by Everly Frost
Her dress swishes against the floor as she approaches, dropping to her knees in front of me. “I know, Aura. You have more reason to hate the Fell than any of us.” She places a gentle finger under my chin so that I’ll lift my eyes to hers. “I’m sorry that I pushed you away, dear. I was in shock. I needed time to think.”
“I will always watch over you,” I say. “No matter what happens.”
She gives me a faint smile. A gentle nod. “You disappeared this evening. I was worried about you.”
All of her statements are so gentle and yet so loaded, ready to explode in my face.
I don’t even blink. “With the fight ahead of me, I wanted to make amends with Crispin of the Dawn. He and I didn’t part on good terms when I left to become champion.”
“Ah, yes.” She nods. “He never approved of your loyalty to me. Even with his wife’s death, he didn’t understand the struggles you went through. He never knew your heart like I do. You and I emerged from that fire forged into the women we are today.”
She places her upturned palm under my forearm as she rises, urging me to my feet. Her question is light as she turns away. “What did you and Crispin talk about?”
I choose an answer as close to the truth as possible. “The cabin was dark when I got there. I suspect he was home, but I guess he didn’t want to see me after all.” I allow bitterness to fill my mouth, even though my feelings are about her betrayal, not Crispin’s. “All those years raising me seem to have meant nothing to him.”
“That’s a shame, Aura. At least you and Evander have remained friends.”
She glides to the far closet as I wait for her to speak again. I thought I’d learned to interpret her moods. I thought I knew her. But now, every move she makes, every gentle inflection of her voice and brush of her gaze over me, reminds me of her deception.
“I was wrong to keep you at a distance this afternoon,” she says. “I want to make it up to you.”
She returns holding a teal-colored dress. The bodice is barely more than two cups held together with sheer lace that dips across the cups and crosses the midriff. Two thin straps across the shoulders drop down at the back, the bodice joining a long, full skirt made of sheer tulle with a very high slit up the right leg. Diamonds and flower petals adorn the lace across the top and down one side. The skirt is ombre—teal brightening into turquoise at the bottom.
“I want you to wear this tonight,” Imatra says, smiling sweetly at me.
My lips part in surprise. “It’s beautiful.”
There’s also nothing to it. I’d be more protected if I were wearing my underwear. Before tonight, I would have seen the dress as an innocent gift. Now, I wonder why? After all the years of protecting her, all the Balls to which I’ve simply worn my armor, why is she offering me a dress now?
She pushes it toward me, urging me to take it, before she turns away to her dresser, retrieving a small box. “I want you to have this as a token of my affection.”
I fold the dress carefully over one arm as she holds the box out to me.
It has a glass lid just like Crispin’s.
A violet rose lies inside it.
The soft smile on my face doesn’t falter. My real thoughts fly high where she won’t know them, where they won’t show, where she won’t hear my soundless scream.
She has given me a poisoned rose.
It’s a message. She knows that I lied about speaking with Crispin. She knows that I know about the boys who died.
Now we will play a fragile game, a charade that masks our true feelings.
I press my hand over my heart. “Oh, my queen. One of your precious roses. You’ve never given me…”
Tears gather in my eyes. Tears that will appear as gratitude, but inside, I’m breaking. All the years I gave my life to her are turning to dust beneath my feet and she’s trampling through the wreckage.
“It’s one of my favorites,” she says. “Imbued with all the courage you’ll need for the days ahead.”
“I don’t know how to thank you…” I take the box and hold it to my chest for a moment before I awkwardly brush away the tears from my cheeks. “I love it.”
“I know you do, Aura.”
Before I can turn away, she reaches out for me. “Aura. One more thing.”
“Yes, my queen?”
“I would like your advice, please. I’ve ruled Bright for a hundred years. It’s time for me to consider my line of succession.”
My smile fades—just like it should. “You’ll rule a hundred more. I promise you—”
“I know.” She hurries to squeeze my arm. “I know I will, but I need to think about the future. I don’t have any children and… it’s time to change that.”
Our conversation so far has been a dance. Steps carefully taken, but I don’t know what music we’re dancing to now. She’s never spoken about children before.
“The father of my children will have to be strong. The strongest male fae. That way my daughters will be powerful.” Her hand tightens on my arm. “You’ve watched over my lands for seven years. You’ve trained many of my guards. You’ve lived among the people. Who is the strongest man, Aura?”
Evander. She means Evander.
“My brother,” I say. She will know that any other answer is a lie. She already knows he’s the strongest.
“I thought so.” She presses her lips together as she sidles closer, lowering her voice. “But I heard…” She clears her throat delicately. “Well… there were rumors…”
I manage to speak. “There’s nothing between us.”
She smiles, pulling back. “Good. Because I would hate to break your heart, dear one.”
“Your happiness is all that’s important to me,” I say, smiling into her cruel, deceptive eyes.
She leans in and presses a cold kiss to my cheek. “You do understand, don’t you, Aura? As long as the human remains at your side, you can’t guard me.”
“Of course, my queen. I’ll keep him away from you.”
She pulls back, her sharp fingers releasing my shoulders. “Thank you, dear.”
