But I still flinch when he suddenly walks up to me and nudges my arm.
I go ramrod straight, my heart skipping a step. “Did you want something?” I ask nervously.
I hear footsteps approach and turn around to see one of the guards walking up. “Pardon, my lady, but we’ve spoiled His Majesty’s beast. He comes up here for this.” The man digs into his pocket and holds out a piece of food.
Taking it, I look down at my hand, seeing the food isn’t jerky like I expected, but a large cookie of some sort. “Are you telling me that timberwings have a sweet tooth?”
The guard shrugs with a sheepish smile. “Don’t know about all timberwings, but this one certainly does.”
Laughing, I turn around, only to find Argo looming over me, staring at the cookie in my hand intently. “So, this is what you want?”
He makes a chuffing sound deep in his throat and blinks at me innocently.
I scoff. “Mm-hmm, nice try with the puppy dog eyes,” I tell him before I make my tone sterner. “If you bite my hand off, I’m going to be really mad.”
Holding my hand out, I present the cookie on my flattened palm, and no sooner have I reached out a single inch than Argo is coming up to snap up the treat. I flinch, eyes shut tight, but rather than feeling his razor-sharp teeth mauling me, he’s surprisingly gentle. All I feel is the smoothest nuzzle of horse-like lips before both his mouth and treat are gone.
When I open my eyes again, he’s happily swallowing it down, looking quite pleased with himself. This time when he licks his teeth, he’s gathering crumbs.
“Nothing like washing down a bloody hunt with a cookie, right?” I ask him.
He makes a noise like a hoarse chwirk, and I reach out to pet him.
Beside me, I hear the guard suck in a breath. “Lady Auren, I wouldn’t—”
Before his warning finishes, my fingers come down to the bark-colored feathers at Argo’s neck. I brace myself for the beast to snap at me, but to my surprise, he curls his head the other way, as if he’s directing me where to scratch. Tentatively, I scratch at his neck, finding that the plume is much softer than I anticipated.
The guard lets out a sigh of relief. “Wow. He never lets anyone pet him other than His Majesty.”
A surge of gratification fills me as I run my hand over him again. “Good boy,” I croon. “Thank you for not mauling me to death.”
I pet him for a few more seconds, and as soon as I drop my hand, he clicks at me. That’s the only warning I get before he’s lurching down and then leaping up, a burst of air tossed back our way as his wings take him higher.
I shove away the hair that got blown in my face, smiling to myself as I watch his shadowy figure disappear. Turning to the guard, I say, “Thank you for the cookie.”
He bows his head. “Any time, my lady.”
As I make my way back downstairs, all the content feelings from the roof slowly dwindle away, step by step. When I’m back on the floor of Slade’s rooms, my anxiety has compressed right back into my stomach again, solidified and heavy.
I take a breath before I go inside and shut the door. When I get into the bedroom, I see that the window is opened, letting in the cool night air, ruffling the green curtains in slow swells.
“There you are,” Slade says. He gets up from the chair beside the unlit fireplace, a stack of papers in his hands. He tosses them down onto the seat as he straightens up. My eyes roam over his figure, black pants tucked into his boots, a leather jerkin belted at the waist. He’s shaved too, the black beard that had been getting thicker now back to just a scruff of a shadow along his jaw, and his hair is combed back.
“You look beautiful,” he says as I walk over.
I pinch the skirt of my dress, lifting the ruby red fabric. “You picked this one out.”
Dark eyes follow the dip of the top, the scooped neckline gathering in a cinch just below my breasts. “The color suits you.”
“It’s nice not to wear gold all the time. It’s nice not to see it everywhere too,” I admit, glancing around the room, taking in the dark floorboards, the rich green bedding. Even something as simple as being able to see the true color of grains of wood or thread in a sheet is still somewhat anomalous. After so long of being constantly surrounded by it, of every single thing in Highbell being gilded by my hand, it’s a breath of fresh air to be out of that singular outlook.
A life lived in shades of gold casts its own sort of shadow.
His fingertips graze across the golden bracelet on my wrist. “But gold will always be my favorite color.”
I smile at him, but that happiness drifts away with my troubled thoughts, while my stomach tries to churn and churn my leaden nerves. My hand delves into the hidden pocket of my dress, and I scoop out my ribbon, twirling it around my thumb for a moment before I set it on the bedside table.
I turn back around to face him. “Can we talk?”
“Of course.”
I move toward the bed, sitting down on it, bracing my hands on either side of me so I don’t fidget other than slightly swinging my feet. “I don’t know if saying no tonight to Manu is the best thing.”
A flash of disappointment passes over his features. “It is,” he says decisively. “They’re trying to intimidate us—to corner us.”
“But the army is tired. And the food shortage...”
“You sound like Ryatt.”
I pause. “So he agrees?”
A lackadaisical laugh tempers up from his chest. “When it comes to my decisions, Ryatt usually always believes I should be doing the opposite.”
My teeth trap my bottom lip. “I’m just worried.”
Slade’s face softens, and then he walks over to me, stopping just in front of my knees. His hand comes up to slide beneath my jaw, to tip my head up as he leans down. “I don’t want you to be worried. Fourth Kingdom is strong. I’m strong.”
“I know you are, but your people—”
He suddenly bends his knee and places it right between my legs on the mattress, trapping the fabric of my skirt as his weight pins my legs down.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice coming out in a breathy surge.
He leans in, and I lean back, making him smirk. “I don’t want you to worry. We are going to be just fine.”
“But—”
With his hold still on my jaw, he swoops down and skims his lips over mine, making my words die on my tongue and trickle out with my shaken breath.
It’s not even a full kiss, not really, but just that barest of touch makes my body react, makes me melt against him.
He pulls away, verdant gaze burgeoning with flickers of heat in their deep green depths. “You have a good heart, Auren,” he tells me, thumb brushing over the edge of my jaw. “I just want you to trust me in this. Trust that I can keep you and my kingdom safe.”
“I do trust you,” I reply honestly. “But you said so yourself, if they do this, if they push you, you’re going to retaliate.”
Instead of trying to deny it, he places his other knee onto the bed too, this one on the outside of my right thigh. I thought my skirt was pulled taut before, but now, it’s even more restricted, binding my legs in place. His hands brace on the mattress on either side of my hips, and even though I lean back slightly, he leans with me.
“I will retaliate,” he says, speaking just inches away from my face. “I do not shy away from using my magic. I do not feel remorse for revenge. I will do whatever I need to do, because no one is allowed to threaten my kingdom or try to hurt you.”
I swallow hard, and I shouldn’t be turned on right now. Not when we’re talking about something so serious, not when he’s telling me that he feels no guilt for spreading his rot at the cost of lives and land.
But I am.
There’s always this pulsing pull between us, one that reverberates through the air that only we can feel.