I’m approaching a corner when I hear noise coming from the staircase just behind me, and my heart kicks up a notch. I can’t be seen by the guards. It’s not an option.
Picking up my pace, I round the corner, and then I nearly gasp out in relief. Right there, at the end of this short corridor, is the snowflake door.
My hurried steps bring me right to it, and I stop, hesitating. A quick look over my shoulder shows that I’m alone, aside from a lone pillar standing sentry.
I bite my lip as I look at the door.
Do I just...knock?
Nervousness writhes in my stomach all of a sudden, but there’s no turning back now. I rushed over here without letting myself overthink it, but now that my mind has had a chance to catch up, I hesitate.
“Come on, Auren. Just do it,” I mumble to myself in a pep talk.
With a determined breath, I lift my fist to knock, but the door suddenly swings open. I blink in surprise, barely stopping my knuckles from rapping on the metal chest plate now in front of me.
“Rip?”
The black helmet tilts down. “Ah. The little golden girl.”
A wisp of breath leaves me as I realize the voice is all wrong. “You’re not Rip.” I should’ve known the moment he opened the door, but I’m too wound up.
He glances at the spikes along his forearms. “No? Who am I then, my lady?”
I narrow my eyes at his mocking tone. His voice is deep, but it’s not Slade’s, and there is no aura hovering around him. Yet his build and height is the same, and from this close, even the gleam of his spikes looks identical to the real thing.
“No idea. Why don’t you enlighten me?” I reply.
He watches me for a moment and then says, “No, I think not.”
Of course he’s not going to tell me.
I let a little disappointment roll in my eyes. “Right. Can you get Slade for me?”
“Oh, on a first name basis, are we? That’s very informal,” he replies, amusement dancing on the edge of his gravelly tone.
I drop into an exaggerated curtsy and plaster on a smile. “Apologies. May I speak to King Ravinger, Ruler of Fourth Kingdom and Rotter of...Things?”
A jagged chuckle comes from him, but he still doesn’t move out of the way. “You sure you wouldn’t rather pass along your message to me than to talk to the Rotter of Things?”
Irritation huffs out of me, but for a second, I’m worried that Slade doesn’t want to see me. Maybe after our talk in the library, he’s decided to wash his hands of me and told Fake Rip and the others to send me away. “Look, you spiky stand-in, may I speak to him or not?”
“Impatient, aren’t we?”
I grind my teeth. I’m all too aware of those footsteps I heard on the stairs, and I don’t want to get caught right at Slade’s doorstep. “Never mind,” I grumble, feeling deflated.
I start to turn around, but Fake Rip stops me when he says, “I was just messing with you, golden girl.” I eye him as he steps aside, leaving the doorway open. “Go on ahead. He’ll be back shortly.”
My foot pauses in the threshold. “Wait, he’s not even here?”
“No.”
“And...you want me to wait in there? In his private rooms? Without him present?”
Fake Rip shrugs.
Flabbergasted, I shake my head. “You’re a terrible guard.”
“Not a guard,” he counters. “And even if I were, King Ravinger, Ruler of Fourth Kingdom and Rotter of Things, wouldn’t need one.”
Can’t argue that.
He jerks his chin up. “Go on. Unless you want the guards who are about to round the corner to see you.”
My eyes go wide, and I practically leap inside the room before Fake Rip latches the door behind me with a low chuckle. Now alone, I look around the space that’s decorated in deep purples and blues. The ceiling has been painted to look like a snowfall sky, with puffy clouds and snowflakes.
I’m in a small sitting room that has a blue painted desk in the corner. There isn’t a single piece of parchment, book, or quill on top of it, and the chair seems to have been relocated. Several mismatched chairs are bunched together in front of a low burning fire, as if Slade and his guests slid them over to talk together.
Were all the members of his Wrath here? Lu, Osrik, and Judd? I suppose Fake Rip would be considered a member of that as well. But who the hell is he? It has to be someone Slade trusts implicitly to carry this facade. It’s a massive secret pretending to be two different people, and I wonder why he does it. There’s so much about Slade I don’t know.
