allow me to visit this kingdom. They sent me to other places instead…” He broke off. Now that Nava had planted the seed of doubt in his mind, it was blooming.
What if the Society of Crows had known all along who he was?
“It looks like no one has been here in a long time,” Nava said, lifting her chin to point at the spiderwebs that stretched from the corners of the ceiling. She was right. A thick layer of dust covered the pictures on the wall as well, dulling the gold tones of the frames.
“I was not supposed to come here when I did,” he admitted, swallowing the nervousness that rose alongside the words. He hadn’t told a soul. “They approved my leave and gave me permission to go to the Gold Kingdom to rest for two months.”
Nava watched him, unblinking, as if waiting for him to open up further.
Orion dragged a hand over his greasy hair. He desperately needed a bath. “I knew the Copper Kingdom was the place where my kind lived, and I wanted to know if my family was still alive. I needed answers about the shadows that always follow me.”
He pointed at his aura, although he already knew that Nava couldn’t see it. She only ever saw him.
“And when you got here, you found more than you bargained for?”
A soft puff of air left his lips. “You could say that.”
“Do you think no Crows have come here since you left the Society?”
Orion met her smart eyes, and for the first time, he yearned for those memories. He wanted to know what had happened when he headed to the Iron Kingdom eleven years ago after learning the truth about who he was.
