by Jack Whitney
This man.
This beautiful man.
With all his flaws, his darkness, his sarcasm, and his passions… he made her feel more alive than she’d ever pushed herself to feel. This man, who had driven her to her angered limits more times than she could count, who she had treated as her enemy for over two decades, was now the only man she ever wanted in her bed again. She wasn’t familiar with the full feeling in her chest upon watching him turn around and lean against the tabletop, lighting the pipe with the lit match in his hands. The fire illuminated his features once more, and she felt her mouth dry as his head tilted back slightly, and the smoke left his lips. His gaze traveled deliberately back over to her, and then over her body, making her squeeze her thighs together at the sight of his darkened gaze watching her predatorily.
She swallowed hard, but allowed herself the exaulted sigh of her lungs. “Are you aware of how much sexier the moons light and that pipe make you?” she asked, “or are you somehow completely oblivious?”
A small huff left his lips, and he slowly crossed over to the bed once more. His hand ran through his thick long hair and pushed it over to the side as he extended the pipe to her, and then he sat on the bed himself. She took it from his hands and took a long draw of it, allowing the herb to swim through her veins as she laid her back on the bed, legs bent sideways toward him. A low sigh of satisfaction left her throat.
Draven pulled one knee into his chest. He reached out, and his fingers traced a scar on her thigh behind her knee. He swallowed hard as he stared at her, his eyes traveling over her body as he’d done earlier in the night.
“What?” she asked as she handed the pipe back to him and sat up on her elbow once more.
He shook his head just slightly, and he inhaled a long draw from the pipe. “Yesterday, when I saw that Dreamer idiot kissing you…” he started slowly, “I had to remind myself not to slice his throat.”
She almost smiled. “Jealous, Venari?” she mused with a raised brow.
His eyes danced, and he exhaled the herb again. “He treats you as though you are fragile. As though your crown will break if he taps it too hard.”
“And how should someone treat me?”
He paused a moment, his gaze washing over her. “With respect for the woman you are, not as someone they want you to be. With equality, not as though you should be shielded behind a wall. And as nothing less than the most fearsome woman in all the land.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked down at her hands. “You know, I would have blamed it on the boats if you had sliced his throat,” she told him. “No one would have known it was you.”
His smile met hers as he held out the herb for her to smoke once more. “Relentless,” he mused.
“Mmm…” She fell back on the bed and sighed as she stared at the stars above them. “I grow tired of the fake smiles and false niceties of my brother and all his minions,” she admitted. “Every laugh at meetings, every time they shake one another’s hands… Every time someone tells me I look lovely, I want to ram a knife across their wrists, watch them bleed out on the floor…”
“Graphic,” he said with an inhale of the herb. “If you need help, I’d be happy to oblige.”
She almost laughed. “I have a running game with Lex. Sometimes after really terrible meetings, we talk about who would scream the loudest if we suddenly started a massacre.”
“Ash,” Draven affirmed as she exhaled the smoke into the air. “Definitely Ash.”
“I’m more inclined to think old man Sauder from Scindo would be the loudest.”
“Who does Lex think?” he asked.
She took a long inhale of the herb and grinned. “You.”
His brows raised again. “Me? Really?”
She turned over sideways almost onto her stomach. “She thinks you would scream loudly, and very high-pitched.”
He laughed. “What do you think?”
“I think I would have saved you for last,” she said smoothly, “kicked your ass as I did when we were children.”
He almost choked on the inhale he’d just taken, and his hair fell over his eyes as he shook his head at her. “You got lucky that day.”
“You think so?” she mocked.
He handed her the pipe once more, and she inhaled it deeply, her muscles falling further into the depth of its haze. Talk of fighting made her head spin, and she suddenly remembered the words the man had said to her on the beach.
“The man on the beach that I cornered… he said something weird,” she said then.
Draven frowned. “I didn’t know you cornered one.”
“I did. Asked him who they served.”
“And?”
“He said… ‘Long live King Aeron of Mathis, ruler of Man.’”
Draven took another long draw from the pipe, eyes narrowed just slightly. “Interesting.”
“Any ideas?” she asked.
“None,” he said with a shake of his head. His eyes flickered over her again, and a small smile quirked at the corner of his lips.
“What?” she asked, seeing the amusement in his gaze.
“You… You’re the only person I know capable of making talk of war seducing.”
She smirked. “Tricks, Venari,” she mused with a wink.
A long sigh left him as he watched her once more, the darkened haze of the herb lifting into his eyes and replacing the amused glint. She felt the herb swimming through her the same way, and her eyelids became heavy. She sighed back into the bed on her stomach and sat her head on her hands, staring out at the canopy around them. Draven’s head hit the poster of the bed, eyes closing as an elongated breath emitted from his lungs.
Content.
Perfectly. Content.
The silence between them was a blanket she hugged herself into. She couldn’t stop watching him, fascinated by the creature before her that made her feel things she’d dared not think truly existed. Challenged. Fulfilled. Matched.
Equal.
