The tension in me relaxes in his strong arms. The heat of Roman’s body feels so good. The safety he presses around me, that feels incredible. He’s strong like Zilo but he’s soft too.Aggressive but comforting. It’s like he knows what it’s like to need someone’s touch just to feel whole.
And with time, my eyes do close as I settle against him.
My thoughts wander as my consciousness slips away.
And I dream of magic, old magic of centuries past. Ancient fae magic, nature magic, dragon magic, all of it. I feel it. The power of it so intense, it’s like waves of pleasure.
Familiar pleasure.
With that thought, for some asinine reason, I dream of Roman and Avian as well.
And even…
Zilo.
NINETEEN
THE QUEEN’S GUARD
The following morning,Creatchin is her normal—as close to normal as a hell-fae-Night-Witch-queen-of-hell will ever be—self.
“Zilo, are you enjoying the new flame feast swords I had made for our guards? I saw them practicing in the arena today,” she says, her hand swooped rather intimately in the crook of Zilo’s bulging arm as a small group of us walk the flower garden she had reestablished.
Daisies and pretty carnations bloom with ashen petals that glimmer in the sunlight, like fresh dew forever lines the little blossoms. How does she do that? How does she make everything around her look so perfect when I can feel that it’s not?
Something is off with her. Not that I can trust Ravar, but I believed his warning. That’s what happens when someone dies: you instinctively have to know the final words they utter are spoken with importance.
First and final words, those are the ones that count in life...
“Zilo, stop! You’re making an old woman blush.” She almost smiles but as for blushing... no. I don’t think she knows how to show real reactions. A blush would never get past her carefully plotted emotions.
For some reason, it makes me stomp behind them a little harder. I glare at her shining black hair with a bit more force. And I have to watch them so much more closely to really understand what she’s getting at.
Because let’s face it, Zilo wouldn’t know how to make a woman blush if he gave them an allergic reaction. Why is she smiling at him like he’s charming?
He isn’t charming!
Infuriating, maybe. Obtuse, definitely. Handsome . . .
That isn’t the point.
The point is?—
“You like him,” a voice whispers at my side.
I peer up at the slender woman who now walks in pace with my own ungraceful stomping. She, of course, does it in a swaying fluid motion of gliding steps. Her black glittering gown hugs her lean frame, and the shining hair that cascades down her back blends right in with the threads of her clothes as the curling locks brush along her waist.
“You’re her daughter. Seelvie’s granddaughter,” I whisper right back like an accusation.
“You didn’t answer me.” She doesn’t look my way, but she is right.
And I won’t.
“You didn’t answer me either.” I arch a brow at her, and the small group of us turns a corner to head back to the east wing entrance. And once we go in, that will be the end of happy chatter. “Are you... are you dragon born?”
Ravar would have mentioned an heir. This girl looks like a replica of her mother, though, so it’s really hard to tell if there are any slight features of Ravar hidden in her angular face.
The Dragon King Roman mentioned … he has to be her father.
