As though I were wearing my thoughts, he smirked and walked to the stairs. “Just wait until tonight. I’ll take you myself.”
I had half a mind to say no and go without him.
“Leave, and I’ll tie you to my bed to torture you for every minute you made me spend hunting you down.” He paused before reaching the stairs, a look thrown over his shoulder that made my blood dance in my veins. “And sweet, I would love nothing more than to blemish your silken skin with my hands and teeth.”
I stood there in shock, uncertain if I was worried or aroused.
Aroused, I determined as I looked at the doors with an almost unbearable desire to see just how long it would take him to find me.
We didn’t materialize, and I was grateful.
I didn’t want to miss the journey downhill into the city, no matter how dark and cold it had grown. Though it seemed I was not permitted to roam far either.
The king pulled me back with a look that said to wait as he rounded the carriage to talk with the driver.
I looked up at the night sky, the breeze a chilled kiss upon my cheeks. Smoke rose from chimneys toward the stars. The building beside me was slumbering, as were most others in the street.
I was led down an alleyway so narrow, my arms almost brushed the damp stone as I trailed the king to a door in the deep dark. He opened it, and I bumped against his coat-covered bulk in the tight space. “After you.”
I looked through the door to the sconces glowing on either side of a steep set of stairs. “Where are we going?”
“Dinner.” Noting my confusion, perhaps even my dismay, he asked dryly, “Problem?”
The right answer would be no.
The smart thing to do would be to smile sweetly and descend those stairs. But as I glanced down the alleyway to the awaiting carriage on the street, I couldn’t ignore the twinge of disappointment.
I couldn’t keep from answering honestly, “Actually, yes.”
“You’re not hungry?” Florian asked with puckered brows. “I know you didn’t eat lunch.”
Olin was a rotten tattletale.
Truth be told, my appetite was waning more and more each day. Likely due to a different hunger that was building with a near-painful impatience that stole my sleep each night.
But I didn’t dare inform him of that. “I could eat,” I said carefully, then, “but I wanted to visit the city for a reason, Florian.”
I had hoped the use of his name would help lessen how much I was offending him by making him aware his efforts were not what I desired.
The king stared at me for a worrying moment. The frosted air around us began to bite. Finally, he blinked. “This is about your family.”
I nodded.
He licked his lips, then sighed. “I do have news. We’ll discuss it over dinner.” Again, he gestured for me to enter the stairwell.
Gazing up at him, the light misting of dark hair that fell over one of his eyes, I struggled to keep from demanding that he tell me such news right this instant, for he should have certainly already told me. It was part of our agreement, and he was well aware of my desperation to discover all I could.
I reminded myself that it didn’t matter how reverently he touched me—and how he made me wish he would touch me more—the male I was becoming grossly attracted to was still a king.
And I was to be nothing but grateful for what he deigned to provide me.
We climbed down to a surprisingly warm restaurant.
A female stood behind the bar made of glass, bottles of liquor aglow on the shelves behind her. Rounding the bar, she curtsied and brushed her hands upon her apron. “Florian,” she said brightly.
I frowned at her casual address of him.
Florian smiled in a way I’d only seen a small number of times, real and warm. “Jessilba, thank you for accommodating us on such short notice.”
“No need to thank us. It’s always a pleasure.” She gave me a curious once-over while tucking her golden hair behind her pointed ear, then said, “We’ve readied your table. This way.”
We were escorted to a round metal table surrounded by circular booth seats. An entrée of some type of fish and a decanter of wine already awaited.
Florian made sure I was seated comfortably upon the rich brown velvet before settling opposite me. Jessilba waited, then reached for the wine. He stopped her. “I’ll do it, thank you.”
A dismissal, for the faerie smiled and dipped her head. “Your meals will be ready shortly.”
I studied the rock-hewn walls adorned with brass sconces and gilded paintings of the sea. “What is this place?”
Florian sniffed the wine twice. “One of the best seafood restaurants in the city. A hidden gem, if you will. It was my father’s favorite place to take us for many years.” He poured a small glass, then lifted it to his nose to sniff again.
“Yet you believe they might poison you?”
“I believe nothing until it is proven,” he said so flippantly, it made the slight ache in my head worsen. “And eons of history have proven it’s wise to always be cautious, no matter how much any creature or place provides comfort.”
Staring at the glass of golden wine he gently set before my empty plate, I wondered what had made him so rigidly cautious. He was a male of great power who ruled a kingdom of Folkyn. Perhaps it was because of his position that he felt he had to be.
I understood little regarding politics, nor had it ever interested me, but I did know that those in positions such as he did not keep them by being anything other than unapologetically ruthless.
“Comfort,” I said, mulling over the word as I lifted the wine to my mouth. The king watched me take a small sip, his eyes upon my lips when I licked them. “I don’t know if such a thing truly exists.”
“It does,” he said, his eyes rising to mine. “And it kills.”
I held his gaze as those words blistered, questions turning through my mind. I was about to ask the most important one, regarding this news of my family, when he unbuttoned his coat collar and asked, “Is this your first time drinking wine?”
“No,” I said, thinking back to the time I’d indulged my curiosity over Rolina’s preferred method of escapism. “My guardian drank a lot. Sometimes, she’d fall asleep and leave some left over.” My limbs tightened at the memory. “There wasn’t enough left to fill half a glass, but she still noticed.” I took another sip to give myself something to focus on—something to keep me from falling prey to another memory. “She was furious.”
“She hurt you.” The low words were not a question.
I still nodded, for he’d already guessed as much. I set the wine down and tucked my clammy hands within my skirts beneath the table. “Rolina preferred to escape me and her grief via toxins, but most of the time, it only made it worse.”
“A rather gentle way of putting it,” he remarked snidely.
“I suppose,” I said, casting my eyes from his probing gaze to the tabletop.
He watched me for some time, a long finger circling the base of his glass. “And how did you escape?” he finally asked, so softly, it felt like a brush of his fingers over my bare flesh. “Books?”
I smiled, giving my eyes back to his. “Guilty.”