She sat up then and pushed herself beside him, curling her legs behind her. His eyes followed her movements as he took a long inhale of the herb. She leaned in and pressed her lips to his as he began to exhale, and she swallowed the sweet smoke emitting from his lungs. The warm trickle of a honey chill ran down her spine, and she felt his fingers gently touch her knee. Her tongue raked the length of his, savoring the taste of the herb on his breath, of the Venari man sitting before her— a taste of forest and darkness and unchecked desire smothered into this perfect shadow she wanted to envelop her core. And when she pulled back to look at him, her thighs shifted, and she felt herself growing wetter again at the amorous look on his face.
The tip of his finger reached between her thighs, and he grazed her folds so delicately that she had to take in a sharp breath of air.
“Careful, Venari,” she heard herself whisper as his finger brushed against her. “You’ll have me undone before I can touch you,” she repeated of his own words.
“Thrice.”
Her brows raised, and she pulled back slightly to see the determined gaze in his eyes. “Thrice?” she repeated incredulously.
“Before you can touch me,” he confirmed.
She felt her lips gape open slightly at his torture. “This really…” She almost whimpered as his lips brushed the skin of her throat, and his middle finger dipped between her folds, grazing her clit. “This really isn’t fair,” she finally managed.
He pulled back and smiled slyly over her. “You are truly used to getting your way, aren’t you?” he mocked.
“I am the Queen.”
The low chuckle that emitted from his lips made her thighs squeeze again, and he bent down, his teeth tugging at her earlobe. “My forest. My rules. My Queen.”
The growl of his words against her skin made her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she surrendered to him a few times more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE MORNING CAME too soon.
They stayed up for hours,
enjoying the embrace of one another’s company, holding onto it as though it would disappear if they fell apart. They smoked, stared at the skies together, speaking of the stories of Haerland’s past and the differences of the Chronicles and Honest Scrolls. And when she fell asleep in his arms, her mind rested of the darkness and was instead swallowed by a feeling she was unfamiliar with.
“I wondered where you’d end up last night,” Lex mused.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Aydra lied.
Lex chuckled under her breath. “He’s good for you, I think. Only man I’ve ever met that can actually handle you.”
Aydra gave her a sideways smirk. “Do you truly think that or are you just too scared to tell me otherwise?”
“Well, you’ll notice I said man, not person,” Lex quipped with a wink.
The pair laughed and Aydra started packing her bag. Words Draven had said two nights before continued to echo in her head.
“What’s wrong?” Lex asked, apparently feeling the tense in Aydra’s form.
“He said something the other night that I can’t stop thinking about…”
“What?”
“He said I deserved someone who would burn down this entire kingdom to save me if I ever needed it,” she repeated.
Lex’s brows raised on her face, and she nodded. “He’s not wrong,” he agreed. “You think he meant himself?”
“Maybe,” she wondered aloud. “Perhaps. I’m not sure. I—”
Lex’s hand on her arm made her words cease. “In all seriousness, my Queen,” Lex started, “I like him. He’s smart, sarcastic, equally as angry and passionate about his people, a fearsome being to behold, and… I’ve seen the way he makes you laugh. If anyone deserves to see your happiness, it is one who can accomplish such a feat. And if he would burn this kingdom for you… You’d not find many others who would.”
“You would,” Aydra affirmed.
Lex gave her a crooked smile. “It would be my honor, of course, but you should know my duty as your Second would be to not disobey your orders which I’m sure would be to save your sister first. But as your greatest friend… I’m more inclined to think I’d be standing by your side with the torch as we burnt it to the ground ourselves.”
Aydra almost laughed. “Yes, that does sound like us.”
Lex gave her a wink and started backwards out of the room. “I’ll meet you out front when you’re ready.”
“Thank you, Lex,” Aydra called as Lex left the room.
“Whoa—”
Draven nearly barged into Lex as she turned the corner of the door, and she paused haughtily on the other side of him.
“Sorry. Didn’t realize you were up here,” continued Draven.
“Queen needed a bit of relief after you failed to satisfy her last night,” Lex told him swiftly. “I’m sure you can understand. There are some things a woman just knows how to do better.”
Aydra clapped her hand over her mouth to keep herself from bursting with laughter.
A sly smile rose on Draven’s face. “You’ll have to teach me then.”
“Secrets, Venari King. I’m not sure you’ve earned them.” Lex gave him a full once over and stroked her chin with her finger. “Perhaps you will have by your next trip to Magnice. We’ll talk.”
Draven grinned. “I look forward to it.”
Lex gave him a wink and then continued down the stairs, barking orders out to people in her way as she descended to the ground. Draven whirled around and met Aydra’s amused eyes with his own surprised gaze.
“I really like her,” he said happily.
Aydra chuckled under her breath. “She’s certainly been my amusement for some years now.”
“And you two…” his voice trailed as he shoved his hands in his pockets and raised a brow.
Aydra smirked. “What happened to it not being your business who shares in my pleasures?” she asked.
“Well that answers that,” he said with the sideways smirk that made her chest flutter.