I remove my coat and let it drape over the back of a chair before I take a seat near the fire. I let my mind spin, but I’m too bunched with nerves to sit still for long, so I get right back up again nearly as fast. I stoke the fire with the iron poker, watching the sparks blink lazily to life, and my gaze wanders over to the inched-open door to my right.
Don’t do it.
I turn away as I put the fire poker back, but I cast another look over my shoulder. Surely it’s no harm if I just take a quick peek?
I’m going to do it.
Just a teeny tiny little look. That’s not weird, right? It’s just a guest room, after all. It’s not as if it’s his actual bedroom.
Before I can talk sense into myself, I walk over to the door, whipping a guilty look behind me first to ensure I’m still alone. The moment I slip inside the bedroom, I’m immediately shrouded in shadow. The windows are covered beneath thick floor-to-ceiling curtains, though I think I see a peek of a balcony door between the two panels.
My shoes skim across the plush carpet, my gaze taking in the black shirt left haphazardly on the ottoman by the fireplace. The bed is swathed in royal blue, with most of the pillows tossed onto the floor, as if they were far too fluffy for Slade’s liking. For someone who sprouts spikes from his skin and who sleeps in an army tent a lot of the time, I guess he’s more accustomed to firm rather than soft.
I head across the room and wander into another open door, because why not? I’ve already come this far.
Inside, I find a dressing room, but instead of each rack being stuffed with clothing and the floor lined with shoes like my own dressing room, this one is pretty empty. There are only a few shirts and pants hanging up, all of them black or dark brown. Some armor is set in a pile in the corner, and there’s also a single pair of boots. But my gaze falls to an alarming number of weapons that are leaning up against the wall.
“That seems aggressive,” I murmur.
What does it say about a male who owns more daggers than shirts? It’s probably not the best idea to sneak into said male’s personal chambers, but here I am.
Just as I turn away, something catches my eye, stuffed at the front corner where I hadn’t noticed before. My gaze latches onto the peek of brown as I slip forward and then shove aside one of Slade’s shirts to have a better look.
As soon as I do, my breath is yanked from my chest like a fist grappled it out of me. I stare at the familiar coat, my fingers running over the dappled feathers and gilded lining. Memory flashes of Slade transforming in front of my eyes for the first time, of me throwing this coat in his face when he called me Goldfinch.
He kept it.
I don’t know when, but he snuck back into those rooms, took this coat, and kept it. My eyes burn and my chest tightens, and for a moment, all I can do is stare at it. Stare and wonder.
With a shaky breath, I turn away and reenter the bedroom, trying to regain my composure. I need to get back into the sitting room, but the sight of that coat has left me reeling.
My dazed eyes drag across the bed, remembering the way he looked when he slept in the army tent, back when we had smoldering coals and a mountain of distrust between us. Closing the distance, I let my fingers trail along his pillow, noting the obvious dip in the feathers and silk where his head must’ve rested. Without thinking, I find myself leaning down to smell it.
Eyes clos
ed, I breathe in Slade’s scent. I hadn’t really considered what he smelled like before, but there’s something very earthen and distinct about it. It reminds me of damp wood chips and churned soil, but something heavier and darker too, like the bitterness of chocolate.
Something in me settles, makes me remember the feel of his hips when I trapped them between my knees on the railing. I breathe in again and my pulse calms, like last night’s troubled tossing and turning is draining out of me.
As if my ribbons are taking a cue from my relaxed state, I feel them loosen and then slip down onto the bed. They start to twirl like dogs rolling around in a scent they like. I can’t even blame them though, because Slade smells delicious.
I take in one more indulgent sniff, but I lean just a little bit too close, and a trickle from the tip of my nose has my eyes snapping open.
Oh, shit.
