I could have certainly agreed, but he was not talking about my emotional turmoil.
“So fucking wet, sweet creature.” He pushed my thighs wider, his mouth roaming lower to where I needed him.
Breaths growing panted, my back arched at the first slow swipe of his tongue over my swollen center. A groan vibrated against my slick and desperate flesh.
I knew what he was doing. I knew, yet all I could do was let him and admit, even if only to myself, I was weak and incapable of resisting him. Especially right now.
In my defense, he made it extremely difficult when the want that had indeed been awaiting his attention was finally given it. My body climbed higher with every lapping stroke of his tongue.
It seemed he was in a hurry this evening, as he didn’t feast until I was clawing and mindless. Which only further proved he was attempting to placate me so he could return to whatever business I’d interrupted.
He flattened his tongue against my clit, and I ruptured so completely, I was still twisting on the bed with my thighs clamped together while he pulled on a clean pair of pants.
Beneath heavy eyelids, I watched him snatch a long-sleeved shirt from the leather chaise lounge in the corner and slip it on. He buttoned it as he leaned over me to pull the bedding atop my useless body.
He was still hard. The imprint of him pressed angrily to his pants.
What awaited him must have been important. That, or perhaps he found pleasure in depriving himself.
A kiss that warmed the cold he’d wrapped around my heart was given to my head. “Sleep, butterfly.”
And after the doors to his rooms clicked shut, I almost did.
I blinked at the long oak dresser that sat nearest the doors. Then the matching slabs of shelving beside it that spanned the length of the wall to the chaise he seemed fond of tossing clothes upon.
There were no windows. Heavy drapes covered doors to a balcony stretching from the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed toward the open door of his bathing room, interrupted only by a fireplace.
He’d left me alone in his rooms.
So, of course, I decided it was only fair that I do some investigating.
Fair play, I believed he’d called it.
His bedchamber was the size of a small home. If a kitchenette had been tucked away behind the doors I opened and closed along the wall adjacent to my own rooms, then it very well could pass as one.
Florian’s dressing room was riddled with those soft gaping shirts he preferred, and just as many pairs of tight-fitting black and charcoal trousers. Coats, some dark and spun with wool, others padded with built-in armor, lined the end of the chamber. In the center was an open unit of more oak shelving containing belts and boots—military and formal.
After checking his bathing room, my mouth falling open at the onyx tile-lined tub twice the size of my own, I checked the drawers and found…
Nothing.
Not a thing save for light clothing suited for spring or summer. Seasons that would not visit this kingdom.
A touch defeated, I sat on the side of his outrageously large bed and stared at the vines and thorns carved into the oak headboard. An inkpot sat beside a golden candelabra on the nightstand. I leaned forward to clasp the brass knob of the top drawer. An empty pad of parchment was inside.
Next to a crown.
I almost laughed with shock, blinking down at the onyx vines and glinting diamond and sapphire leaves. Surely, I was not staring at the true Hellebore crown. But after seeing it in so many portraits within this manor, I knew I was.
Florian kept his crown in his nightstand drawer.
I shook the disbelief away and looked through the pad of parchment. I watched each bare page fall free of my fingers, then made to pull my hand from inside the drawer when a flash of silver behind the crown caught my eye.
A necklace.
Gently, I stroked the time-worn chain, the bright red stone that warmed under my touch, but I didn’t dare pick it up.
With the odd exception of the crown, it was clear Florian wasn’t so unwise as to keep anything of political importance in his personal chambers. In fact, aside from the necklace that appeared to be an heirloom, it seemed he kept hardly anything at all.
Nothing but clothing, books, ink, and empty pads of parchment.
I had little to no experience with socializing. Therefore, I didn’t know what most might keep in their private quarters. Yet I knew there was nothing personal about my betrothed’s rooms.
Perhaps he had hidden chambers elsewhere, filled with his secrets and desires and plans for vengeance. I nearly snorted because although there was so much I still didn’t know, I knew right down to my bones that just wasn’t so.
Either Florian Hellebore was as cold as the winter magic running through his veins, or he’d gone to great lengths to make sure no one would find anything that could ever be used against him.
There was no weakness when one held no heart.
“An engraved hairbrush still wouldn’t hurt,” I muttered to the necklace and carefully closed the drawer. “Skies, even a bookmark.” Something to let me know this male contained a sliver of soul.
I looked down at his rumpled gray bedding, tempted to fall asleep in his scent and await his unpredictable return.
Annoyance danced with my growing doubt. Both feelings overpowered the temptation in his absence, and I returned to my rooms for another night of restless sleep.
Florian wasn’t at breakfast the following morning.
Considering the only meal he’d eaten with me had been in a hidden restaurant underground, I wasn’t surprised, and I hadn’t expected him.
Snow stood in thick piles, shoveled from the pebbled path encircling the manor by the groundskeepers. I smiled at the few who looked my way.
None smiled in return. They merely stared or glared. A burly male with cold-bitten cheeks even sneered.
I held the plate of raw beef that’d been delivered to the dining room with my breakfast tighter, unsure what I’d done to arouse such a lack of respect from almost everyone on this estate. It wasn’t because they were Fae, who were known to be unwelcoming to outsiders, but perhaps because they knew I was from Crustle.
A place of which both lands of human and faerie despised.
Henron was in the paddocks with the horses. But I would have liked to think he would have waved in greeting had he seen me do the same to him.
Snow stirred awake from her nest of blankets in the corner of her stall, tail swishing. “Hello, my beautiful,” I crooned, crouching to pet her chin.
She allowed it for a moment, then grew impatient for the meat to be set upon the ground. I watched her eat, marveling at how well her leg had already healed and how much she’d grown in just a handful of days.
Snow’s ears pricked, her head rising. A low snarl peeled her lips back over tiny yet sharp teeth. “What is it?” I asked, and rose to look over the stall door.
She growled in earnest when I heard it—a faint hollering from outside.
I slipped out of the stall, the little wolf attempting to join me before I gently pushed her back inside and latched the door.
I followed the sound when I heard it again, taking the seldom used and rotting rear door of the stables into a small and abandoned field. I stood there a moment, looking at the greenhouse and the woods in the distance.
There was nothing but silence and branches, most bare and others laden with snow. It piled around tree trunks and drowned every dirt-worn pathway. So much so, I almost missed it.