by James Tate
“Shit,” I breathed, “Lee...”
That was all I could seem to articulate as my knees seemed to spread open of their own accord, and his hard length rubbed my throbbing core.
My whole body was flushed with warmth, such a stark contrast to the icy cold I’d been just moments before. The tingling from the wild magic still buzzed my skin, but the sensation of Lee’s skin on mine was what was causing my heart to pound so forcefully I could practically hear it.
Above us, concentrated bolts of magic cracked and lit up the sky, lighting up the barn through the small windows and causing flickers of blue to play across our naked flesh.
Lee paused, his lips still against my neck. “Do you hear that?” he asked, his breath coming in short pants like he was just barely maintaining control.
A reckless part of me wanted to see what would happen if that control snapped.
What he’d do to me...
“Calla,” he murmured in my ear, even as his lips caressed my lobe and made me sigh. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I mumbled back, my fingers exploring his muscular back. All I could hear were the cracks of lightning and the thunder of rain on the roof we were so close to.
“That banging,” he persisted, pushing up on his elbow and cocking his head to the side. Now that he mentioned it, I could hear something banging over the sound of the storm. I wasn’t likely to admit it out loud, but I’d thought that was the sound of my pulse thundering.
Seconds later, the source of the banging was revealed as the door—which Lee had jammed shut—flew open with a crack, slamming into the barn wall and letting the howling wind and rain flood the barn.
From where we were in the loft, we had a prime view of the broad, cloaked, masculine figure stepping inside, and I stifled a scream of fright.
7
“Lo?” Ty called out, and I sagged with relief.
“Dammit, Ty, you scared the shit out of me!” I yelled down at him, clutching my blanket closed and crawling to the edge of the loft to see him better.
He pushed his hood back and craned his neck to look up at me. “Are you naked right now?”
“Yes,” Lee replied for me, approaching the edge of the loft with his blanket tucked just around his waist. His smug tone wasn’t lost on me, so I whacked him in the abs with the back of my hand. “What?” he asked me, his face a picture of innocence.
“You know what,” I murmured back to him with a warning glare.
And to think, I’d had Zan pegged as the possessive one.
“Zan’s not far behind me,” Ty told us. “You might want to get dressed before the ladies and their maids turn up and see you like this.” He waved a gloved hand at the two of us, and I couldn’t be sure if he meant the compromising position we were in or Lee’s lack of a mask. Neither one would be good, though.
Lee muttered a curse to Sal—our god of fate—and quickly slid down the ladder. “Wait there,” he called up to me, then hurried back to the wash stall where we had hung our clothes.
There was no way they could have dried so quickly, and I cringed at the thought of putting on cold, wet clothes.
“You okay, Lo?” Ty asked, and I nodded. Looking down at him in his black cloak, mask, and gloves, he was an impressive figure. It was no wonder I’d gotten a fright when he first broke the door open.
“Just cold,” I replied. “We found a shower-type setup to rinse the rain off, but it wasn’t exactly royal palace plumbing.”
Ty grinned, but it held an edge of anger—or jealousy. “Looked like Lee was keeping you warm. Lucky bastard.”
I didn’t really know what to say back to that, so I just nodded awkwardly. Aana’s tits, how had I ended up in this situation? Lee’s words echoed in my mind about him not bowing out for his older brothers. Was that going to cause problems?
“Calla, your clothes are still soaked,” Lee shouted as he returned to us, pulling his shirt on. It looked pretty wet itself, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. “Ty, did the carriages make it?”
“Yeah, we managed to move the fallen trees and get past. The rain has stopped but the lightning is still striking, so we figured it’d be safest to get here for better shelter.” He looked around the barn and nodded to our horses that Lee had tied to a post. “Looks like you didn’t manage to wash the magic off quick enough.”
I followed his line of sight and snorted a laugh. My beautiful silver mare was spotted with lavender dots all over her rump, while Lee’s black gelding was sporting some rather interesting rabbit ears.
