Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (59)

I coughed, almost splattering her beautiful ensemble with oats.

She smoothed her hands over the loose and gauzy tunic, the crimson material falling over tight-fitted slacks, and looked at Kreed.

Kreed was bowing.

She smiled wider and waved an elegant hand. “Oh, stop and come here.”

The cook straightened and met the female in the center of the room to embrace her. “Glorious as always.”

She tore away, gripping his large upper arms. “Where are the younglings?”

“Likely chasing some of the female staff into the woods until they need to return to prepare lunch.”

My shock faded, but the awe remained as they talked about Kreed’s sons and Mercury, Aura’s wife. This was no ordinary female. She was a queen.

Queen Aura of Oleander, the southern kingdom of Folkyn.

A queen stood mere feet from me, and I hadn’t even realized—hadn’t shown any respect upon her arrival. To make matters worse, Snow snarled when the queen stepped too close to her breakfast bowl.

I hushed her, about to apologize when Aura’s gaze lit, and she crouched before my beastly cub to offer her hand. “Darling,” she said to Kreed. “Why is there a wolf babe in your kitchen?”

“Ask the spawn of the enemy.”

I scowled at Kreed, but he merely began decluttering the island countertop with a smirk.

Snow sniffed Aura’s hand and decided she was no threat, but refused to eat until Aura rose and stepped back.

The queen observed the cub, who’d already nearly doubled in size since I’d found her wounded in the woods, then looked at me as she placed a hand at her hip. “I can see why Florian’s mood is more foul than usual.”

Kreed chuckled. “Tullia has indeed kept him on his toes.”

I would’ve glared at the cook again, but the queen tapped a short nail against her plump and rouge-painted lips. “They say you were a changeling.” Interest had brightened her eyes to an emerald green. “Raised in the grotesque middle.”

I nodded. “I did not know who you were until—”

My attempt at apologizing for not giving the respect owed to a queen was dismissed with a flick of her fingers. “And you’ve no idea what you’ve been dragged into.”

“I’m starting to learn,” I muttered, unable to hide my displeasure at being reminded of my own failings, and unable to keep from adding bitterly, “I was deceived.”

Kreed coughed.

Aura looked at him, an eye narrowed, then back to me. “Indeed. Your anger and self-loathing are delicious.”

Discomfort bit at my words. “Is it that obvious?”

“Darling, you wear it as a perfume.” After a moment of inspecting me thoughtfully, her words softened. “You are so dreadfully young. The art of careful trickery and deception has yet to touch your soul enough to teach you better.”

Those words straightened my spine, a rebuttal forming and failing. I closed my mouth because she was right.

The glint in her eyes still irked.

My stomach then soured, and I clutched a hand over it.

Queen Aura noticed and hummed. She studied Snow when the cub sat at my feet and licked her breakfast from her lips, warning when I made to leave, “I wouldn’t go up there for a while if I were you.”

I frowned and lowered back to the stool.

Kreed groaned. “You refused him again?” His question would have concerned if it weren’t for the fact that Queen Aura was mated and married.

Noting my confusion, Aura laughed. “War, darling. Florian seeks some of our military to sufficiently squash your father.” The queen snatched a strawberry from the bowl Kreed set upon the countertop. Holding it to her crimson mouth, she said flippantly, “But he doesn’t need us, of course.”

“Then why does he seek your assistance?” I couldn’t resist asking.

Aura chewed, licking the fruit from her teeth as she watched me. “Because he is obsessive in his pursuits. There will be no gaps in his armor and not a crumb of opportunity for defeat.” Her green eyes roamed over my fluffy robe before she snatched another strawberry. “Though perhaps that is changing.”

Kreed cleared his throat and shot Aura a look I couldn’t decipher.

She sighed in a way that said he was spoiling her fun. Her gaze twinkled at me. “Another time.”

I watched her leave the same way she’d arrived.

Kreed waited until she was well and truly gone before whispering, “Aura enjoys knowing everyone’s business, Princess.” He shook his head. “But that is all. She never gets involved in anything.”

So that was why she was here when she had no intention of aiding Florian.

I pulled my breakfast back to me, hungry again. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

The look he gave me in return before he left the kitchen was some type of warning. But as my head began to pound, I lost the ability to care about the games of the Fae.





Apparently, Aura had meant it when she’d said we would talk another time.

My wolf cub bounded through the sludge and snow while I tried to shake the foggy residue my midmorning nap had left behind.

I hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but after returning to my rooms to bathe and dress, I’d lain upon the bed to pet Snow, then woke to a gentle tapping upon the door.