I teased my fingertips across her hips and to her back, pressing her against me, enfolding her in my embrace. “We need to return to the castle, but we’ll train again soon.” A snap of my fingers and she wore a dress in deep green. Her hair was swept up in a simple arrangement, and I’d used the combs I gave her before the Claiming to hold most of it in place, leaving only a few tendrils to brush against her shoulders.
Her eyebrows lifted as she took in her appearance. “When did you become a lady’s maid?”
“When I entered your life.”
“Stomped into it with a snarl ripping up your throat, you mean,” she said with a purse of her lips.
“You adore my snarls. They turn you on.”
Color rose into her face. “There’s no denying it.”
Heat flashed through me, and like always, I wished we had more time before all of this fell apart.
“Why does Brenna need me or anyone else to be her lady-in-waiting if she could snap her finger and someone could magically dress her and arrange her hair as easily as you do for me?”
“I do it because I love you.”
“Ah.” She sighed. “Even though I haven’t met her yet, I feel bad for her. I hope she doesn’t lovehim.”
“I told you he could be charming.”
“Something I’ve yet to see. I find him gruesome.”
“You see who he truly is. I doubt she does.”
“She will. It’s inevitable.” I sucked in a breath and released it, gliding my fingertip along her jawline, something I could never resist doing. I wanted to wrap myself around her and never let go. Touch her every single second of the day and night. “Are you ready?”
She stared at my right wrist. “What’s . . .?” Her hand snapped out, grabbing mine, reminding me of how far this woman had come with her training. Movement like this had become natural. “Huh.”
“What?” I delicately removed my hand from her grip and reinforced my magic, though I dropped the threads surrounding us.
Drask soared over and landed on her shoulder, a welcomedistraction. He’d come with us, though he’d roosted on a branch inside the woods while we trained. Only now could he see and hear us, but she’d told him to wait when we arrived.
“I thought I saw something on your wrist. A pretty pattern.” Tempest’s face smoothed and she stroked Drask’s spine, straightening his feathers. “It must’ve been the way the light hit it or shadows from the woods.”
“Must’ve been.”
Holding her tight, I flitted us to the hallway outside Brenna’s rooms.
15
TEMPEST
“Will Drask be allowed inside her suite?” I stared toward the door I’d soon enter, one flanked by two guards. A beast writhed in the tall wooden panel between them, another creature trapped by a malicious fae lord. I’d talked about it with Vexxion, sharing what Will said, and he told me Ivenrail started pinning them in various surfaces after he annexed Weldsbane Court.
I felt as trapped as the beasts, held in place until I could bring this plan to fruition.
She won’t notice or care,Vexxion said in my mind.Take Drask with you.
You want him to spy for you.
I need to check in with you every now and then to make sure you remain safe,he bit out, reminding me of how he’d behaved when we first met. Back then, I found this irritating. Now, as he’d so recently stated, it turned me on. Evennow, I could picture myself climbing all over him, smoothing out his sharp edges with my mouth.
What could happen to me while I’m fluttering among Brenna’s ladies?That was how I pictured them, like butterflies drifting through perfumed air, landing on flowers.
“In this place? Anything,” he snarled.
The guards gulped at the king’s controller and shot their gazes to the floor.
