“Come.” He put a hand on her lower back. “Let’s get out of here for a while. Zior will find us when he’s done.”
But Leya’s terror worried him. He drew her close and dematerialized them, reforming at his abode in the sprawling woodlands. The faint sound of rustling water cast further tranquility over everything, and he hoped it would ease Leya as it did him.
His stone cabin at the foothills had been built into the Angempion Mountains, but the front extended outward into the trees, with nonreflective, gray-tinted glass that helped blend it into the surroundings. He used this place often in his long life.
He scanned the cabin. The wards held, and he didn’t sense any intrusion.
With his mind, he unlocked the door and ushered Leya inside. The slightly cooler air welcomed them.
Leya stopped, eyeing the darkened interior warily.
“It’s safe,” he said from behind her.
“I know, but this place feels…really quiet.” She cast him a puzzled look over her shoulder, her amber-flecked brown eyes rimmed red from her tears, the sight constricting his chest.
Leaving her to inspect the place, he crossed the open-plan abode to the cooling unit at the back, near the cooker in the small kitchen. As he got a bottle of juice from the cooling unit, he watched her walk around the living room, running her fingers over the backrest of the brown leather couch, then stopping at the glass wall separating the inside from the outside.
“Are we going to stay here?” she asked.
“For a short while. Or longer, if you want. Why?”
She turned, her worried gaze searching his. “Won’t it be dangerous with none of your enforcers around? Maybe you should call them?”
“I don’t need my enforcers, Leya. I can handle any danger. No one comes here anyway. Most don’t like the silence.” He shut the cooler door, set the bottle on the counter, and removed a glass from one pale wooden cupboard. “Besides, why would anyone imagine the jovial prince, who prefers life’s pleasurable pursuits, would ever rough it out in a place like this?”
Her brow furrowed at his sarcasm. “Why do you say that about yourself?”
He shook his head and unscrewed one of the bottles. “Ignore me.”
She continued watching him. Then, “He…the apparition had a jagged scar on the side of his face,” she whispered, “like a groove.” Aerén stilled as she lifted her hand and ran a finger from her temple to her chin. “It appeared raw, unhealed. It could’ve been an illusion to scare me further, because it shifted back to blemish-free.”
Aerén dropped the cap on the counter. “I don’t know anyone who fits the description. I mean, we heal fast, so, scarring never, or should I say, rarely, occurs.”
She blinked. “Of course not.”
Aerén smiled, grateful to see a glimpse of her fiery spirit. “Here.”
He poured some of the burgundy-gold fruity drink into the crystal and pushed it across the counter to her. “There are cookies somewhere.” He searched the cupboards. “Lykon better not have finished the damn things—ah, here!” Container retrieved, he set it on the navy granite countertop and removed the lid. “Come, Leya. You don’t expect me to eat by myself, do you? I am hungry.”
“For sugary cookies?”
“Nothing beats them.” He winked, and a glimmer of a smile appeared on her face, chasing away her subdued expression. “As I said, I haven’t been here in a long while, so food is just snacks.”
Yet, in a matter of days, he’d ended up not only back in Cidéra but in Dregarus, too, the dominion of his nemesis.
He forgot all about Sebris as Leya ambled back to him. Her lingering smile and single dimple held him transfixed. Even with her wearing a creased gray tunic, she drew him like the sun.
In his long existence, he never expected to meet anyone who would flip his life over the way Leya had. But she was wary about getting too close to him, and with so many stumbling blocks between them, he couldn’t blame her.
“Here.” He pushed the tray of neatly stacked cookies, color-coded from lavender, brown, to black, toward her, trying to shut off all the emotions swamping him and squeezing his gut. “Eat something. It took a lot of work laying all this out for you.”
A faint smile tugged her luscious lips, ones he longed to taste again.
“Yes, I can see how this would exhaust you.”
He cocked a brow while his insides rioted. Aye, he far preferred her sharp tongue, even if it was aimed at him, over having her terrified and in tears. And perhaps, if he continued to put her at ease, she would elaborate about what had terrified her.
CHAPTER17
