Page 57

It was faint. He was not next to me, not near this corridor at all, but he had passed through it. I felt like a bloodhound, sniffing and snorting the scent of my quarry and yearning to chase it down. If I put one toe out of line, would the guards escorting the small group of us to the royal chambers fall upon me and drag me back? I hadn’t tested the edges of my enclosure yet. I could only hope as loudly as my mind would allow that I would run into him.

I did not have to hope for too long. There he was, as I turned the last corner before plunging into that dread hallway, at the junction, speaking to two other guards. They looked young, the tips of their ears covered in the plain plate mail of the guards but held no rank engraved into it like that of other guards and soldiers.

The moment I turned into the corridor and saw him, he looked up from his conversation, and his forest-green eyes met my gaze and held.

I wanted to run to him. I wanted to yell out and call him over to me. I wanted to do anything but silently stare at him as I walked slowly with the other humans at my side. Neither of us looked away, though, and my heart became a flight of parrots screaming at the sun and battering their menagerie cage with eager wings. My stomach tightened and shook with tension as I held my breath.

It wasn’t until I was a few steps away that he broke off from the others.

“I’ll escort them from here, Dark Skull.”

The thunder of his voice, deep and steady, rumbled through me and struck lightning across every nerve in my body. I had missed that soft bass more than I had realized. I felt like a drought-blighted plain begging for the clouds to rain upon me again.

The guard at my side nodded and peeled away to join the two new guards where The Raven had abandoned them. They fell into jovial conversation, and the humans didn’t seem to notice as I let my path veer slightly toward him. He said nothing, just let his black leather-glove-clad hand fall from the pommel of his sword and dangle between us, occasionally brushing mine as we walked in silence.

I stopped at that awful, grotesque carved door as the other humans went about their own chambers to attend, leaving The Raven and I alone save for the three guards thirty or forty feet away. The Raven positioned himself with his back to the door, and I facing it, but we stood in utter silence.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I whispered, hoping I didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt.

“I’m sorry for it, too.” I barely caught the twitch of his lips as he teased, “I, unfortunately, had to recover from a fist fight with a dread cat and then from a boar.”

I looked up, scanning his face for the scar that should have been there. I had slashed him deep and could see all the way down to his bone when he walked away. There was nothing there, though, nothing but soft skin, kissed by the loving daylight and a small trace of the ghost of freckles that had once graced his nose. “A boar?”

“Mmm. I promised a lady of the court I would take care of one bore, so I arranged a hunt. Unfortunately, an entirely different boar decided there were one too many wild pigs in his forest, and I owed a price for that atrocity.” He adjusted himself, and I noted he was favoring one leg slightly. “Took some time to heal from that. But I am here. As I said I would be.”

He had and had said he would be there when he could, and here he was.

The ancient woods of his eyes turned fully toward me and regarded me, taking me in with a quick sweep of his gaze. “You look well. I trust no wild pigs have rampaged through the palace while I was in the infirmary?”

I smirked at him, flattered he would even ask. The parrots in my chest gave way to a dance of butterflies fluttering through the hidden sky within me. “No, just dust mites, old food plates, and a jerk of a cat. I named him Goose, by the way.”

The Raven tore his gaze away from me down to the overly large black cat that was sitting at my ankle, cleaning his head with a paw. “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, Goose. I would ask a boon of you, let’s not have any repeats of that first night, if you don’t mind humoring me.”

“What happened that first night?” I asked, casting my gaze between the two.

Goose seemed unimpressed by the request and completely ignored it.

“For his honor, I will let Goose tell you when he is ready.”

“His honor? Or yours?”

“Mostly mine,” he admitted with a bashful grin. Reluctantly, he looked back at the door. “I can’t stay for long, Cricket. I was only here to walk the new recruits to where the royal wing was so that they would know the path should the alarms sound. I need to go now.”

We both looked over to where the new recruits were being regaled by something hilarious that the Fae known as Dark Skull had told them. They barely seemed to notice The Raven and me.

“Do you know how to get to the gardens, Cricket? From the warrens?” He pitched his voice low and soft, ensuring that only he and I could make out the words, as he fiddled with a string of brass beads hanging from his scabbard.

“Yes.”

“I have no right to ask this of you.” Though his voice was steady, even, unaffected by the emotion, his fingers were showing as they fidgeted with the string of beads I never got a good look at. He let whatever he was feeling swallow his words.

“Ask, Raven—before I say no, out of spite for making me stand in front of this stupid door.”

He snorted a laugh and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling for a few moments before leveling me with a gaze so intense I felt like I’d fall over. It spoke a thousand volumes of poetry, of sadness and longing, of regret and anxiety, of warring emotions clashing through the evergreen spires of his eyes. “Will you meet me in the garden tonight?”

“If you think I’m going to fuck you just because you let me stab you and didn’t murder me for it, you’ve got another thing coming,” I snapped.

He grinned, all sheepishness fading away as the wolf came out and curled a deadly taunt across his perfect lips. “It would only be fair to let me slide my blade into you the way you slid yours into me.”