CHAPTER TWENTY
“So, is this where you bring all the girls?” Xenia asked, following Cael up a wooden ladder into the cramped stable loft. She flopped down onto a spiky bale, her head nearly touching the slanted ceiling.
“And boys.” Cael winked, dropping into a cross-legged position in front of her.
And though the words were playful, Xenia could tell by his drooping wing and caved shoulders that his heart wasn’t in them. He looked exhausted.
They’d agreed to meet here tonight to check in, and though Xenia hadplentyof news to share, she questioned whether she should burden him with any of it.
Straws poked through her skirt, biting into the bare skin above her stockings, and the loft had a cozy, nostalgic smell. One she remembered well from her parents’ farm in Primarvia: apples, hay, leather, and the sweet underlying scent of manure.
She imagined what it might be like had Cael lured her here for a different, more intimate purpose. How he might lay her down on the dusty boards. How strands of hay might catch in her curls. How he might slowly lift her skirt and trail his fingers up her?—
“For the love of Anaemos, Blondie,” Cael said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You do realize I can scent every dirty thought running through your head, right?”
Xenia shrugged. “You never should’ve told me what you used to do up here.”
Cael propped his elbows on his knees and placed his chin atop his folded hands. “How was your day? Where has Mistress Ostere assigned you?”
Xenia told him about her housekeeping duties, about how she’d spent the morning cleaning his father’s office. She pulled the tiny grain from her pocket and handed it to him. “I found this in his desk.”
Cael twisted the device in his fingers, holding it close to his face.
“What do you think that orange glow is?” Xenia asked.
“No idea,” Cael muttered. “Did you find any documentation with it?”
“Yes,” Xenia said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “It was right beneath the box. And there was a sign on the drawer that said ‘inside is the manual that explains how to deactivate my sinister tracking devices’.”
Cael laughed, crinkling his eyes in a way that made him look a bit less tired. And had Xenia’s heart soaring. Shelovedmaking him laugh. Could spend the rest of her life doing it.
“Stupid question. Been a long day.” He expelled a weary sigh, and she couldn’t help yawning in response.
“Djoo get my note?” she asked.
“I don’t have to give up on my hopes and dreams,” Cael said with a smirk. “As affirmations go, that one was a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
“Did you say it?”
He tossed a wayward curl off his forehead and looked up at her through thick, brown lashes. “Yes, ma’am.”
Curse Amatu, he was so fucking handsome she almost forgot what they were talking about.
“How many times?” she asked.
“Five. More than the recommended dosage in your very thorough directions.”
“Overachiever. How wasyourday? Did you find anything useful about the device?”
He blew out a long breath and dipped his head into his hands, scrubbing at his face. “I didn’t have any fuckingtime. Father’s got me running all over creation for these High-Gods-damned prospecting meetings. Waste of energy. No one’s serious about buying anything. But he refuses to ignore them.” Cael leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling, and his Adam’s apple bulged. She wanted to sink her teeth into it. “I spent the half hour before I came up here listening to him shout about how incompetent I am that I can’t find him any legitimate business.” His eyes glazed over. “It was fun.”
“You don’t have to live under his thumb, Cael,” Xenia whispered. She didn’t understand why he assumed he had no other choices. He was a full-grown male, for fuck’s sake.
Fear shivered Cael’s wing. “You have no idea what he’s like.Noidea. Once Arran Zephyrus has mapped out your life, you thank him and you live it. Or suffer the consequences.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Sometimes I think he’d prefer I were dead than living outside his influence.”
“Why’d he let you go to the colonies?” Xenia asked, picking straws from the bale.
Below, tails swished and horses nickered in the ensuing silence.