My expression hardens as I spin on my heel to glare at Nathaniel. I jerk my head toward the door. “Out.”
Imatra sighs. “At least he’s obedient.”
He stops at the door, as if he’s about to say something, but anything he says right now could start a fire.
“Open it,” I bark.
He swings open the door fast enough that my order sails into the corridor outside.
“Now walk,” I order him. “Keep your eyes down. If you look up, I will hurt you. Go back to your room, where you will face the wall.”
He glares at me before he strides straight into the corridor, his first sign of rebellion.
Mia backs away from the door as we emerge, flicking her indigo hair behind her shoulder as she watches me with interest.
Nadina leans against the wall behind her with a broad smile on her face. “I told you.”
Mia plants her hands on her hips at me. “Tamed the beast, did you, Aura?”
“This creature?” I ask. “He’s far too clever for his own good. He’s simply waiting to stab me in the back. But we all know what happens to anyone who tries to do that.”
I give them a cold smile, satisfied to see the color drain from their faces. I breeze past them toward Nathaniel’s room. Now more than ever, I know that I should have killed Calida today. If I had, nobody would have stepped within a mile of me. Nadina would have brought the entire Day Guard to escort me to the palace today. They’ve forgotten what my power looks like and now it’s like I’m wearing shackles around my strength, keeping me tame.
Kicking the door closed with my boot, I cause a loud enough bang to make it sound like I’m in the mood for violence.
All I really want to do is scream.
I gasp for breath as I hold the box tightly while I fling the dress across the room onto the bed as far away from myself as I can pitch it. I place the box carefully on top of the chest of
drawers and then I back away from it.
Nathaniel watches me carefully. “You need to tell me whether these walls are thin.”
“They’re soundproof. This is the Queen’s sex room. She likes to be noisy.”
He blinks as if I just slapped him sideways, but he shakes it off quickly. “Okay then. Nobody can hear us. Good to know. Guess that’s why someone tried to kill me in here.” He shakes his head again, refocusing. “Talk to me.”
“I’ll talk to you when you start talking to me.”
A muscle in his jaw tenses. “I can’t tell you who I am.”
“Why not?”
“Because then you won’t trust me at all.”
“But I don’t, Nathaniel. I don’t trust you. I can’t even trust my own people right now, let alone a human.”
He advances on me. “If you didn’t trust me, you wouldn’t have curled up and cried next to me. Now talk to me.”
My face falls—then blazes with embarrassment. “You were awake.”
“I was awake and I don’t regret a moment of it.” He continues without pause. “Aura. Dammit. What just happened in there? She smiled at you the whole time, but it’s clear she wants you dead.”
She does. And I don’t really understand why.
I realize that trying to bargain with Nathaniel just now was a stalling tactic on my part—I’m afraid to speak the truth aloud because that forces me to face reality.
“She made it clear… that if I lose the fight with you, your people won’t be my biggest problem,” I say. “She threatened everyone I love. That flower is poisonous. She sent one just like it to Crispin. She wants to corner Evander and crush him, and once she does, he’ll never be free. She wants me to feel exposed and vulnerable, unable to protect anyone I love.”
I rage over to the dress, pick it up and scrunch its flimsy material in my fists, wanting to rip it apart. “This dress! I’ve never worn anything like it before. It turns me from a warrior into a whore. Any number of sycophants will try to approach me tonight. This dress is an open invitation for them to paw all over me with the Queen’s blessing. All they want is the Queen’s favor and I’ll be a ripe target.”
He’s quiet for a moment and I guess he’s processing everything I just dumped on him.
“Let me see it.” He eases my bloodless fingers away from the dress before he smoothes it out, running his fingers across the barely-there material.
A slow, lazy smile grows on his face as he studies the lace, the narrow waist, and the high slit.
“Aura… this dress is a weapon.” He meets my eyes. “Trust me, if you wear this, you’ll control every man in the room. She gave you this dress to make you feel exposed and weak, but she’ll regret it.”
“She will?”
“Dark stars, Aura.” The husky timber of his voice and the intensity in his gaze make me shiver. “She’ll wish she never tried to mess with your head.”
I can’t shake off my skepticism as I take the dress from him.
“Wait,” Nathaniel calls as I head to the bathroom “I think I saw…”
He dives toward the closet and rummages through it for a moment before he procures two items of feminine clothing that don’t deserve the term ‘underwear.’
“You’ll need these.”
The bra has multiple translucent straps and barely any coverage. The underpants even less so. They’re both black.
I snatch them from him. “Fine, but only because I don’t have a choice.”
I peel off my armor inside the bathroom while Nathaniel leans against the doorframe, not even bothering to avert his eyes as I strip down to my underwear. He wears an expectant expression, as if he’s impatient to see the proof of his theory.
Wrapping a towel around myself, I manage to remove my underclothes and replace them with the black contraptions he handed me. He’s seen me naked—at least I’m pretty sure he looked—but this feels different. Since then, I’ve cried on his shoulder and breathed in the air across his lips.
My cheeks flush as I reach for the dress, planning to pull it over the top of the towel before I ease the cloth out from under it.
The towel slips. Right off.
So does the impatient mask Nathaniel’s wearing.
