by May Dawson
“What the hell are you doing?” I whisper hotly, glancing down the hall, afraid we’re going to cause a scene. Because Lord knows my social anxiety is as intense as my million other fears.
He yawns as he gets to his feet. He shakes out his shoulders, rubbing one as if it’s sore now. “I didn’t like the thought of you being alone.”
“You could’ve knocked.”
His lips quirk to one side. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want me.”
Things between us haven’t been entirely natural again since the Raila incident.
“In your room,” he adds. “I do snore after a few glasses of wine.”
It’s just like Cax to defuse things, but we both know what he meant.
“Besides.” He leans in the doorway, tucking one hand in his pocket, as wide-awake and polished now as if he hadn’t just spent the night dozing half-drunk against my bedroom door. “Airren would kill me if you were having a guest and I traipsed into your room.”
My cheeks heat, and Cax grins shamelessly.
“I’m not.” I shake my head.
“Even if it’s…”
“Especially not if it’s useful.” I can fill in that thought. “What the hell do you think I am, Cax?”
“A survivor,” he says, and the grin is gone now. “I wouldn’t hold it against you. But I’m glad.”
I shake my head as he wraps his arms around me, but my arms close around his leanly muscled waist. His lower abs are hard and warm against mine as he presses a kiss to the top of my head, then rests his chin on my head. I fit into his body like a puzzle piece.
“What are you doing up?” he asks.
“I was looking for you,” I say. “Conveniently enough.”
He squeezes me more tightly. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a Tera Donovan in my life.”
“Me either.” I mean it entirely differently.
“Come on.” As he catches my hand in his, his grin, which is full of mischief and the tease of adventure, lights up his face. “I want to show you something.”
“What?” I ask.
He tucks my hair behind my ear, his gaze fond. “Let me surprise you?”
“I think we’ve covered my feelings about surprises,” I say, but I wrap my fingers around his anyway. “Fine. Lead on. But I’ll probably hate it.”
My pessimism just makes his smile widen.
“If you do, I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” he promises.
He leads me through the low-lit hallway and out past two guards who stand outside the hallway, their eyes fixed ahead, unmoving. The sight of them makes me jump, and Cax squeezes my hand in his. “They’re just here to keep us safe.”
I have mixed feelings about uniforms, but I don’t dare say so out loud.
The castle is quiet. We pass priceless works of art, with men and women in crowns staring out bravely from gilt frames—as if their lives must have been so difficult, with all the servants and privilege and money—until we come to a polished dark wooden door.
“I think this is it,” Cax mumbles, taking a step back and pivoting on his heel to look down the hallway.
“Cax, what kind of trouble are you getting me into?”
“You said you were going to trust me, not five minutes ago.” His voice is teasing. I’m glad his tone is so easy to read because otherwise, his words would make me feel anxious.
“This is my version of trusting,” I say drily. “I haven’t made a dash for it.”
When he turns the doorknob, he seems surprised it twists in his hand. Well, that bodes well. We are definitely on the hunt for trouble.
He pushes the door open and takes a step inside. “This is it!”
He sounds triumphant, and I start to crowd in behind him, but he turns and closes the door behind him again, shutting me out. “Stay in the hall for one second, all right?”
“Cax.”
“Tera.” His voice is affectionate. He winks as he opens the door again, and then it clicks shut between his mischievous face and me.
I cross my arms as I lean against the wall, trying to look like I belong here. I’m going back to the dungeon, I just know it. Do the prince’s guests have permission to poke in all the castle’s nooks and crannies? What if they refused to kiss him goodnight?
I really thought Rian might be the man in the mask, or maybe I just wanted him to be. I miss the Fox even though I only met him for a night.
I can joke that I like the Fox because he drives Airren up the wall, but the truth is, I felt something for the Fox from the beginning. Some spark of knowing, like I’ve felt for Airren, and Cax, and Mycroft. Maybe the last little spark of my magic is there, in my instincts, telling me who I should love.
Of course, there’s no happy ending at the end of this road. Plural marriage might be acceptable here in Avalon, but for any good Crown magician to marry a Donovan? That’s unthinkable. A strange feeling comes over me, a sadness that lifts my heart instead of crushing my chest for once. I feel…nostalgic. That’s it. I haven’t felt nostalgic for a long time. I feel this strange sense of melancholy for a time that hasn’t passed yet because I won’t keep these men on my side for all my life. It can’t be. Not in our world.
Cax swings open the door, his face alight. His grin makes his high cheekbones dangerously sharp in his handsome face. I smile back at him, helplessly, even though the melancholy is still right there, under my skin.
When he holds his hand out to me, I take it. He pulls me into a library, which is all dark wood and gold-etched spines. The room is faintly scented with dust and leather and pages. All around us, on every surface, Cax has opened books, and I have to pick my way across the floor, stepping carefully alongside open pages, as he leads me to the center of the room.
“What are you doing?” I ask, a laugh in my voice, because this is all so crazy.
“Magic,” he says simply. We reach the center of the room and he takes my hips in his hand, pulling my back against his abs. This is the one space where there’s room for two people to stand without violating a book. He wraps one arm around my waist as his other hand dances through the air, casting.