“Damn, I thought I’d rinsed them off pretty well,” Lee sighed. “Hopefully it really does wear off quickly. You okay?” This was directed at his brother, who shrugged.
“Of course. We still have our own magic, so it doesn’t affect us like that, remember?” Ty grinned broadly at Lee, taking in his wet clothes. “You forgot. Hah, you idiot.”
Lee scowled back at him and muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch.
“Hey guys? Not to break up the fun, but I’m still naked up here.” I intended it as a reminder that I needed clothes, but the look they both gave me said they’d taken it in quite a different light. “Clothes, boys. I need something to wear. Just throw up my wet stuff; it can’t be too bad.”
“No way,” Lee responded with a stubborn tilt to his chin. “I’m not being held responsible for you catching your death of cold. Just stay wrapped up in those blankets, and we can get you dry stuff when the carriages get here.”
I huffed, but it did sound reasonable. “So, wild magic doesn’t affect you guys?” I asked, burning with curiosity. “Why is that?”
Lee nodded to Ty to answer me while he replaced his mask and buttoned his sodden shirt.
“Because we still have our own magic,” Ty explained, folding his arms over his chest as he looked up to me in the loft. “Instead of the wild magic acting as random-selection spells when it soaks into us, it is more of a boost. We just absorb it, and for the next day or so it’s like we’re almost buzzing with extra power.”
His phrasing made me pause, but I dismissed it as a metaphor rather than the literal buzzing my skin had taken on.
“How do you know this? It seems like a risky thing to just work out by trial and error,” I commented, absently scratching at my tingling arms.
Ty grinned. “Not the first time I’ve been caught in a storm.” He glanced over his shoulder and out into the dark. “Here they come.”
The two of them held the barn doors wide open, and the supply carriage containing our maids and several ladies clattered in moments later. There wasn’t enough room for the other two smaller carriages carrying Sagen and Gracelin to enter as well, so they parked outside and several of the guards helped them into the barn.
A quick survey of everyone suggested we’d only lost the two guards I’d seen hit by lightning, plus several horses, which probably just got lost when their riders took cover in the carriages.
The horses that remained all had some very minor side effects, much like my own mount’s purple spots, but several guards sported some interestingly colored skin.
“Luna,” Zan called out softly, having stopped his horse directly under where I stood in the loft, wrapped in my blanket. “Are you okay?”
“Totally fine, Your Highness,” I replied with a tight smile, paranoid someone would overhear our casual interaction and out us for... what exactly? Having an affair? The whole point of these trials was to result in a royal marriage. So would it really be so frowned on?
Probably not. But it would make me a pretty big target for anyone who was ambitious enough to off her competition.
“Are you sure?” he pressed, his voice just barely loud enough for me to hear, “No lingering effects from the rain? I see my brother was more interested in taking advantage of the situation than seeing to your well-being.”
I shook my head, ignoring his jealous swipe at Lee and focusing on his question about the rain. As much as I wanted to shrug it off, f
ear was gnawing at my belly about what the wild magic might be doing to me, so I couldn’t outright lie to him. “Just a weird sort of tingling under my skin. Nothing major, and it’s probably from the cold more than anything.”
Zan’s lips tightened, but I couldn’t make out his expression under his mask. Before he could say anything more, Sagen strutted over to us with a sneer on her face.
“Oh look, Callaluna spends less than an hour alone with Prince Louis and she’s already naked. Talk about desperate. Promiscuity isn’t a very attractive quality in a future queen, but what would you know?” She curled her lip in disgust as she peered up at me, and I sighed.
Zan cast a quick, pissed off glance up at me, then swung down off his horse and grabbed her by the arm—somewhat less gently than one might expect. “Tone it down, Sage,” I heard him growl at her quietly. “I’m getting seriously tired of listening to your shit. You’re taking it too far, and I’m starting to think you’re enjoying it.”
“Maybe if you were less obvious in your favoritism, I wouldn’t have to overcompensate,” she hissed back at him, and I frowned in confusion. What the hell did she mean, overcompensate? Was she implying that this was all an act?