She smacked his chest and shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”
He took her waist in his hands then and pulled her against him, smiling as he leaned down a breath from her face.
“I have to finish packing,” she whispered.
“I know.” He nudged her nose with his. “But I actually needed to make sure Lex was lying and you were satisfied without her assistance this morning.”
She pulled back and bit back the laughter bubbling to the surface. “What do you think?”
“I think I need another round to be sure.”
Laughter emitted from her throat as he began kissing her throat. “Draven… Draven they are waiting for me—” she had to make herself say the words from her lips as he gripped her backside in his hand. “I can’t…” Her willpower was quickly fading, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as his hand dove between her legs, gently caressing her over the fabric of her pants.
The glimpse of the bag on the bed brought her back to reality. She gripped his shirt in her hands and gave him a gentle nudge. “Draven, wait—”
He pulled back softly and gazed at her face.
“I’m sorry. I have to pack,” she told him.
He smirked knowingly and took a step back, still holding onto her fingertips. “What can I do?” he asked.
“Nothing, I… Actually, can you get my things from the tub?” she asked of him.
He nodded and disappeared across the room. Her mind wandered in silence as she continued throwing things into the bag, giving no care to anything being folded or taken care of. All she could think about was what her brother would say upon her return, the kind of trouble he would say she was in… she knew it would be a battle between them when she told him she’d actually seen the ships.
“Don’t go back,” Draven said as she buckled one bag closed.
She didn’t look up at him as she turned and grabbed the last of her things from the top of the dresser. “I have to. I am Queen. I have to go back to tell my brother of the ships. There is so much to do. The Nitesh is coming. More ships—”
“Slow down, Drae,” he insisted upon taking her arm.
She sighed and finally paused to face him. “I’m sorry. I just… with everything that’s happened…” Her voice trailed, and she looked down at her packed bag on the bed, the thoughts of what awaited her at Magnice trickling through her subconscious once more.
“You could stay,” he repeated as his fingers touched hers.
She felt her gaze squint. “You’ve said that twice now. You know I can’t,” she told him. “Why don’t you want me to leave?”
“Ah…” he muttered nervously, avoiding her gaze. She watched him swallow hard, and then he took her hand in his. “Because I am in love with you,” he said simply.
Aydra’s heart stopped at the words.
She stared, wide-eyed, and took a step back from his figure as he gazed at her with the most sincere look she’d ever seen on anyone.
“You what?” she managed.
He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, and she watched as an embarrassed smile rose on his lips. “I know. It’s… it came as quite a shock to me as well,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “But… I’ve no other explanation for the feelings I’ve come to have for you. Aydra, I… I can’t get you out of my head.”
His hand left his neck and slapped his thigh defeatedly, as though he were giving up something of great importance. “I can’t stop hearing your voice,” he continued to admit. “Your laugh… I hear it as the lullaby I fall asleep to every night. I dream of seeing your smile, of holding you in my arms. I dream to feel complete again, as I did when you were with me before… And then these last few days… despite everything that’s happened… I’ve never felt as alive as I do when I am with you. Last night… last night, I felt like I was home. As though our worlds were at peace somehow, you shrouded in darkness with me. You are the most stubborn, most infuriating, and yet the smartest, bravest, wildest woman I’ve ever kno
wn. You don’t know fear and you love your people and this land with a passion I’m not sure you’re even aware of.” He swallowed hard, and his gaze rested over her once more. “I am unequivocally fallen at your strength and ferocity.”
He reached out for her hands again and took her shocked fingers in his. “I know it’s a lot. And I realize how crazy it sounds, that I could be in love with someone whom I’ve been taught my entire life to see as inferior, as my enemy… Aydra, I know.” His hands squeezed hers, and his weight shifted. “I don’t expect you to feel the same, but I think you’ve felt something and I wanted— I needed— you to know.”
She didn’t know what to say.
She didn’t know what her face was doing.
She didn’t know how he could utter the words he’d just said to her.
How could he love her?
Years of bickering and loathing each other. And after two weeks of being with her, a few restless nights, and one battle plan later… he loved her?
“You can’t be serious,” she whispered. “You don’t love me, Draven. You love the small fraction of myself that you’ve gotten to know here in the Forest. You love the brief carefree moments we shared where I was able to actually be happy—”
“You told me yesterday that you could not stop thinking about me,” he interjected, “that you came here because you wanted to be with me—”
“I’d been drinking,” she managed.
He raised a brow and gave her a sideways stare as though he didn’t believe her. She shifted the weight on her feet and shook her head.
“Draven… You can’t… you can’t love me. Our races are enemies—”
“Is that the only excuse you’ll give me for not being allowed to love you?”
She swallowed hard, her thoughts flickering to the words of her mother and her brother, the words she’d been fed her entire life. Not to trust him. That he was manipulative.
But in her time in the Forest with he and his people had proved differently…
Everything she’d been told was a lie.
However, that didn’t excuse the ludicrousness of him telling her he was in love with her.