Suddenly, the room is filled with light. Every page projects an image upward, as real as life, and my eyes can barely take everything in at once. Stars are projected on the ceiling above us, scattering down golden light through the darkness that still cloaks the ceiling. Around us, flowers bloom in reckless profusion, and animals roam—though no further than some invisible boundary set by their book.
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Cax says, his voice self-satisfied. “I wondered if it would work.”
“It’s beautiful.” It’s everything I missed Avalon for.
I didn’t know, when I was scrambling to find a portal, that what I really needed was this man whose arms are wrapped around me.
“Without you,” he says into my ear, “I had the ability to use magic, but I didn’t really see it. You make my world magical, Tera. At least I can try to do the same for you.”
I lean my head on his shoulder and watch the magical world spin around us. And then, because magic doesn’t just live in books and spells, I put my hand on his cheek and turn his face to me.
And I kiss him.
His lips are soft and tender, and they part against mine as our kisses deepen.
Forgiveness is a kind of magic too.
Chapter 14
When daylight breaks, Mycroft is waiting in my doorway. “Time to work on you not to be useless.”
Another morning training session. Fantastic. Unlike Airren’s hand-to-hand training sessions, which often turn into something sexier, Mycroft’s lessons only end one way: in sweat and bruises. “Good morning to you too.”
“You know what I mean,” he says.
“I do not,” I say. “And that is a hell of a thought to wake up to before I’ve even had my coffee.”
He holds a cup out to me. It’s steaming hot and smells delicious, so I accept it, even though Mycroft is unbearable at times
.
“I thought we were getting along now,” I say. Maybe he’s here, insulting me, because we’re getting along. Airren and Cax have been teaching me to fight, but Mycroft ignores me more often than not these days.
“We are.” He rests his enormous hands on my shoulders. “I wouldn’t ask you to let me hurt you otherwise.”
“Mycroft, you’re not selling this.” I gulp down some of my coffee. Despite his unsettling words, just having him this close to me is doing funny things to my body. I miss him so much when he’s weird and distant. Now, with those gold-flecked brown eyes intent on mine, his kissable lips within grazing distance if I just leaned forward, I would agree to almost anything.
But I can’t let him see that. So I quirk my eyebrow at him and cock my head, trying to play it cool.
“Training hurts,” he says. “But it hurts a lot less than being killed in combat. I don’t want to see you get hurt out there, Tera.”
“We’re trying to get my…” I glance down the hallway. We can’t talk about my broken magic in public.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, with certainty. “The ability to hold your own hand-to-hand is useful no matter what other skills you may have.”
“Oh good lord.” I say. “Fine. Teach me to be terrifying like you.”
Mycroft’s face is usually impassive, but that makes his eyebrows arch.
“Just a little terrifying.” I hold my fingertips so close together that they almost touch. “Because I’m quite little compared to you.”
“You’re a full sized pain in the ass,” he says, but he says it affectionately. “Come on. The prince has an incredible gym that he barely uses.”
I look up and down the hallway, which is empty, and then reach out to catch Mycroft’s wrist and pull him into my room. “You don’t think very highly of him, do you?”
“He’s a bubble-headed playboy,” Mycroft says shortly as he closes the door behind him. “He’s young, certainly, but none of us have the right to avoid our responsibilities.”
I cross the room to the closet. There’s a soft black t-shirt, a black sports bra and a pair of gray capri leggings on two of the hangers, and with my back to Mycroft, I quickly strip and change.
“How involved is he in our mission?” No matter how much this lavish time in the palace feels like a vacation from our real lives, our missions weigh on me constantly. To bring down the True. To regain my magic. To not be evil.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I think he’s taken an interest in you because you’re a pretty girl. Not a professional interest.”
“That sounds like a welcome change. I’d like to be just a pretty girl.”
“Well, that’s not on the table,” Mycroft says.
I purse my lips in the mirror as I hastily gather my hair up in a ponytail. “Thanks, Croft. You’re full of kind thoughts today.”
“You know you’re beautiful,” he says. “Christ. Can we get going?”
“I’m stalling.” I smile at him as I step out of the bathroom before sliding my feet into a pair of pink sneakers. “I don’t really like the idea of getting hit or hitting anyone.”
“Hitting anyone?” His brows arch again. “Now you’re getting ambitious. I doubt you’re going to get a punch in, Tera.”
“You are not a nice man,” I chide as he pushes the door open and holds it for me.
“Never said I was. But you like me anyway.”
“I never said I did,” I say cheekily, even though I don’t mean it.
In response, he slides his arm around my hips, pulling me tightly into his body. The curve of my ass and spine press against solid, unyielding muscle. Something hard as iron and bigger than any man has a right to be presses against the curve of my ass, something unmistakable. My breath gives as his lips graze against my neck, and I let my head fall to one side, welcoming his kisses.
Instead, he nips my ear gently with his teeth. Lust tightens my core, and I bite down hard on my lip as my desire for him sweeps over me, turning my legs to jelly.
