In all my life, I’d never indulged in such feast. Roasted pheasant, roots, sliced sugared pomes. Wine and ale, cakes and buttered pies.
Daj took no pause in indulging. Truth be told, my full-blooded Timoran raider of a father fell into the Night Folk court with ease and laughter. Already, he’d complimented the meal no less than five times and had one or two courtier at the table laughing.
It was almost as though none of us were so different.
As Arvad promised when we left the cave, the fae did not mistreat those of us who were wholly mortal.
Lined at the table were Ettan folk with mortal ears and no magic. They dressed finely, laughed with their Night Folk friends and families. Dagar Atra and his wife, Sasha, haggled with a busy fae boy they told me was named Krisjan.
Dagar and Kjell, as I understood it, were the two friends Arvad trusted most.
On my other side, Kjell sat, stiff and uneasy. Sasha had whispered—as though we’d been boon companions for turns—the woman seated on the man’s other side was named Agnes.
Kjell favored her, but could barely speak when she was near.
I snickered behind my hand, realizing fae men were hardly different than the wavering Timoran men when finding a woman to court. Even if it was second or third consort or wife, men seemed uneasy with their words.
Across the table, the burn of eyes pulled my gaze. Arvad held a silver chalice in his hand, swirling his ale. Those dark eyes burned liked hot onyx. For the feast, the prince donned a dark circlet shaped like briars and the silver satin blossoms I’d seen growing wildly across the kingdom. His tunic was black and stitched in silver.
No mistake, Arvad Ferus looked the part of prince.
He was captivating, and had stolen my every thought the whole of the night.
The prince didn’t blink. Not when he took a slow drink, not when his tongue swiped over his lips.
Heat scorched through my veins and pooled low in my belly. By the gods, if the man swiped his tongue out one more time, the pressure building between my thighs might burst.
What the hells was wrong with me?
Metal clinked over glass. From the head of the table Queen Kelda rose. Her gown seemed made of petals—gold and silver—and her crown glittered in gemstones atop her head. “We welcome our friends, our folk, and new allies to our table.”
The queen grinned softly in my direction.
“To House Krigare of Timoran, we of House Ferus of Etta open our doors always. Our table is yours to dine and laugh. Our beds to rest when you are weary. To Lilianna Krigare, you have proven yourself a true friend of Etta for what you did to aid our prince. To aid my son.”
A ripple of applause rolled down the table.
My face heated, but I had the decency to hold the queen’s gaze. My father beamed at me with a touch of pride before he took another gulp of the Night Folk wine.
Next to the queen, her consort, the prince’s father rose. He seemed exhausted, almost feeble. But Hakon of House Ferus had a voice that boomed across the hall. He called for lifelong alliances with the folk and descendants of House Krigare.
He spoke about sagas that would name future littles as Timoran family to the Ettan royals.
I didn’t understand it, but during his speech my gaze drifted to the prince.
Arvad hadn’t looked away. Not for a single moment.
* * *
“Will you join me outside, Huntress?”
I startled and nearly collided with the prince’s chest. “Gods. You’re like a damn wraith.”
Arvad laughed, the sound a sort of song to my heart. “Apologies. Your father is well occupied in a tense game with Dagar and Kjell, even my daj has played a few rounds.”
I followed his gaze to the place where my father pounded a fist on the thick wooden table when Kjell barked a laugh and took some of his rune chips. The royal consort smiled and laughed, offering assurances my father would have time enough to win them back.
There was a beautiful sense of belonging here.
A sense of home. Only a home I’d forgotten, but had found at last.
“So?” Arvad opened an arm toward the balcony. “Join me?”
I took the prince’s hand. A shiver danced down my spine at his touch, but his smile was easy, light. So unlike those frigid moments when we first met.
Arvad led me to a private balcony. Flames trapped in dainty iron cages cast golden shadows across the stones.
“I wondered if you could use some quiet.” He closed the double doors at our backs, shutting off the boisterous sounds of the hall.
“Am I so obvious? I didn’t know anyone would notice.”
“I did.” His voice was a deep rasp. Arvad blinked and cleared his throat. “Night Folk and Ettan revels can get rambunctious, even for our own folk.”
When the prince when to the balcony and looked out on the gardens below, I followed. A gasp slipped over my lips. Speckles of gilded light flickered between the dark branches of trees and hedges.
“Is that fury?”
“No.” Arvad’s white smile flashed in the moonlight. “Fury is not always seen. Those are fire wings. Little insects that glow.”
My lips parted with a frenzied fascination. “They have fire in them?”