I made a mental note to squeeze answers out of one of the princes later.
Zan said something more to her, but it was too quiet to make out, before she jerked her arm from his grip and stormed off to where the other ladies had all gathered.
“Ry—uh, my lady!” Jules called out, flapping her hand at me to get my attention. “Did you need fresh clothes?” She eyed my naked shoulders poking out from the top of my blanket with a knowing smirk, and I nodded.
“Yes, thanks,” I called back, shivering under my blanket despite the buzzing magic all over me.
Zan’s hushed conversation with Sagen had just added to the million and one things on my mind, and if I was being totally honest with myself, the tingling under my skin was really worrying me.
I would need to get one of the princes alone to press for more answers. Perhaps when everyone was asleep.
* * *
As it turned out, by the time we had managed to get everyone situated in the hay loft, I was too tired to try and interrogate anyone. The rain had started up again with even more intensity, but I somehow found it soothing. So soothing that within moments of lying down in my straw nest beside Jules, I was asleep.
When I woke again, it was daybreak and everyone was already flitting around getting the horses hitched back to carriages and bags packed to set out once more.
I yawned heavily, stretching the kinks from my neck before picking my way over the few remaining sleeping ladies. Halfway down the ladder from the loft, I paused and peered at my hand on the rung in front of me. The buzzing was still there. Not as badly as it had been the day before, but still noticeable.
As far as I could tell, I still had all my body parts in the right places and hadn’t sprung a tail or a second head. Maybe I’d been lucky this time.
“Good morning, Lady Callaluna,” one of the guards greeted me as my foot touched the barn floor, and I turned to give him a polite smile. “Would you care for some food? We have breakfast prepared outside.”
I nodded, my stomach twisting in hunger. Just outside the barn, several guards had started a fire and were toasting slices of bread covered with cheese. Delicious.
They all greeted me politely, and I returned the sentiments as I sat down on a log beside Ty. Or rather, given that his mask was securely in place, Prince Thibault.
“Where are the owners of this farm?” I asked him, nodding to the main house, which still looked securely boarded up. “Shouldn’t we be apologizing for crashing in their barn? Or leaving them some money or... something?”
Ty handed me a freshly cooked cheese sandwich and reached up to pluck straw from my hair. “No one home. We checked it out as soon as the storm passed, but it doesn’t look like anyone has been here for a while.”
“Huh.” I frowned. “I wonder what happened to them.”
He shrugged, taking another piece of straw from my hair and dropping it on the ground. “It’s been happening a lot. People just disappearing with no reason.”
“Oh, uh, I know something about that,” I blurted out before remembering that the guards really shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. “I mean, um, yes, I heard the rumors about that also. About, er, people disappearing.”
My awkward babbling had drawn the attention of the soldiers sitting around the fire with us, and they were all staring at me like I was having a mental break. Or worse, like I was an airheaded ditz.
Ty looked like he was fighting back a smile, so I narrowed my eyes at him in a glare.
The other ladies all came out one by one to get their breakfast, and before long we were all mounting up, ready to continue our journey.
My ass was hating on me like it never had before, so it was with gritted teeth that I hauled myself up into my mare’s saddle.
“Hey, Ty—er, I mean,” I cleared my throat to cover my blunder before anyone noticed. “Your Highness, Prince Thibault.” I put a little too much emphasis on his name, and Lee snickered a laugh from his horse beside me. We were just slowly making our way back down the long driveway, and I was wincing with every step my horse took.
“Yes, Lady Callaluna?” Ty responded, dropping back to ride on my other side.
“Thank you for my horse,” I whispered, giving him a small smile. “Does she have a name?”
He smiled back at me. “You’re welcome. And no, not yet. I figured you could name her yourself.”
“Hmm,” I pondered. I never had been particularly good at naming things. “I have no ideas,” I admitted.
“What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you look at her?” Lee suggested.