His warm breath tickles my ear pleasantly. “You don’t have to.”
Suddenly, he releases me. I feel cold and weak-kneed as those big arms retreat from me, his body pulling away. He strides ahead of me toward the gym while I try to catch my breath.
His voice is amused when he throws over his shoulder, “Well? You coming?”
“You’re an ass, Mycroft.”
“I’ve only just begun, Princess.”
He makes me jog a few laps around the gym with him to warm up, and then we begin conditioning. Conditioning begins with push-ups and only gets worse from there; he throws soft punches at my arms and abs and has me return the favor. He calls them gentle punches. We are not operating from the same dictionary.
“Oh my God, are we done yet?” I demand, rubbing my sore abs with one hand. “It’s been hours.”
“It’s been twenty minutes.”
“Well, even time must be altered by magic here. Your twenty minutes was definitely two hours for me.”
Then we move out to the mats where he tries to teach me to throw him.
Frowning at my inability to move his mass, he tells me, “You’re going to need to use a softening blow.”
“What’s a softening blow?” At least this instructional moment is a chance to catch my breath, which sounds ragged.
“Something to take your opponent off-balance,” he tells me. “Like stomping on their foot or kicking their shin.”
Those sound like defensive moves for second graders.
“Like a dick punch?” I love Mycroft, but sometimes I could be encouraged to punch him in the dick. If he really wanted me to, I would oblige.
“What is a—” he shakes his head. Right, I’m bringing dirtside to the shiny world of Avalon once again. I shouldn’t do that. Regardless, he seems to have put it all together. “No. That only works on stage. In real life, trying to knee a man there is almost always a mistake. I’ll show you.” He makes a come-here gesture with two fingers.
“You’re saying it’s okay to punch or kick you in the...” I just need some clarity before I go after him.
“I’m saying it’s okay to try.”
He’s insufferable. I fake to the left and then step in close to him, grabbing for his shirt to steady myself at the same time as I drive my knee up between his legs. He twists to the side, and my fingers brush against his hard abs as I try to catch myself, but I’m too late.
Suddenly I’m on my back, staring up at the ceiling, with no clear recollection of how I landed on the mat. The breath’s gone from my lungs, and I gasp.
He drops on top of me, one knee to either side of my waist, but holds his weight off me. “Do you want to try it again?”
Then he boops the tip of my nose with one finger.
I stare up at his handsome, arrogant face and his finger hovering just above my nose. The condescending ass. “Oh, yes, I do.”
By the time Mycroft and I head out of the training area, I’m sore and exhausted. The door bangs shut behind us as a few of the guards’ officers, dressed in t-shirts and shorts instead of their usual all-white garb, head toward us. Mycroft has started my day with bruises before the rest of the castle is even awake.
He rests a big hand on my shoulder and draws me into the warmth of his side. His fingers massage the tension in my shoulders with powerful strokes that ache, but in a good way.
“Good effort today.”
“I notice you don’t say good job.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
He groans, but he keeps on rubbing my shoulders. “I’m not feeling like answering stupid questions, how about that?”
“Rude. I’m just worried about you.”
“Worry about yourself.” He catches the tip of my ponytail and tugs it gently. “I’m all right.”
“I don’t have anything to worry about,” I say lightly. “I have you.”
There’s a second of hesitation.
It’s a second that leaves me feeling lost.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll always be here to kick your ass, Princess.”
“Won’t last long.” My words come out glib.
“I’m sure it won’t.” He hugs me into his side, resting his chin on top of my head, and I wrap my arms around his waist.
Won’t last long.
It feels like a prophecy, like a curse, and the words will echo in my dreams tonight.
Chapter 15
I take a long hot shower, leaning against the cool tile as the water beats down against my shoulders. I feel bone-deep tired, but Penny—despite sleeping through my morning session with Mycroft—seems even more exhausted. She curls up on the long marble counter and falls asleep, her tail draped over her nose.
It’s only when I turn the shower off that I hear someone knocking insistently on the door. While I quickly towel off, they keep on knocking, so I can rest assured it’s some obnoxious, handsome man of mine.
“I’m coming,” I call as I wrap my towel around my chest. “Good grief!”
When I swing open the door, Rian stands there. Maybe it’s because I’m barefoot, but for the first time, I notice how much taller he is than me, although he’s narrow except for broad shoulders, as if he hasn’t quick grown up all the way yet. Today, his brown curls are gelled neatly into place, and he wears an impeccable white button-down shirt and a dark jacket.
I’m staring. “You’re awfully dressy before nine in the morning.”
“Good morning to you too,” he says.
“I thought we moved past good morning when you pounded on my door eleventy billion times.”
“I came to fetch you for breakfast.” His gaze glides over my clavicles, which I know—from Airren’s complaints—jut out sharply. “I can’t abide the thought of you missing a meal.”
I run my hand over my narrow shoulder, knowing what he sees. Although his tone is teasing, there’s pity underneath it, and a sense of humiliation flares in my belly.
Rian is the Crown brought to life, right in front of me. I don’t try to spare his feelings. “I missed a few meals dirtside.”