“You know what?” Audrey furrowed her red brows and stood straight. “Hell yeah. Itwasthe least he could do.”
“Now we’re talking.” I gave her finger guns with my words, as I walked backward down the hallway. “What time does Liam want to meet?”
“An hour.”
“I’ll be ready!” I closed myself in my bedroom, pulling my phone out of my pocket to read Drew’s text again. And again. And again. Goddamn, I was becoming completely smitten with this man. Finally, I took a moment to type a response because leaving him on read after that masterpiece of a text would be diabolical.
I shrugged out of my jacket, ripping off the t-shirt I threw on to have coffee with Audrey this morning, and jumped into my bed. I wore a thin-strap silky sleep shirt, fanned my hair out on my pillows, and lifted my phone up in the air.
The key was to leave out the bottom half of my body, which was donned in sweatpants with holes in the crotch. Instead, Icropped the photo so Drew could still get a peek at my exposed stomach and the way my breasts fell under the silk top.
I even bit my lip, like a cherry on top. Then I sent him the selfie, along with:
Me: Next time, leave your self-control at my door.
Chapter 14
After emptying my breakfast into the grass, I rolled over and tried to catch my breath.
“I’m so sorry.” Audrey had been holding my hair out of my face, rubbing my back as I vomited seconds after touching ground again. “I didn’t realize Liam lyskifting us would make you this sick.”
Liam chuckled off to the side.
My eyes were closed, I was flat on my back, but I still managed to lift a hand to flip him off again. I just knew deep in my bones that the asshole took off without proper warning on purpose. One moment, we were standing in our little condo, letting Liam grasp each of our hands. The next, the world spun, and I was thrown on the grass in Hyvenmere.
“Give me a minute,” I breathed. Audrey pressed my water bottle to my lips, so I took a few sips and wiped the back of my sweaty forehead with my hand. I recovered relatively quickly, which was a relief. I’d be completely useless to Audrey and Liam, and our sneaky plan, if I were queasy and dizzy.
“Feeling better?” Audrey asked. I opened my eyes and glanced up at the sky. The air tasted different here. Fuller. Fresher.
Each lungful helped bring me back to earth. When I sat up, we were on a hill that gave us a clearer view of the distant Fjellenheim Mountains.
“That’s where we’re going.” Audrey stood tall and stared at the landscape. “We’re standing in Lyndoruun, the sirens’ territory. Your grant has already alerted Queen Ada that you’re in Hyvenmere, though. If you get nervous or feel like someone is trying to take you, take comfort in that.”
I rested my hands on my hips. “Are we teleporting to the orgy?”
Liam shook his head, ignoring my bait by calling these things the wrong names. “If danger arises and I need to lyskift out, I want my energy to do so. So, to get to Lydhavn, we’re going to take the train. It’ll be about an hour’s travel. If we don’t need to lyskift back, we can take the train back too, and you won’t vomit all over us.”
I grinned and said, “I love the train.” Liam’s lips twitched, but he held his smile in until he saw Audrey stand beside us, ready to depart.
“Me, too.” Audrey grinned, but it felt forced. She was nervous, which made me feel anxious as well. We were walking into a court with a suspiciously dangerous king and a murderous prince. A murderous prince who could read minds. Who could reveal our plan. We chatted a lot in our apartment about the importance of not dwelling on the plan. Of changing our train of thought if Drustan was around. I then went out of my way to pull Audrey aside and let her know she can’t get angry when Liam starts flirting it up with Drustan’s cousin.
Audrey assured me she could keep her cool, and I believed her. Her crushes usually didn’t affect her moods that dramatically. Audrey had never been a territorial person. While we rode the train, I did my best to come up with routes my trainof thought could take me instead, in case Drustan was there and wanted to pry.
All I kept thinking about, though, was our moment in the drapes, and as the soft melody danced throughout the air now that I was in Hyvenmere again, getting more distinct the longer the train ride lasted, I wondered if perhaps I was too confident in my ability to handle being in his presence again.
I kept my growing concerns to myself. Once we had finalized the plan one last time before stepping off the train at Lydhavn, it was basically showtime.
However, there was something about the land of Lyndoruun that just…calmed me.
It wasn’t the kind of calm that I experienced sitting on a beach or inhaling the salty sea air like in Vanhirra. No, the tropical beach scene in the nereid territory made me relax in a way like I was rushed for time. Like I needed to force myself to lie back on the beach because the moment was fleeting.
The calm I felt in the city of Lydhavn was deep in my bones. Perhaps that’s the reaction I’d always have while being surrounded by the largest pine trees I’d ever seen, while breathing in the trees’ scent mixed with the mountain air. It wasn’t nearly as dry as the mountain air would be in California, but…crisper.
Perhaps the large lake just behind the city, separating Lydhavn from the base of the Fjellenheim Mountains, added enough humidity to the air.
The siren capital was magical, but in a reverent way. As soon as we stepped off the train into the main part of the city, which wasn’t nearly as busy as Sammara, siren soldiers in theiridentifiable leather grey uniforms calmly approached us at the stone platform.
“What brings you to Lydhavn?” the younger-looking soldier asked. He was wearing his siren mask, but from the way his eyes crinkled, he was smiling at us.