“I don’t know what makes them glow. They’re mesmerizing, aren’t they?”
“Like little stars.” My gaze lifted to the distant lands. Knolls, darkened by the night, rose against the horizon. The full moon burned its cold glow over winding lakes and rivers. “It’s . . . so beautiful.”
“The most beautiful.”
When I looked at the prince, he wasn’t looking to the land. His gaze was on me again.
I smiled and glanced down to my fingers, fiddling with a silver ring my mother had left for me before she died. “So, you call the castle, Ravenspire. Any reason?”
Arvad shrugged. “Ravens are a symbol across the kingdoms, I suppose. It’s just always been the name. I spend most of my time there.” He stepped behind me, just enough to lift my arm and point toward the distant winding lakes in valley’s below the castle knoll. “We call them the ribbon lakes. Dagar, Kjell, and I would spend endless day there, thinking we were grand warriors.”
“Oh? And Who were you fighting?”
“Jotunns, thieves, overgrown trollfolk, and Timor . . .” Arvad’s words cut off.
“Timorans?” I let out a soft scoff. “It’s all right, Prince. I always thought my aim needed to be sure to fight the fae. This is lovely. I’ve always wanted to see Etta, to truly keep an image of it in my head. But one night will not change centuries of rivalry. Mortal folk like us, we survive. We’re proud, but our lives are nothing. Not compared to yours. I will be old and withered and you will still be young and spry. In the grand scheme of it all, what will this one night do?”
Arvad’s jaw pulsed.
For a moment I thought he might be angry, might lash out for my rambling words.
Never did I anticipate the prince would press my back to the wall, his body aligned against mine. All the hard, carved muscle of his body heated the angles of mine.
My eyes went wide.
Arvad studied my features for a breath, another, until slowly his warm palm cupped the side of my face. “One night changed it all for me, Huntress. Do you . . . do you believe in the Norns, Lilianna?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Arvad’s thumb tugged on my bottom lip. “Do you think it’s possible our paths were meant to cross?”
“For . . . for what reason?” Gods, I could not slow my heart. Arvad added to the beautiful disquiet when his nose brushed over my brow, his dark lashes fluttering.
“I don’t know the reason, but . . . I do know one night has power. That night I met you, it consumes me.”
“No. You can’t mean that, I am not a noblewoman, I’m no one—”
“You are someone to me.” Both of his hands clasped my face, forcing my gaze to his. Arvad’s voice softened. “I do not want this to merely be one night, Huntress. I want it to be one night of many.”
This couldn’t be real. A prince, a fae prince, confessing I’d burned to the marrow of his bones the same as he’d done to me.
“You don’t really know me, Prince.”
“True,” he admitted. “But I still want more of you. Even with so little time, I can’t explain it, but I have thought of you every damn waking moment. Hells, I bleeding dream of you. In truth, I didn’t intend to confess, but . . . I need you to know, you are a beautiful haunt I never wish to escape.”
My chin trembled when his thumbs brushed over my cheeks. “This is madness, Arvad.”
He grinned, a little wickedly. “Then it will be quiet the adventure.”
The prince kissed me. More than a kiss, it was a melding of hearts. His body covered mine against the wall, his palms tilting my face to the angle he desired. Arvad’s warm tongue slid across my lips until I parted them.
He groaned into my mouth, tasting me, holding me nearer.
By the hells, he was like the warmth before a storm blew in—clean, fresh, and dangerous. My fingers clung to his shoulders. He towered over me, but I arched my neck to the point of an ache to claim his mouth as much as he claimed mine.
I tugged on the ends of his hair, reveling in the soft hiss he let out before he tugged the hem of my skirt up enough he could hook his hand under my thigh. Arvad guided my leg around his waist and pressed his hardness against my center.
I moaned and whimpered, rocking slowly against his hips.
“Gods,” he murmured against my lips. “Keep doing that, Huntress, and I’ll embarrass myself soon enough.”
I grinned and tugged his mouth harder against my own. Arvad kissed me. He was not my first kiss, but he was one I would never forget. As though a side of my soul stepped from shadows and started living for the first time.
His touch was maddening, his taste a craving.
I did not know what any of it meant, but I knew for certain—Arvad Ferus would be my undoing if I could not have more of him.
* * *
Little Huntress,
I find a strange fascination with a certain place on my balcony. I wonder why?
I miss you. Have I told you? If it has been less than three times, it is not enough.
Your concern about my parents’ health is appreciated. Maj says to inform you she has been given an ailment from the healers—old age.