I flinch backwards, watching in horror as a single golden droplet spreads from where I accidentally brushed up against the pillow. My gloved hands come down in a frenzy as if I can wipe the stuff off, which, of course I can’t.
“No, no, no...”
Since I’m not still touching it with my bare skin, I can’t even control it enough to stop it from turning solid, either. So instead of just infusing the fabric with gilded threads, my magic spreads until the pillow goes completely stiff, the metallic surface reflecting my panicked face.
Within seconds, the silk and feather is now completely gold, solidifying Slade’s head indentation forever, encased in my own idiotic carelessness.
I stare at it for a moment, grimacing at the way it’s now weighing down the bed so much that the mattress has flattened out beneath it, and the bed frame wails an angry creak like it’s threatening to crack.
“Maybe he won’t notice?” I muse, swiping at my nose before I make a fist and lightly knock on the pillow. The bed creaks in protest again.
Alright, yeah. He’s probably going to notice.
At a tug along my back, my attention is pulled away from the pillow statue to see that my ribbons are diving beneath Slade’s blankets like hyper kittens.
“Oh, great Divine,” I mutter as I try to shove them away. They never used to act this way before. It’s like ever since they burst out to attack Slade in the fighting circle, they’ve just taken on a life of their own.
“Get out of his bed!” I hiss, but the damn things are strong. I try to get them off, but they pull right out of my grasp again and continue doing barrel rolls. With an exasperated sigh, I lean over and shove my hands beneath the blankets, grabbing hold of the ribbons like a twenty-four stranded rope.
I start pulling on them when a deep, sensual voice stops me cold. “If I knew you had interest in tangling yourself up in my bed, I would’ve at least had the forethought to be in it already.”
Slade.
Bright side? None. Absolutely none. Because I just turned his pillow solid gold from sniffing it like a lunatic, while he watched my ribbons dive into his sheets like fish in a Slade stream.
Fantastic.
Chapter 28
AUREN
Slade is leaning up against the bedroom wall with one foot kicked up behind him, casual as can be. With his arms crossed in front of his chest and his sleeves rolled up to show off his strong forearms, he looks ridiculously sexy with his ruffled black hair and perfectly molded clothes.
Even with the shadowed light, I can see the amusement in his expression, and I’d be able to appreciate how sizzlingly gorgeous he is if it weren’t for the fact that my face is now flamed with embarrassment.
I just had to sniff the damn pillow.
“Well, I doubt that will be very comfortable to sleep on,” Slade muses.
Snapping out of the shock of being caught, my body jerks upright, and I try to act properly, like I wasn’t just clawing through his bedsheets, though mortification bleeds through my voice. “It was an accident.”
“And the rest of you was rooting around in my bed because…?”
“I was trying to get my ribbons out of your blankets,” I explain, as if that somehow makes this any better.
His eyes fall to my hands where I have the golden lengths bunched in my fists, but the ribbons immediately go limp like I made the whole thing up and they weren’t doing anything at all.
Traitors.
I shove them behind me and cross my arms, trying to gain some semblance of calm, though my heart is pounding hard enough to rattle my ribs.
Creases of light fold in from the gaps between the curtains, casting shards of glowing lines between us. We regard each other in silence for a moment, while my nervous embarrassment grows.
“I’m sorry,” I rush out. “Fake Rip let me in, but I should’ve stayed in the sitting room. It was incredibly rude of me to come in here.”
He tilts his head. “So why did you?”
My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out, because what am I going to say? Well, I just wanted to snoop? That doesn’t seem like a good answer.
When I don’t reply, he says, “You just decided to come in here and rumple up my blankets because you were bored?” His tone isn’t impatient or angry, even though I’ve clearly overstepped. If anything, he’s just amused, though there’s an underlying wariness too. His green eyes seem darker than usual, his shoulders tight with a tension that won’t let go.
The blush on my cheeks burns hotter at his teasing tone. “Are you angry?”
“Very,” he replies steadily, and my heart drops until he adds, “but not with you.”
I swallow hard, unsure how to respond to that.
