Chapter Fourteen

 

 

I'm not sure what woke me. Probably the sound of footsteps, or maybe my brain had registered the breathing of another person in the room. Whatever it was, I blinked my eyes open and sleepily surveyed the darkness. There was a swath of moonlight coming in through the crack between the curtains, and it gave just enough light for me to see a shadow moving toward the bed. I frowned as I tried to process what was happening, and then I saw the glint of steel. The blade rose as the shadow crept forward, and I held my breath.

The dark shape stopped beside Drostan, and I knew I had moments to react. I grabbed Drostan and rolled with him toward the other side of the bed. I kept rolling until we fell over the edge. Drostan came awake with a grunt. At first, he appeared angry, but then he saw the terror in my eyes. He pushed up and flung a hand out; illuminating the room with a blast of light. A cloaked person was in the process of fleeing, but he stopped and looked over his shoulder. His dark eyes widened on the swirling energy circling the ceiling just before it rocketed at him.

The intruder fell backward; his knife rolling free of his grip. Drostan ran over to him and grabbed him by the tunic. He lifted the man and shook him.

“Why?” Drostan growled in the fairy's face.

The fairy's eyes remained wide with shock, and they were fixed on Drostan.

“Who are you?” The man whispered just before he died.

“Damn this fucked up court!” Drostan snarled as he shoved the man away.

I noted the charred hole in the assassin's tunic, and the bleeding wound in the chest beneath. Whatever it was that Drostan had done, it had proven fatal. I kept staring at the fairy's face; his shocked face. Why had he asked who Drostan was? Did he creep into the wrong room? Was it all a case of mistaken identity? But how could that be? No one mistook the King of Unseelie for another man.

Drostan went to the door, opened it, and shouted for his guards. Then he turned and saw me standing nearby.

“Riley?” Drostan's hands went to my face. “Are you all right, sweetheart? It's okay now; he's dead.”

“I'm fine,” I whispered.

He didn't look reassured.

“Come back to bed,” Drostan said gently. “The guards will be here at any moment, and you're naked.”

“I am?” I looked down at myself, then over at him. “So are you.”

“Yes, but I don't mind my soldiers seeing me like this.” Drostan gave me a gentle smile. “However, I do mind them seeing you. Come here, Aja.”

Drostan lifted me and carried me back to bed; tucking me in just as a group of those large men with the bleeding caps ran through the door.

“Sire?” One of the men gaped at the dead assassin and then at Drostan. “What the fuck happened?”

“Someone tried to kill me,” Drostan said simply as he shrugged into a robe. “And my concubine saved my life. She's worth more than all of you Redcaps put together!”

Had I done that? Did I save Drostan's life?

The men (Redcaps evidently; what a creative name) looked deeply unsettled. They hurried forward and picked up the corpse.

“We'll increase security, Your Majesty,” one of them said. “Our humblest apologies.”

“Get this trash out of my presence and then do exactly that!” Drostan shouted. “I want the guard doubled as of now. And I want spies put into place; we need to discover if this is Tana's doing or if my own people are against me.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

The Redcaps tromped out of the room, and Drostan slammed the door behind them. He glanced over and saw me watching him, and his expression softened. After closing the door to the antechamber, he strode over, shrugged out of his robe, and slipped into the bed beside me.

“It seems that it's impossible for me to keep my promises to you,” Drostan whispered as he pulled me close. “Not only do I find myself in the uncomfortable position of apologizing once more, but I'm also in your debt. Thank you, Riley.”

“You're welcome,” I whispered into his chest.

Drostan eased me back so that he could see my face.

“You saved my life,” he said tenderly. “No one has ever risked themselves for me.”

I nearly asked if this would cancel our Understanding, but I knew that would only accomplish one of two things; either it would make Drostan feel guilty enough to release me (unlikely), or he would be deeply insulted and this burgeoning bond between us would be destroyed by his anger. So, I decided to use the moment to further my goal.

“It was instinct,” I whispered as I stroked his cheek tenderly. “I couldn't let you be hurt. You don't owe me anything, Drostan.”

Drostan's mouth fell open, and his eyes misted. He swallowed roughly and pulled me back against his chest. I heard his heart pounding violently as he stroked my hair.

“Riley, there's something I have to tell you,” he murmured. “I—”

“Your Majesty?” A knock followed the call.

Drostan cursed and set me away from him gently. He went to the outer door and cast it open. It was Conall. He looked from Drostan to me and back again with obvious relief.

