Their eyes locked, the staring contest lasting a beat too long. They didn’t look much different in age, Lyrik being maybe a few years older. But there was definitely a difference in height, my friend’s forehead barely reaching the stranger’s collarbone.
After more unnerving seconds than I’d like to count, the squatter broke the trance. Sauntering backward, he flipped the dagger like a baton, his attitude shifting from thuggish to nonchalant. “He’s all yours.”
I wasn’t so sure. Nicu stayed put, fixating on the stranger who ignored him as if nothing just happened. While slapping his weapon into a baldric across his chest, the man regarded us with a sidelong glance. “Misunderstanding, then. No hard feelings.”
Aire moved to tackle the man but stalled when Nicu covertly shook his head. We might have been involved, but this standoff circulated around him, and our friend wanted to fight his own battles.
To compensate, Aire vented through his nostrils and glowered at the stranger. “You will keep your hands and weapons to yourself. Do so, and I won’t make a cadaver out of you.”
“Such manners,” the man drawled. “Isn’t often I have Royal guests. I’m guessing a search party will eventually come here looking for your runaway songbird. Otherwise, I’d entertain you for longer. Stay but don’t get comfortable.”
“No one is coming here,” the knight said. “Not yet.”
“What do we call you?” I asked.
The stranger pulled his scarf down, exposing a stubbled jaw and roguish lips. “Name’s Lyrik.”
“Not ‘Asshole’?”
He tossed me a shit-eating grin. “How about you?”
I glanced toward Aire and Nicu, silently conferring with them. One of us had already been revealed. Not ideal during a mission to spy on members of a traitorous army.
On the flip side, too many falsehoods could get dicey unless an expert like me knew how to keep a dozen stories straight. Even then, it wasn’t worth the extra risk.
Lyrik had said something about people coming to him rather than the other way around. Apart from that, he didn’t strike me as the type who got out much. This misanthrope kept to himself, lived in an enclave cloistered from the masses, and hardly acted like a gossip who spent his free time gettingshitfaced at the local tavern. In short, this paranoid bloke didn’t want his whereabouts known any more than we wanted ours publicized, which provided a solid opportunity to make a deal.
Trained in military tactics, Aire fathomed as much. Tit for tat, this explained why he bartered Nicu’s identity for Lyrik’s cooperation. Exposing the Crown’s pride and joy made us vulnerable, which would get this cagey man to trust us. Moreover, Aire must have gotten a sign about Lyrik, something elemental that convinced him to go on the record.
As son of the two shrewdest power players on the continent, Nicu’s introspective frown conveyed the same perceptive instincts. And since this wasn’t only my decision, I waited until they nodded.
Then I pivoted my gaze to our host. “I’m Aspen, that’s Aire, and he’s Nicu.”
While Lyrik panned his attention over each of us, I took a closer look. Sooty brown irises. Defined jaw. Sinful mouth. Just-fucked hair. Basically everyone’s type if they had eyes.
While Aire possessed a gruff beauty that stole a person’s breath, this tousled specimen radiated the kind of dirty-talking, bad-boy energy most Autumn virgins would steer clear from. Unless those thrill seekers wanted their hearts broken on purpose. Lyrik was the opposite of a well-mannered chap, the sort of filthy secret good for a fling, but not the upstanding noble anyone brought home to meet the parents.
Intrigued by what he saw, Lyrik cast a baiting glance at Nicu. “Think you can keep up with me?”
Affronted, Nicu slit his eyes. “Think you’re hard to follow?”
A divot burrowed into the rogue’s cheek. Coming to a decision, he kicked his head toward the treehouse enclave. “Lemme show you around.”
24
Aspen
Minutes later, we crossed a bridge arching over a stream. Because one of the planks needed reinforcement, it bowed higher than the rest. Twisting, Aire extended his hand, offering to help me step over the riser. Coming from him, the gentlemanly motion felt sexier than from the average male, the gesture stirring in my navel like honey, as if I were some chaste maiden from a storybook.
As I took his hand, fireflies danced across my knuckles. Aire’s eyelids fell heavy, his digits curling over my own as he guided me forward.
I shouldn’t have been caught off guard by these courtly habits. Yet after feeling that same hand lodged deep inside my cunt, the wet groove rippling around his fingers while I climaxed, every attentive courtesy seemed more intimate.
After we traversed the bridge, Aire delayed releasing me until we reached a staircase coiling around the spine of an oak. The farther we climbed, the more I noticed. Frameworks. Scrollwork. Joinery. Every fastening had been shaped from lumber, each one exposed like ornamentation. The builders of this enclave had been proud of their craft.
The steps leveled out to a deck. As we passed a tool shed, instruments peeked through a gaping shutter. Rakes. Brooms. Clippers. Despite a few ramshackle areas, this stranger had done a decent job keeping up the place.
“The cabins up ahead should be fine for you,” Lyrik called over his shoulder. “This way.”