“What are you doing here, Auren?”
“Here, as in...Ranhold or...?”
I’m stalling. I know it, he knows it, but I can’t seem to help it. Not now that he’s here in front of me.
Mirth flashes across his face. “Here, as in my personal chambers.”
Our conversation from the library replays in my head again. “I...well, I came here to see you.”
He may look relaxed to others, but I’ve paid enough attention to Slade to know that’s not the case. He’s watching me in that intense way of his, like he’s studying every inch, noting every gesture.
“Why?”
I twist my hands into my skirts in a nervous gesture because this is so much harder than I thought. Or maybe I just didn’t really let myself think it through because I didn’t want to chicken out.
“Auren?” he prompts.
He’s always doing that, isn’t he? Prompting me, pushing me, and it’s exactly what I need. But I’m not only hearing him now, I’m hearing him then. When he gave me words and fight and a choice.
Listen to your instincts and stop holding back.
I can’t wait to see the rest of you.
You’re so much more than what you let yourself be.
Do you want to stay?
My throat thickens like I’ve gulped mud, but I manage to look him in the eye. “I’m here because I wanted to say something to you.”
The only indication that I’ve surprised him is in the way he slides his propped-up foot onto the floor, as if he’s bracing himself for what I have to say. “...Alright.”
Before I can lose my nerve, I take a deep breath. “When I was five years old, war came to Bryol, where I lived in Annwyn. It arrived with fire and smoke and death. My parents tried to sneak me out with the rest of the children on the street, but our escorts didn’t last the hour. We were stolen long before we ever reached safety.”
Slade’s attention intensifies, like this was the last thing he expected. Even a part of me is surprised that this is how I’ve chosen to open up. Then again, maybe this is exactly what I needed to say.
“Even though I didn’t have my magic yet, hadn’t even sprouted ribbons from my back, I was too recognizable to be bought by any fae. So, I was smuggled into Orea—I still to this day don’t know how. All I know is, one night I was in Annwyn, and the next, I was here in th
is world where I didn’t belong, where the sky didn’t sing and the sun wasn’t right. I was bought by a man in Derfort Harbor who smelled like alcohol and pipe smoke. A man who taught me how to steal and to beg. That same man who later made me into a street rat saddle, who made sure I opened my legs for any paying customer who wanted a night with the painted girl.”
Slade goes entirely still.
His eyes are trained on me as fierce as a hawk, and that intrusive power of his seems to tremble the air while it cloys forward to press against my skin. Like a feline’s rough tongue come to lick against invisible wounds.
“I didn’t run away until I was fifteen, and then...” My eyes drop down to my gloved hands. “Well. It doesn’t matter. Things didn’t go well for me.”
The first teardrop falls from my eye, the brined water of old hurts turning gilded the moment it slides down my cheek, though I dash it quickly away.
“I’m telling you this so that you can understand. When Midas came along, I was broken. I’d never known a kind touch by a man. I’d never known what love was or even real friendship. I didn’t even know myself yet. I may not have been innocent, but I was naive—unsure of who I was, who I could be.”
Vulnerability pierces me right in my chest, but I know I can’t stop now. Even though I’ve run out of breath, I have to keep on exhaling, keep on purging, or else I’m going to suffocate in my own poison.
I lift a shoulder. “I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. For a long time, I convinced myself that was what love and friendship was, because I didn’t know any better.”
From across the room, I see Slade’s pale throat bob with a hard swallow, the roots of his power twisting around his neck. “And now?” he rumbles.
“Now, I know that I was a girl clinging to my own stagnancy, because I was terrified of being thrown back into the world that had abused me. I couldn’t face the truth that Midas was abusing me too, just in a different way.” My admission is a heavy burden lifting from my tongue, every word weighed down. “If Midas ever loved me at all, he buried it beneath his love for gold and the love for himself. Buried it so deep that he doesn’t even remember what he covered.”
Gleam (The Plated Prisoner Series Book 3) Page 29