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“Don’t you ever have the feeling that your life is governed by bigger forces than you’ll ever be aware of?” Wolf says, and I frown at this echo of my thoughts from last night.
“Fate, you mean?”
He shrugs those broad shoulders. He’s washing his face in the basin, scrubbing at his eyes, wetting his wild hair, and from my perch on the bed, I’m ogling his bare backside, his firm ass, his long, muscular legs. I’ve already laced up my dress and pulled on my bottines, putting a barrier between us, so I won’t be tempted to climb him right now and make us late.
“I believe in fate,” I say, “inasmuch as one can never know where her path will take her. But the path also depends on us, on our choices, our decisions.”
He wipes the water from his eyes and turns to smirk at me. “Remind me to offer a gift to fate’s alter for causing our paths to cross.”
I smile at him. How can I not? He’s everything I want, and he looks so young and carefree this morning, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed. He looks so kissable. I could drag him back to bed and kiss him on his soft mouth, on his cheekbones, his eyes lids, on his chest, and lower, lower, kiss him everywhere, see if I can make him cry out louder this time, if I can give him more pleasure.
But a knock comes on the door, and the table Wolf placed behind it last night scrapes on the tiled floor as it opens.
Mathes appears in the opening. He stares at his naked cousin for a long moment, brows winging up. “Good morning. Did you lose your clothes overnight, Dane? Shall I call for a robe?”
“I’m all right,” Wolf says, not bothering to cover himself, still smirking. “Feeling inadequate, cousin?”
Mathes scoffs. “I really hope you’re a grower, cousin, because, honestly...”
Wolf chuckles. “Get out, Mathes.”
My face is burning. They don’t seem to find it strange that I’m in the room with them as they compare dicks, one of them naked as the day he was born. Sometimes I forget I’m not in the human world, and then things like this happen to remind me that Faerie is different.
Not worse or better. Just... different.
“Breakfast is ready,” Mathes says. “Come when you’re ready.”
Wolf grabs his britches from the floor and nods. “Be there in a beat. I want to pleasure my girl first.”
“Wolf!” I hide my face in my hands. “What are you doing?”
He frowns. “What?”
“Be quick about it,” Mathes says. “While the tea is still hot.”
He closes the door and I put my hands down. “Wolf.”
“What is it? Aren’t you my girl? Don’t you want me to pleasure you? You have been looking at me like you’re horny.”
My face is on fire. “I’m not horny!”
“No?” He stalks closer, still naked, his cock hardening with every step. “I can smell your arousal.”
“Oh, Gods... Wolf, you’ve been with women before in the human world. Didn’t they ever tell you that... pleasuring each other is a private business? That you don’t discuss it with other people, especially with the girl present?”
“I’ve never wanted a girl like I want you.” He’s frowning again, looking just adorable with his silvery hair sticking up, his pointy ears. My sullen, pretty Fae. “Mostly, I paid coin for the girls, not to complicate things, and besides, who would want to sleep with a Fae? Once I slept with a couple of farm girls who ran away with the dawn when they realized what I am.”
“Oh, Wolf...” How can he turn my anger into sadness and affection? “You’re so beautiful the way you are. This human girl isn’t going anywhere.”
His grin returns. “You really like me,” he says, a note of satisfaction in his voice, but he still has a question in his green eyes, as if he doesn’t quite believe it. “Even though I am Fae.”
I take his hand, pull him to the bed. “You don’t mind I’m human, either.”
“The Fae have always been drawn to the humans,” he says quietly, reaching up to tuck an errand curl behind my ear. “You are the right reflection, the real thing.”
“You seem real to me,” I whisper, stroking his jaw, his neck. “You seem right. Perfect.”
His gaze softens, and he kisses me. He pushes me back on the bed, shoves my skirts up and does exactly what he said he’d do: he pleasures me, chasing all thought and worry from my mind, until I don’t care if the entire house hears me crying out his name, shuddering with my release. His rough tongue laps at me again and again, until I push him away, moaning that it’s too much.
Lifting himself up, he grins down at me, his sharp canines glinting dangerously, his chin glistening. “My girl,” he says, and it’s almost a question, almost a request, but also a demand.
“Your girl,” I agree, helplessly, and pull him down for another kiss. “I don’t want any other man than you, Wolf.”
He grabs me in his arms, crushing me to his chest, like he never wants to let go.
***
This time, Wolf holds my hand at the table, seated right beside me, and we share glances and grins and the occasional chuckle when we reach for plates around one another.
Mathes’ shrewd gaze is on us, not missing a thing, probably not missing the change from yesterday to this morning. “I see you had a quiet night’s rest,” he says, deadpan, not batting an eye.
I wonder how much noise we made and almost choke on the piece of bread I’m chewing.
“I asked adda if you were hurt,” Kessil says, his young face set in line of worry. “I thought I heard you cry out during the night.”
It’s Wolf’s turn to choke on the cheese he’s munching. He puts it down on his place and laughs. “I’m fine, boy.”
“Bad dreams?” Kessil asks then, and Wolf’s gaze darkens.
“Let our guests enjoy their breakfast,” Mathes scolds his son. “They are okay, see? Now why don’t you take your bread crumbs and go feed the birds?”
“But, adda—”
“Now, Kessil.”
“Again, you want to talk about adult stuff,” the boy grumbles, gathers his breadcrumbs and stalks out.
Wolf is frowning after him. “Are all children like that?”
“You were far worse,” Mathes says, dismissing the question with a wave of his hand. “Have you finished eating?”
“You sound like you want to discuss something specific.”
Mathes shoots Wolf a look as if he’s not funny at all. “I want to know your plans.”
“That’s very direct,” Wolf mutters. “We don’t have a specific destination.”
“You don’t? I thought...” It’s Mathes’ turn to frown. “I thought you came back with a plan.”