Tell your ice prince to stop with his endless training. It takes away your time to send me letters. I am a prince, too, and can be rather petulant. Shall I speak to him? Perhaps tangle him up in vines? I’ve never shown you how connected my fury is to the earth, and I think it would be a grand way to prove how magnificent I am for a fae.
I miss you.
Gods, I lost the purpose of this letter. I already spoke with your father, but wanted to surprise you. I will be in Timoran on the full moon. Seems only fair I visit you this moon.
I yearn to have you in my arm, Lilianna.
Stop. I know what you want to say and I don’t bleeding care if it doesn’t make sense to feel such a thing after so short a time. Accept it and let me taste that beautiful mouth when I see you.
Yours,
A
I snapped up in my bed, the missive falling from my hands onto the floorboards. A white, brilliant full moon hung in the sky.
All day I’d trained with the royal hunters at the palace. Sweat still coated my hair. All I’d managed to do was wash my face, underarms, and slip into a clean tunic before falling into bed.
“Damn the gods!” I kicked off the furs on my bed and hurried to my small wardrobe, searching for a clean dress, or at least trousers.
Now Daj’s urging to perhaps clean beneath my fingernails made a bit of sense. The damn prince was coming. Here. To me.
Nearly a month had passed since I returned from Etta. I was no longer the same Lilianna Krigare. My body came to the cold of Timoran, but my heart was in the lakes and blossoms and magic of Etta.
Arvad asked me to remain—after one night, he asked me to stay. The prince understood, of course, that I had my father here. I had a life I needed to put in order.
My teeth dug into my bottom lip when the smile split as I yanked a simple blue dress from the wardrobe.
I might’ve returned home, but I had no intention to stay forever.
Arvad’s first missive arrived two days after we left his palace. We’d written nearly every day since. I imagined his voice close to my ear when I read his words—usually with underlying promises of his hands and mouth doing unseemly things.
How was it possible to be so captivated by another when there were so many mountains between us?
With each sunrise, the struggles that might try to keep us apart worried me less and less. As though I simply didn’t care how, only that I would be with the Night Folk prince again.
As if he could sense my disquiet, shouts outside the longhouse were followed by laughter and hands clapping backs.
I let out a shriek of unease and finished lacing my bodice with shaky fingers. I hurried to the cracked mirror, desperate to smooth my wild hair, and pinch a bit of color into my cheeks. With a heavy sigh, I gave up and raced toward the entry of the longhouse.
My father walked forward, a satchel slung over his shoulder. His hand was on Arvad’s back, and behind them both walked Kjell and Dagar.
Arvad drew to a halt when he caught sight of me in the doorway.
Gods, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. His eyes heated, his lips curled. He’d left black stones pierced in his ears, and his dark hair was braided tightly on the sides.
I tried to be calm and steady, but on his next step toward me, I lost all composure and rushed off the stoop. Arvad quickened his pace, his long fae legs bringing him to me in three strides.
Unbothered by the others who watched, I flung my arms around his neck and buried my face against his warm skin. Each breath filled my lungs with leather and pine and shaved wood.
Arvad clung to me around my waist, lifting me slightly off the ground. “Gods, it is good to see you.”
I pressed a soft kiss to his neck, then trapped his face in my palms. “I read your missive moments ago. So forgive me if I smell.”
The prince looked at me with a dark hunger. His teeth scraped over my ear when he whispered, “You are ravishing, and I want to devour you. Do with that what you will.”
My knees trembled. I pressed a hand to my throat, but forced a smile. My father was standing close enough to hear us.
With smiles and ale, we brought the fae into our small longhouse. Dagar and Kjell challenged Daj to another game with rune chips and dice and bemoaned the harshness of Timoran ale.
After placing his fur mat beside the table, I pulled on Arvad’s hand, leading him outside. Without a word he followed until I took us into the small goat barn in the far corner of our land.
“I do not live in a castle, but we can be alone here.”
Arvad crowded me against the post in the center of the barn. He looked at me like he was furious and desperate and filled with something more, something a little like love.
The prince wasted no time before his lips were on mine.
Gods, I would never tire of this man’s kiss.
A month of tension and bawdy promises fueled every movement. His hands were bolder, sliding down the small of my back, digging into my ass until my hips pressed to his. I whimpered when his hard length added friction to my core.
My hands went to his tunic and slipped under the hem. Arvad shuddered, whispering my name, when my palms slid up his bare stomach to his chest.
He kissed me with more frenzy, tongues, teeth, and need. The stubble on his chin burned my lips by the time he pulled back.
The prince breathed in heavy gasps and rested his brow to mine.