“Thank the Goddess,” Conall murmured. “I heard there was an attempted assassination, but you appear unharmed.”

I frowned at this. Conall and Drostan had the oddest relationship. They almost acted like enemies. At the very least, they were rivals. But Conall seemed genuinely relieved that Drostan was alive and well.

“No thanks to your—” Drostan broke off and cleared his throat. “No thanks to the guards,” he growled. “It was Riley who saw the assassin and pulled me to safety just before he struck.”

“Riley?” Conall looked at me in shock. “A human saved your life?”

“My consort saved my life,” Drostan corrected.

I froze, my stare happening upon Conall's—which had gone beyond shocked and into horrified. Had Drostan just called me his consort instead of his concubine? I had done it; I had achieved the status of consort; something no one had been able to do with Drostan. Damn; this plan was working fast. But I couldn't push it. Now, was the time to ease back. So, I looked away and pretended not to notice the change in my status.

“Can I speak with you privately, Your Majesty?” Conall asked with a tense tone.

“The library.” Drostan waved to the antechamber.

The men disappeared into the other room, and I took a deep breath.

“Well done, you!” Hugo plopped onto the bed before me; scaring the bejesus out of me.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” I hissed.

“We pixies have our ways of getting around.” He shrugged. “We see a lot more than people know.”

“I'll bet,” I huffed. “How long have you been up there, you little perv?”

“Hey now, I would never spy on a friend.” He pouted. “I just got here. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” He strode across the velvet comforter, looking around with interest. “It's nice in here. And you should get used to it, girly! Saving King Drostan's life was brilliant! What a stroke of luck for you. Now, he can never hurt you; it would go against his honor. And when you told him that he didn't owe you for it, I nearly peed myself! Woohee! I have to admit; I couldn't have given you better advice than that. The look on his face!” Hugo stopped and stared at me in surprise. “You don't even know what you've done, do you?”

“I've indebted him to me,” I said. “And possibly wormed my way into his heart.”

“Oh, no doubt he's half in love with you.” Hugo nodded. “No sidhe woman would have put herself in jeopardy to save him. But that's not what I meant.”

“Sidhe woman?” I asked.

“One of them.” He waved his hand toward the library. “The big ones that look like humans. Those are the Sidhe. I am a pixie. Got it?”

“Yeah; okay.”

“Do you want to hear how brilliant you are, or not?” Hugo huffed.

“Of course I do,” I huffed back. “Who wouldn't want to hear a compliment?”

“In fairy culture, no one refuses the offer of a favor. Favors are practically currency. The only time one is refused is when it's offered to a spouse or lover.” Hugo smirked. “What you did was practically a declaration of love, Riley.”

“What?” I whispered. “But I don't...”

“Who gives a shit?” Hugo interrupted me. “That's not the fucking point. Drostan knows that you don't know what it means; he didn't take it like that. But on an instinctual level, it will affect him. Those traditions are there for a reason. It's common sense, really. You do something debt-worthy for someone and then refuse payment; who does that? Only people who—”

“Love each other,” I whispered.

“Yep!” He smiled widely.

“Why is that a good thing?”

“Idiot girl,” Hugo rolled his eyes. “Half of getting a man to treasure you comes from making them believe that you value them. But Drostan brought you here as a slave. He would never have believed your declarations of love, had you flat out told him. Any offer of affection from you would be suspect for years. It would have taken precious time for you to prove yourself to him. But now—”

“He has instant proof,” I said. “He'll believe that I care about him.”

“That's right, honey,” Hugo said proudly. “And you don't even have to say the words. Heck, at this point, you could swear that you hate him, and he wouldn't believe you.”

“Good to know.” I laughed.

“Oh! Gotta go!” Hugo shimmied up the bed frame and disappeared just as the bedroom door opened.

Drostan looked grimly satisfied, but Conall looked disturbed. The Seelie knight glanced at me as he left, and the look he gave me left me feeling just as unsettled as he had appeared. Drostan shut the inner door and lowered a bar across it.

“Not that this will keep out serious magic-users,” Drostan said as he turned toward me. “But it will at least give us some warning.”

Drostan came back to bed and shrugged out of his robe. I laid down beside him, and let him draw me into the curve of his side. My palm slipped over his chest automatically, and Drostan sighed deeply.

“I knew you were meant to be mine, Riley,” Drostan whispered. “And now my instincts have been proven true.”

I smiled against his skin and drifted off to sleep with a deep sense of satisfaction. My world had just become a little more stable. If only I weren't starting to believe that I was meant to be there too.