“He lost his memory, remember?” I say.
“But I thought the memories came back.” Mathes pushes his plate away. “Where will you go? How will you travel? Do you have coin?”
“I was hoping you could help us with that,” Wolf says. “I’m not asking you for a loan. I have... these.” He unhooks the pouch from his belt, passes it on to his cousin. “Could you sell them for me?”
Mathes loosens the knot on the pouch and opens it. Glittering moondrops spill on his open palm.
“White diamonds. These come from the human world.” Mathes looks up, his brows crawling into his hairline. “These are worth a fortune.”
“Good,” Wolf says. “I need enough to buy a house somewhere quiet, start a small business.”
“You decided to leave it all behind?” Mathes’s gaze seems drawn back to the gems on his palm. “Start anew?”
“Yeah.”
“Kind of selfish. So many people depend on you.”
“Nobody has depended on me in decades,” Wolf says harshly. “If finding my happiness is selfish, then I’ll be selfish.”
“It’s not that simple,” Mathes says.
“Why not?”
“You have responsibilities. You’re not just any Fae, Dane.”
“I can be just any Fae, just watch me.”
Mathes clenches his fist around the diamonds. “The regent, your uncle—”
“His uncle?” I interrupt. “Maybe my understanding of the Fae language is too patchy. I thought you said... his uncle the regent? Regent of the throne?”
“His uncle safekeeps the throne for him,” Mathes says with a small frown, “since he is the closest relative alive. Dane has no children and his parents passed long ago. It’s why you spent so much time here with us growing up, cousin.”
“What are you saying? Am I...?” Wolf chokes on the question he wants to ask. The same question that’s burning my tongue, my mind. “I can’t be...”
“Maab, is your memory so far gone?” Mathes’ eyes have gone round. “Since you arrived, I assumed you lost some memories, not that you had no idea who you were.”
The breakfast I’ve eaten is lying like rocks in my stomach. Wolf’s hand is crushing mine, fine tremors going through his arm. His jaw is clenched so tightly he seems to be grinding his teeth together. His face has gone white.
“I’m sorry, Dane.” Mathes sighs, clasps his hands on the tabletop. “Or should I say, Your Majesty?”
***
“How is it possible that you forgot everything?” Mathes mutters, pacing the length of the room, stopping to stare into the fire.
Wolf knocks back a second glass of cordial, color finally returning to his cheeks. “The spell,” he says. “Someone put a spell on me to make me forget everything.”
“The Empress,” Mathes says, lifting a fist and shaking it. “She put a spell on you to keep you away from the throne. I bet it was her.”
“Who is she?” I sip at my glass of cordial. It burns going down my throat. I can’t believe I’m sitting next to a Fae king. That I’ve kissed him, pleasured him, slept in his arms. “I didn’t know that Faerie was an empire.”
“It’s not.” Mathes glances up when his son returns to the room, wiping his hands on his pants. “The so-called Empress has been trying to take over the kingdoms and rule them all, but hasn’t managed it so far. The Fae kings have strong magic, linked to their lands, and she can’t simply take them out and take their place.”
“Then how is she planning on taking over?”
“She has placed curses on every kingdom she craves, centered on their king. She befriended the kings, made deals with them. Cheated. Every king has to solve a riddle to save his kingdom, but so far only one has succeeded.”
“The ice,” I whisper, turning to Wolf. “That’s the curse on your kingdom.”
He nods, his gaze dark. “Yes.”
“And the riddle?”
“Only the king knows the riddle.” Mathes casts Wolf a look. “If he remembers it.”
Wolf shakes his head, mouth a thin line.
“The only thing I don’t understand,” Mathes says, “is why she would make you forget and send you away. Without you here, the curse had more or less stabilized. It hadn’t become worse. Why wouldn’t she have kept you away until time ran out?”
A puzzle all right.
Wolf is staring into his glass, as if hoping that more cordial will materialize there—or maybe an answer to the riddle. He licks the rim, makes a face. He looks just like the man who laughed with me this morning, who kissed me, who told me that I am his girl. Who wanted to sell the diamonds he stole to buy a house for us, to start a new life.
A king.
“I have this ink on my arms...” Wolf abandons the glass and grabs the hem of his shirt, yanking it over his head, letting it drop to the floor. I’m too stunned and worried to appreciate seeing him shirtless right now. He lifts his inked arm. The letters on it catch the light. “I never knew what it meant. In my memories, I talk about the center,” he whispers. “The diamonds. I thought I had to steal diamonds to find the answer, but that wasn’t it, was it?”
“The Diamond Throne,” Mathes says quietly. “Your throne, Dane. The center of the Diamond Court. Your kingdom.”
I stare at the diamonds spilled on the table like drops of a dream and blink. “I’ve heard of the Diamond Court. One of the strongest kingdoms of Faerie, ruled by King Elamon,” I whisper.
“My father,” Wolf says, and reaches for the bottle of the cordial. “Damn.”
“The Empress killed the king and queen,” Mathes says. “She thought that a young king would be easier to win over and control, convince to hand over his gem of power. But Dane surprised her. He fought back, didn’t give in.”
“And then one day he vanished,” I whisper.
Wolf is gripping his head like it’s about to split into two. “I remember...” he whispers. “I remember her. The Ice Queen.”
“They say she controls all the elements,” Mathes says, “changing with the seasons. She’s not like us. She crawled out of another world, decided to make ours her home.”
Kessil, who has returned to the dining room, glances from one to the other, his eyes shining brightly. “Are we going to the palace?” he asks eagerly. “Adda, are we going to the palace?”
“Is it the city we saw on the mountain?” I ask.
Mathes nods gravely. “That is the capital, and the palace is there.”
It looks like we may have to go to the glittering city after all.