“Cat,” I replied honestly and shrugged. “When I was younger, there was this stray cat that sort of adopted me as his human. He had fur that looked a bit silver in some lights...” I trailed off, feeling foolish. How could I really explain what it was like to have nothing and no one, and then this little mangy animal turns up one day and starts showing unconditional love because I’d fed it once?
“And... his name was Cat?” Lee asked, seeking clarity from my rambling story.
I nodded. “It seemed like he liked it.”
“Um, it’s certainly an original name for a horse,” Lee commented, glancing across me to Ty like he was checking if that’s what we were settling on.
“Cat,” Ty repeated, his voice flat. He raised a brow at me, then down at my horse. “Cat it is.”
One of the ladies trotted her horse up to join us, batting her lashes and smiling sweetly at Ty. “Prince Thibault, I don’t think we’ve had a chance to properly converse,” she gushed in a sweet, girly voice, “I’m Lady Viola.”
“Of Wintergreen, yes I’m aware,” Ty gave her a tight smile, but his fingers tightened on his reins. Curiously, none of the princes wore their gloves today, and it was the first time I’d seen them in prince-mode without them.
Ty’s index finger sported his royal crest ring, and I smiled to myself as I remembered when they’d saved me in the alleyway after Flick was arrested. They still didn’t know it was the first time we’d met.
Lee and I exchanged a glance and casually sped our horses up, leaving Ty and Lady Viola behind to converse. I hadn’t really had much interaction with her so far, but she was always lurking around with Gracelin and Sagen, so if I was totally honest, I had no interest in getting to know her better.
“It’s not much farther to the town of Wakefield,” Lee told me when we got a few horse lengths ahead of his brother. “We had rooms booked there last night, but that storm threw off our schedule a bit.”
“And that’s where this quest is meant to start?” I asked, abesntmindedly. As much as I wanted to pretend otherwise, my mind dwelled on what Ty and Viola were talking about. She was crazy pretty and clearly from good breeding. What if she was actually smart and funny? Worse, what if she
was nice? Would Ty be interested and decide that this unhealthy situation with me and his two brothers was too much hard work and heartache?
“We can go back and eavesdrop if you want, Calla,” Lee offered with a slight chuckle, and my face heated.
“That obvious?” I murmured, my body crawling with embarrassment.
Lee gave a small shrug, his fingers tightening on the reins and making the leather creak. “A little bit. Probably only to me, though.” He stared at me for a tense moment, then sighed. “Can we talk about what happened?”
I tensed. “Last night?” My mind cast back to how close we’d come to having sex—proper, uninterrupted sex—before Ty and the ladies had turned up and killed the moment. Suddenly my face was heating for a whole different reason, and my nipples hardened.
“No.” Lee shook his head. “I mean after the ball. You chose Zan…”
He trailed off, looking upset, and I shook my head vigorously. “No, I didn’t.”
Lee frowned at me in clear confusion, and I rolled my eyes in exasperation. I’d known I would have to explain this at some stage, so why not now? At least we were far enough away from everyone else we wouldn’t be overheard.
“I didn’t choose Zan. I chose Prince Alexander, the arrogant, sarcastic, stuck-up prick of a royal twat who had promised to use me up and throw me aside like last night’s chicken bones.” I raised my brows at Lee, begging him to understand.
Lee just twisted his lip in disgust. “He said that to you? I ought to smack some manners into him.”
This made me snort a laugh, then cover it with my hand. This was a serious discussion and no time for giggling. “Not in those words, but the implication had been there. He said he would ruin me, and I sort of thought…” I flapped a hand and trailed off. I didn’t want to say it out loud.
Thankfully, Lee knew me well enough that I didn’t need to.
“You thought that by picking Prince Alexander, you were sabotaging anything going on with us.” The way he said us, I knew he meant all of us, not just he and I. “You thought that he was a big enough asshole to fuck you, even though your heart wasn’t in it. And that the three of us tutors would feel cheated on, betrayed, and ultimately decide you weren’t worth the drama.”