We watched them disappear down the side of the manor, Aura releasing a humorous breath.
I returned to our conversation. “Florian raised Lilitha, then.”
“As best he could while tending to his own whims, yes,” Aura said. “Though if you ask me, and I told him this hundreds of times, she was born for the Wild Hunt, not a royal house of Folkyn.”
“The hunt do not belong to any house of Folkyn.”
She raised a finger. “Exactly. Those who wish to disregard the laws and traditions we’ve upheld since the dawn of our existence have their options—the middle lands or the hunt. And she ignored as many as she could.”
“Yet she didn’t want to go anywhere else?”
Aura snorted. “Not to either of those places, no, and Florian would have refused.” She sighed, stopping beneath an overflowing arch of roses as we rounded the corner. “No, Lilitha wished to go anywhere and do anything she desired, despite everyone’s insistent warnings, and in the end, it was her end.”
She shivered, though I sensed it was not from her lack of proper clothing in the cold. “Great goddess, I cannot wait to leave this cursed place.”
I knew then that the conversation I greedily wanted more of was over.
Queen Aura might not wish to unite with Florian against my father, but she would not betray my betrothed by dishing out all the many secrets sitting behind her pursed lips.
We talked of Oleander, of the sea that hugged her palace and the sandy city district beyond, and of my futile desire to see it all for myself.
At that, she paused before we came full circle and met the drive at the front of the manor. “Your inexperience with the world you wish to know indeed assisted Florian, but you still breathe for a reason, darling.” She patted my cheek and whispered, “Lean into that reason, and you’ll find more freedom than you know what to do with.”
Trying to comprehend what she’d meant, I watched her gaze darken and then brighten as she surveyed me. Her fingers clasped my chin, and she turned my head side to side. “Skies, you’re nearing the heat.”
My heart dropped, then pounded. For the mere brush of her fingers over my skin caused my flesh to come alive. “I know,” I rasped. I refrained from saying that it wasn’t near, and that I feared I was now deep within its punishing grasp.
I’d had my suspicions for the past week. My appetite for food and touch had changed from one minute to the next, and with such ferocity, the effects were now becoming debilitating.
Gane’s warning of what it meant to reach the mature age of twenty years returned with an ice-layered burn to every part of me. It mercifully dulled the arousal I hadn’t been able to shake—the increased change in my body I’d been warring with since Florian had left me desperate for release in my rooms some nights ago.
I missed the surly goblin. I’d known I would before leaving Crustle, but that was before I’d known I was walking into the lair of an inescapable viper.
The queen released me, and we walked on at a slower pace.
I even missed Crustle. I never thought I’d long for the crowded and polluted streets of the damp city-like town I’d always longed to leave. But I did. Now, I would rather be trapped outside of Faerie than inside it with those who had only ill intentions for me.
The thought of not seeing Florian again shouldn’t have nicked at my chest nor burned my eyes. He was a blood-hungry asshole who’d used me so completely, so unapologetically, that I should wish him dead. Yet I didn’t—knew I likely never could.
Perhaps the heat was to blame.
“How long will it last?” I eventually asked.
Aura slowed to flick ice and mud from an empty bird nest upon the ground, then inspected it. “However long it needs to.”
That didn’t help, and she laughed as she rose.
“Skies, this place is nothing but murderous ice nowadays.” Brushing her hands off, she returned to talk of the heat. “Once you start tending to it, maybe a few days, but for most, it’s about a week. Depends on the individual and the creature in charge of satisfying your awakening.”
That was yet another thing that worried me.
I chewed my lip for a moment, but I had to know. “Is there any way to go through it without…” I made a face when she looked at me. “You know.”
Another laugh, her high cheeks and tiny pointed nose dusted pink from the chill.
She sobered when Florian left the manor and stalked down the steps with Fume at his side.
The two talked quietly. As we neared, Fume made to leave. When he realized who walked with me, he turned back to exchange greetings with Aura.
He clasped her hand and bowed, kissing it before he rose. “I hear you’ve broken our hearts by denying us yet again.”
“You have no one to blame but yourselves…” Aura withdrew her hand and smiled tightly at the warrior as she gestured to me. “For believing I would visit for any other reason than to meet this divine creature.”
Fume finally acknowledged me, his smirk becoming a forced smile that resembled a grimace.
Wishing he hadn’t bothered, I returned it with only a nod.
His brown lashes dipped as he stared at me for a moment that made me grow more tense. Then he nodded to Queen Aura and headed to the middle of the drive to greet the band of warriors climbing uphill, more wagons in tow.
Florian stood stiffly, his hands clasped before him, and covered head to toe in black. His leather coat matched his boots, the breeze barely moving his near-black hair. His eyes stayed fixed on me, his expression unreadable, as Aura walked to him.
She rose to her toes to whisper something in his ear. The king bristled, casting a dark glance down at her before looking back at me.
The Queen of Oleander grinned, fingers wriggling my way before she vanished within a light cloud of sand-stained wind.
Nearing the king, I reached for some of it and rubbed the granules between my fingers.
Snow barreled across the drive, shaking wet from her coat. Thankfully, before she reached my side. I was given a look that told me she wasn’t pleased to have been left behind.
I crouched down to swipe some dirt from her cheeks and murmured an apology.
Florian’s question was low. “How much did Aura tell you?”
“More than you ever will.” Taking in his unmoved expression as I straightened, I relented. “It was nothing you need to be grumpy about.”
As I walked around him to take the stairs inside, Snow running ahead as if fearing I would leave her again, I couldn’t keep from thinking about the small yet precious doses of information Aura had given me.
Hellebore’s king hadn’t always been this way—seemingly without a soul, or perhaps just a heart.
Florian snatched my wrist. “Grumpy?”
I stopped and eyed his large hand, then I made the mistake of meeting those fatal blues. “You’re exceptionally talented at being in a bad mood.”
His mouth twitched. “One could say I have every reason to be after being thoroughly teased, then left to milk my own cock.”
Just the thought of the act ignited my blood and flared my eyes. At a loss for words, I appeased the need inside me by staring as his features slowly lost their fierce edge, and the smirk in his eyes tempted his lips to curl.