“Lil,” he whispered, the name he’d adopted as his and his alone. “May I . . . may I touch you.” I shuddered when Arvad drew his fingers over my bodice, down my stomach, and stopped between my legs. “Here?”
Bleeding hells.
I licked my lips and widened my stance.
The prince took a step back, eyes blown wide until they looked engulfed in black. My fingers trembled as I lifted my skirt over my knees, to my upper thighs, then gathered it around my hips. I was bared to Arvad, and had never felt so safe.
A deep sort of growl broke from his chest when he crashed his mouth back to mine. I cried out his name when two of his fingers brushed over my wet core, teasing me.
“Gods, you are soaked for me, Huntress.” He bit down on my neck.
I couldn’t catch a deep enough breath when Arvad slipped the first finger inside me, then another. He curled the tips, stretching me. His thumb rolled in gentle circles over the sensitive apex of my core.
I was delirious. It was too much. I needed more.
My hands fell to his shoulders, using his body as a ballast to hold while I rocked against his hand. Slowly, I drifted one palm down to his belt. Arvad choked on his breath and helped me unfasten his buckle with his free hand. He guided my palm into his trousers.
I curled my fingers around his heavy, thick length. Already a bead of arousal was at the top. I used it to slicken my palm and stroke him.
“Lil.” He breathed out my name like a plea, a call to worship. His fingers worked faster inside me.
I stroked him until his body rocked as though he could not help but move. Soon, tension pooled in my lower belly. Heat and passion tightened my muscles. Arvad thrust his fingers deeper until I shattered in a sob of his name.
My body went limp, but I fought to keep my hand working him. The prince covered my palm with his free hand, stroking his own length with me. He kept his two fingers deep inside me, holding me through the sparks of the after-release until I could not finish a damn thought.
Arvad quickened our strokes on his cock, until he stiffened and the hot bursts of his release coated our hand and the prince slumped against me.
For a long moment we didn’t move. We stayed there, holding each other. When he looked a me, the heat in his eyes had softened to a glow.
Emotion tightened in my throat. I leaned up to kiss him sweetly. Arvad gingerly tucked my head under his chin and held me until the candle in one of the lanterns grew too dim to see.
He helped me adjust my skirt, buckled his belt, then laced his fingers through mine and guided us back to the longhouse.
At the door he turned me into him. “On the morrow, I planned to speak with your father about you both coming to Etta. Then, I thought, I should probably ask you first.”
“Arvad.” I stroked the side of his face. “You know I want to, but I am still bound to the rest of the turn of my service to the hunters.”
He nodded. “I know, I’m not saying right away, but . . . you’re my future, Lil. I know it more every moment I’m with you.”
There was still the glaring problem—fae folk lived centuries. Mortals did not.
“You will watch me die.”
Arvad shifted on his feet. “And I will go shortly after when we’re thousands of turns old. Together.”
“What are you talking about?”
The prince took my palms in his hands, hesitating. “There is a fae ritual; it isn’t well known beyond Night Folk. It’s called the förändra, or the change, in your words. It is a gentle ritual but uses old fury. It extends mortal life. Remember, I told you many Night Folk have children who do not have faeish features; they use the ritual to extend their lives to that of their families.”
I’d never heard of such a thing. Then again, I could understand why. Should enemies know they could live for centuries, doubtless the fae folk would be attacked every season for their ability to see it done.
“You could do this to me?”
Arvad nodded. “I would be honored, but it must be your choice. It would mean an incredibly long life, which comes with its own trials. But also great happiness.”
“You want this with me?”
“I want more than centuries with you, Lilianna. I want eternity. I want my seat in the Otherworld to be placed next to you. Woman, you captured my soul in that cave and you’ve never given it back.”
Tears burned my eyes. I kissed him, deeply. “Until the Otherworld, then, Fae.”
He chuckled and held me close. “I planned to make the offer to your father too. The last thing I want is for you to say farewell to the man who raised you.”
I swiped at the tears in the corners of my eyes. “I’m not sure he’ll agree.”
“Will it change things for you?”
I hesitated. “No. Daj is a rare Timoran father. He never treated me like he wished he had a son. He loved me, loved my mother—only my mother—and he would want me to be happy with a man much the same. You are the man I want, Arvad Ferus. I will choose you, no matter the choices of others. I hate to tell you, Fae, but I think I’m in love with you.”
Arvad brow furrowed before he took my lips again.
It felt as though life had settled exactly as it ought to have been. It always seemed to be in these moments of peace when darkness tried to break apart.