Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (29)

It was then I finally felt the cold burn enveloping my feet.

I tore free from his searching gaze and took in our surroundings. We stood in a small clearing within the woods. Trees towered above us, branches bare and any foliage that remained drizzled with snow. “Where are we?”

“Hellebore, of course.”

“It’s so cold.”

“Didn’t your books tell you so?” he drawled, sarcasm soaking each word. “It’s the coldest part of the continent.”

“Books can only tell you so much,” I said, my breath pluming before me. “Some things need to be felt to be truly known.”

“I could not agree more.” He then trudged through the snow toward a waiting carriage.

Horses, as tall as cottages and as dark as night, shifted and huffed from the disturbance our arrival had created. Beside them stood a driver dressed in a blue and black uniform with a matching scarf. His chestnut eyes looked me over once, dismissively, before he looked at his king.

Behind the carriage were more horses, white and just as giant. The five males with them stared at me as though I were a weed in a garden of flowers. A mixture of curiosity and disdain.

Florian took an awaiting black coat from a male with deep-red hair.

I forgot to care about their opinions of me when the king draped the beautiful fur over my shoulders, the sleeves lined with a luxurious wool.

Then he picked me up.

My heart tumbled, my hands unsure where to land and flailing. “I am capable of climbing into a carriage, Majesty.”

“You wear miserable excuses for shoes. They’re already sodden.” He set me inside the large leather and earthy caramel-scented space. A pair of white boots awaited on the floor. On the leather seat, a thick pair of woolen socks.

I blinked at them. “For me?”

“Put them on,” he said. He disappeared, presumably to talk with the males I’d assumed were some of his royal warriors.

I didn’t argue, the shock wearing off and the cold seeping beneath my flimsy cotton dress and ruined slippers.

Florian returned when I’d finished and took a seat beside me.

The leather bench seat spanned the length of the ginormous carriage. His presence, the heat emanating from him, still made me far too aware of every breath I drew.

The carriage lurched forward, taking my stomach with it in a violent dip. Withholding an excited laugh, I pulled the velvet drapes covering the window aside.

Miles of snow and trees stretched beyond. Though peacefully picturesque, the darkness between the trees and the mountains warned of the dangers within. Yet a feeling that alarmed as much as it comforted told me I had nothing to fear with a male more dangerous than a horde of beasts seated beside me.

“I’ve never been in a carriage,” I said to snap free of my thoughts and the growing tension, and to try to slow the pace of my heartbeat at his closeness. I’d have thought the king would materialize us straight to his manor, but I wasn’t about to complain. “Do you usually visit Crustle this way?”

“Your body would not handle materializing over such a vast distance. It takes time to build resistance to the laws of energy that wish to keep things as they are.”

I kept my focus on the wilderness beyond the glass window, all the while knowing he had every inch of it. “Is that why I’ve never ended up far from home?” Each time I’d materialized, I’d found myself in the library at the bottom of our apartment building.

The king didn’t answer.

I could feel his gaze upon me. A weight that called for my full attention. I gave it to him, turning and letting the drapes fall closed.

He watched me for a moment that warmed. “I assume wherever you ended up, you felt safest there.” A statement, but I still nodded. He blinked, then looked behind me to the window. “Yes. Though I’m sure if another place gave you refuge, you’d manage to materialize there just fine, too.”

“No matter the distance?”

His eyes returned to mine, cold and dark. “Distance and energy are no match for desperation.”

Those words hung between us like thawing frosted webs.

I blinked first, my eyes dropping to his chest. He still only wore a light, long-sleeved shirt. Another that revealed a glimpse of his chest. His hands were folded in his lap, his thumb gliding idly across the other.

His soft question brought my eyes back to his. “What happened before you unintentionally materialized somewhere?”

The desire to look away and brush off his question took hold. The knowing darkness to his blue gaze told me lying would be futile.

I adjusted my damp skirts and studied the smooth leather of the boots he’d given me. “I was feeling...” I chewed my lip before settling on, “Overwhelmed, I suppose.”

Florian made a sound of contemplation. “In the young and untrained, the gift of materializing will present itself when one is severely injured, fears for their life, or...” He said with gentle lethality, “Both.”

I swallowed thickly.

“Butterfly,” he urged, low. “Which one was it?”

Rolina’s wailing screams and silent violence threatened to take me back. I wouldn’t go back. I refused to when I was finally going forward. So I said, “Both,” in a tone that conveyed I would say nothing more.

The king didn’t press further. Shifting the drapes aside, I gave my eyes to the landscape once more as we moved through the dense darkness of the woods.