What if they hated me? I was the reason that she was dead, after all. It was one thing to dismiss the ravings of a grief-stricken drunk, but another for me to say it myself. Her death was my fault.
Still mulling it over, I missed the shadow in the trees coming toward me until Alucius growled low. I jumped away with a small scream, my fists raised to defend myself, but it was just Lierick with Hayle’s raven, Quarry, on his shoulder.
“Sorry, sorry!” He raised his hands placatingly. “I was kind of under the impression you knew I was here. It’s not everyday I get summoned into the woods by a bird. I was a little worried he was luring me out here so his owner could murder me.” Hewas grinning, but as his eyes swept down my body, the smile fell from his face and his lips parted. “Wow,” he breathed, before clearing his throat. “You look beautiful, Avalon.”
Inordinately glad he couldn’t see my pink cheeks in the dark, I smiled. “Thanks. I couldn’t turn up to one of these fancy banquets in my ratty training clothes.”
He shrugged. “You’re beautiful in those too.” He stepped closer, lifting a hand toward my hair. I didn’t move away. I didn’t even breathe. “But your hair is too beautiful to keep it imprisoned like this.” He pulled out the pins, freeing my hair to fall down my back in a heavy wave. The tension in my scalp lifted, and I let out a little moan of relief. I’d had the beginnings of a headache, and the release was so satisfying.
Lierick was still close, and I realized he still had his fingers in my hair. “So soft and wild. Just like you.”
Looking up at his intense expression, I could hear my own pulse in my ears. “Are you calling me feral?” I gasped out, trying to give him an out. Or maybe to givemean out, even if my entire body was screaming to close the distance between us, to see if his lips were as soft as they looked.
“I’m calling you perfect, and way too tempting,” he whispered back. “I’d really like to kiss you right now.” He moved even closer, until I could feel the puff of his breath against my lips. Then he stopped.
My brain was screaming at me about Hayle and Vox, but Lierick was consuming me. All I could smell was his soft cologne; all I could feel was the heat of his body so close to mine, and the sounds of our heavy breaths drowned out the noise of the forest and the party yards away.
When I didn’t pull away, Lierick closed the distance until his lips brushed mine. He tasted of honey wine, his mouth soft and firm and commanding, all at the same time. He sipped at my lips softly, before the tip of his tongue teased them open. Buryinghis hands in my hair, he tilted my face up so that he could get deeper.
His touch felt like… home. It felt right in a way that I’d analyse later, when he wasn’t fucking me with his tongue.
A sharp sting to the side of my face had me pulling back. Quarry’s soft caw was like a cold shower, and I stepped away. I watched Quarry peck at Lierick, using his sharp beak on the soft cartilage of his ear. Was it just me, or did it seem slightly disapproving?
Fuck… what am I doing?
I looked down at Alucius, who rolled her eyes at me like a human teenager and not a giant, mean hound. “Sorry,” I whispered. I could suddenly hear the voices of my brothers as they got closer.
“Are you apologizing to the hound right now?” Lierick asked, his voice rough.
“Uh, yeah.” Embarrassment, guilt, desire, and worry all swirled together in my stomach until I felt like I was going to throw up those weird little canapés they’d served at the banquet. “She’s Hayle’s hound. She’s loyal to him.” More loyal than I was, apparently. Guilt gripped my heart again.
Huffing, Alucius licked my fingers, and I wished I could understand her the way that Hayle did.
My brothers crashed through the tree line, Bach a little more merry than usual, a huge grin across his face and lipstick on his collar. “Avie! This has been thebestparty. The Eighth Line really know how to have a good time.”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I pasted a smile on my face. “The Eighth Line, or maybe one Eighth Liner in particular? Perhaps Kyler Tarrin?”
Bach’s smile got even cheesier. “Both. I think I love her.”
Kian rolled his eyes. “You can’t love a person you’ve spent all of eight hours with, Bach. That’s not how it works.”
My eyes flicked to Lierick, and I forcefully put the way he made my heart pound from my mind. Staying quiet, I listened to my brothers bicker for a moment longer, before I reached out and gripped Bach’s arm. “I need to talk to you before everyone else gets here. It’s about our Line’s abilities.”
Shaking his head, Bach shrugged. “We don’t have any abilities. Not really. I did predict that Starlight would foal on the last day of last month, but it was hardly foresight,” he joked. He loved that horse.
Shaking my head, I grabbed his hand. “We do. We’ve just forgotten how to access it. Like, for instance…” I closed my eyes and worked on the techniques that Lierick had taught me—pushing the power in my veins to the barren spot in my chest where my magic resided, then redirecting it outwards until I could see what was about to happen. Opening my eyes, I pointed to the left. “In a moment, a fox is going to come running across the clearing.”
As if I’d summoned it, a fox came running, nothing more than an orange flash as it raced across the back lawn of the manor house.
“It’s running from a lion, who’ll appear in five, four, three, two…”
The Baron of the Third Line’s lion companion broke through the treeline, looking huge and terrifying. My heart thumped in my chest, and the urge to run away rode me hard.
I turned back to Kian. “We are so much more powerful than you can ever know. Let me show you tomorrow.”
Kian’s wide eyes ran over my face, seemingly searching for deceit, which hurt a little. Now I was glad that I hadn’t told him about my ability to reset time. It was too soon. He looked between Bach and I, his face grim, before nodding. “Tomorrow, then.”
Sucking in a relieved breath, I straightened as Hayle appeared with his father, an amicable look on his face until his gaze landed on Lierick.Eesh.Quarry had definitely told on me, like I was a wayward fledgling. As if he could feel my accusing glare, the raven took to the air.