Left standing in nothing but the skimpy underwear, I hurry to pull on the dress, yanking it over my head so hard that I nearly rip the lace before I reach for the clasps at the side to do it up.
Once I’m done—and as clothed as I’m going to get—I consider myself in the mirror. An unhappy murmur builds. I don’t see what he sees, but maybe I just need some color on my face…
Taking a chance, I pull open the drawers beneath the bathroom sink, happy to find them full of powders and creams. Choosing several, I lean forward over the sink toward the mirror to pat powder on my cheeks and carefully dab color onto my lips with my forefinger.
When I look up, Nathaniel is fixated on the curve of my hips as I lean forward, his gaze raking up over my frame to my finger pressed to my upper lip.
“Dark stars,” he whispers.
Before I know what he’s doing, he strides toward me, ripping off his shirt and discarding it on the floor. He spins me to face him, sweeps one strong arm under my backside, and lifts me up against him.
I gasp in a heated breath. My startled eyes meet his a second before he propels me back onto the bathroom sink, his movements sure and strong as he slides me onto the table, hooks one of my legs around his hips, and tips me backward. One arm supports my back while his other hand sweeps up under the slit of my skirt. His calloused palm runs the length of my thigh in one sure sweep from my knee all the way to my hip.
The sensation is so intense that I gasp and grip his chest. My responses are purely instinctive, my back arching, my hips rocking.
I inhale. Sink into the caramel scent of his skin and drag his body closer to mine, a moan escaping my lips. His naked skin beneath my hands is intoxicating, his muscled arms both a threat and a promise, but it’s only the promise that burns away at me.
I need him to crush his lips against mine.
He tilts his head, his mouth lowering, his lips whispering across my cheek.
His fingers curl behind my neck, and then, just as suddenly, he holds me there, fixing me onto that spot.
“This, Aura,” he says, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He refuses to bring his mouth closer, remaining far enough away that I can read his focus: me. “Remember this when you walk down the stairs in this dress. This feeling belongs to you. You control it. You can give it or take it away as you please.”
He pulls me upright, slipping his arms away from me so rapidly that I can’t stop him. He’s already turning his back on me and striding across the bathroom by the time I take a breath.
My heart is in my throat as he picks up his dropped shirt and walks away from me to the bathroom door.
No matter what he says, I refuse to believe that this feeling is mine alone, that it was a purely physical action for him, like taking off his shirt and putting it on again. It can’t be. The way his breathing caught, the way he dragged me against him…
I slip my feet to the floor, my toes curling against the cool marble like it’s the first time I’ve touched it. My thigh still tingles, and my lips are parted with quickly indrawn breaths. I take my first certain step since putting on my new clothes, my hips swaying. A glance in the mirror tells me that my hair is tousled, my cheeks flushed, and my eyes are not so dull anymore.
I whip my hair up into a messy bun, securing it with pins from the bathroom drawer, allowing a few strands to fall across my nearly-bare shoulders. The bra has pushed my bust up so that the inner third of my breasts are visible and the lace pulls in at my waist before the skirt falls across my hips, one leg peeking through the high slit.
I find Nathaniel leaning against the doorframe again. Throwing my head back, I smile at him, casting him a glance from beneath my eyelashes. “You’re right. This dress is a weapon and I plan to use it.”
; Sauntering past him, I rifle through the closet under his watchful eye and hand him a pair of long, black pants and a one-size-too-small short-sleeved black shirt that will stretch over the contours of his chest and wrap around his muscular biceps.
“I don’t need social armor,” he says when I offer him the clothes. “The Bright Ones already think I’m wicked.”
“Yes,” I say, unable to contain my wild, reckless intentions. “But this way we’ll look like we’re together. That will really drive Imatra crazy.”
Nathaniel just opened a locked box inside me that I never knew existed. I’m not sure if he intended to swing it open so wide, but—so help me—I’m walking through it.
Chapter 19
The way the Queen’s Tower is situated isn’t an accident. This is the one night of the year when the elite in Bright are invited into her Inner Sanctuary. The staircase is designed for maximum impact as she glides down each step to the applause of the high-ranking fae waiting below.
She’s surrounded by a handful of select Day and Night Guards—including Nadina. I was instructed to bring up the rear, but it doesn’t bother me, since it leaves Nathaniel free to walk beside me.
The Sanctuary is packed with fae of both major classes—Sunstream and Eventide—some of them milling about, others sitting at the couches and tables that have been brought in. The side wall has been opened up to expand the room all the way out to the top of the steps leading down to the Spinning Lake. The walls sparkle with lights and the drinks are already flowing.
When Imatra reaches the bottom step, she lifts her voice. “Thank you, my darlings. Tonight we celebrate all things bright!”
She floats into the crowd, her laughter ringing out across them.
The onlookers focus on her and I can already see them maneuvering. Which one will get to her first, I wonder?
As I reach the bottom step, Nathaniel brushes the back of my arm, and it feels like a warning. I pause, carefully turning my head to look up at him as he draws close to me. The clothing I chose for him makes him look even larger than he is, the material pulling across his chest and thighs, accentuating the dark flecks in his eyes.