Chapter Eleven
I didn't see the Dragon King for four days. When I was in the garden, I often glanced up at his terrace, but he was never there. And despite the support I was getting from the human staff, I had taken to eating dinner in my guest room. I didn't want to have to race down to the dining hall to make sure I had a table to sit at only to sit at it alone. And I thought maybe King Shaleros would appreciate my absence. Maybe it would bring him to me, force him to seek me out.
Nope.
After day four, I focused on my work. I'd always been good at focusing on plants when my life was disappointing me. Plants never failed me. There was something so satisfying in watching them grow under my care. Of course, I wasn't to that point yet. I was still cleaning the mess. But that alone was helping the plants that belonged there, those that had been choked out by others, to come back to life. They were feeling the sun for the first time in—
“Over a century,” I whispered as I stroked the delicate leaves of a rare irinae flower.
It was in a raised bed that had been covered in kudzu, and there had been no trace of it when I had first begun my work.Its bed had been clear for only four days, and it had already sent pale green shoots through the soil. I had hoped it would be equally easy to encourage the Dragon King to bloom.
“But it's not.” I looked up again. The terrace was empty. “Oh, well. At least I'm making a difference here.”
I stood up and looked across the garden. Halfway done with the larger invasive plants. At that rate, I should be finished with the clean-up in a little over a week. Not too bad for the size of the garden. Had to be at least sixty by sixty feet. A perfect square.
I looked over my shoulder at the day's haul. Every day, I would pile up the hacked-up pieces of plants, and every evening, someone would come to haul it all away. Oh, and that lotion he'd given me to protect my skin? It may not have been magical, but it certainly worked as if it were. No more heading for the shade or pulling on my tunic when my skin started to sting.
“Now for you,” I said to a tree.
Yeah, a tree. It was a shame to hack down a tree, but this one was common, and it had over a hundred years to grow. The roots of a tree go down as far as its branches go up, and judging by the display above me, it was going to take me the rest of the day, the next day, and maybe the day after that to get this fucker cut down and dug up enough for me to work around it. I couldn't leave a stump, not there. That meant a lot of digging. But first, I had to chop down the tree.
With the garden in the state it was in, I wasn't worried about where the tree fell. So I just started hacking at the base of the trunk with an ax. When I got a nice chunk out, I went to theopposite side and did it again. A good kick and the tree fell with a thunderous crash.
Luckily, this was a slender variety of birch, and I was able to make quick work of it once it was down. I piled the wood on the colonnade and fetched the shovel. The tool was part of an array of gardening items I had requested. I'd brought my specialty tools with me, but I wasn't about to lug around shovels and axes.
Pulling my gloves on, I went to the stump. I had already cleared the surrounding area which, thanks to the tree, hadn't grown much. But I would have rather dug up blackberry bushes than unearth a fucking tree. Even a small tree.
“All right then. Time to earn that gold,” I muttered and stepped on the edge of the shovel, sending it into the earth.
I was still at it the next afternoon. Yes, the next day. By then, I was out of my happy place with plants. But I finally dug out enough of the roots that I was able to wrap the trunk in rope and try to pull it free. I was hoping I could wrap the other end of the rope around a marble column and use the leverage to yank the fucker out of the ground.
“Come on!” I shoved a foot against the column and pulled again. “Motherfucker!”
Suddenly, the tension eased, and the trunk came free of the earth in an eruption of soil and debris. I fell backward with the release and slammed into something behind me. Something solid.
With an “Oof!” I caught myself, hands shooting back to grab whatever I had hit. Then I realized that it was someone'sthighs. And my back was pressed against a chest. I looked up and over my shoulder.
The Dragon King stared down at me. He had the end of the rope in his hand. “You looked as if you could use some help.”
“Holy fuck!” I shoved off him, spun, and bowed. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I would have been at that all day.”
“You're welcome.” His stare went out to the garden. “Are there others?”
“Others?”
“Other trees you need to uproot?”
“Uh.” I looked at the garden. “Yeah. A couple of them.”
King Shaleros nodded as he undid his sash.
I froze, my stare on his hands.
The sash he used as a belt was tossed away, then those elegant hands bunched in his tunic and lifted. Very rapidly, a chest of sublime beauty was revealed to me. Muscles that looked as if an artist had cut them from stone. And polished them. Lovingly. A bellybutton that dipped in. A pair of luscious pink nipples that stood out starkly against his fair skin.
My mouth watered. I started to sway forward.
“Sebastian?”
