Lysara woke lying on her stomach, her face turned towards the tall windows where pale morning light filtered softly through the faded curtains. Beside her, Daevyn mirrored her position almost exactly. One arm had found its way across the space between them during the night, his hand resting lightly against her back, his fingers curled gently around her shoulder as though, even in sleep, some instinct had sought reassurance that she remained beside him.
It was the only part of them that touched.
She closed her eyes again.
Her head ached with the combined effects of too much champagne, too little sleep, and the emotional exhaustion of the previous night. If she could simply drift back into oblivion for another hour, perhaps everything would seem a little less complicated when she woke again.
It didn't happen.
What are you going to do?
Lady Vale's question refused to release her.
The older woman's voice had followed her into sleep, lingering now in the quiet morning with precisely the same calm certainty it had carried in the gallery. What was she going to do?
If they had been human, the answer would probably have been straightforward enough. They would argue, perhaps spend a miserable day avoiding one another, then either find a way to mend what had broken or admit that the engagement had been a mistake.
But they weren't human.
They were Fae.
And somewhere beneath all the uncertainty that now clouded everything, the soul bond still whispered quietly inside her, refusing to reconcile itself with what her eyes had witnessed.
She felt his fingers tighten very slightly against her shoulder.
For a long moment he remained perfectly still before a quiet sigh escaped him. His hand slipped away as he rolled onto his back, then sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Without a word he crossed the room towards the concealed door hidden behind the heavy curtain.
The latch clicked softly behind him.
Only then did Lysara slide carefully from beneath the covers.
Her bathrobe still lay where she had discarded it the previous evening. She gathered it from the floor, drawing it around herself before knotting the belt tightly about her waist, and disappeared into the ensuite.
She locked the door behind her.
The familiar morning rituals occupied her hands while her thoughts continued wandering in altogether less helpful directions. She brushed her teeth, showered quickly, then stood before the mirror towelling the dampness from her hair.
Only then did another rather obvious problem occur to her.
She looked down.
The bathrobe.
Nothing else.
Not so much as a change of underwear.
"Oh, just wonderful," she muttered to her reflection. "Absolutely wonderful."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Bloody UnSeelie Lords."
She tightened the belt another fraction before resting both hands upon the vanity.
"What are you going to do?" she asked herself quietly.
The reflection, rather unhelpfully, offered no answer.
With a resigned sigh she unlocked the door and wandered back into the bedroom.
The room looked strangely untidy in the clear light of morning. The bedclothes remained tangled where they'd abandoned them during the night, pillows scattered untidily across embroidered coverlets that House Vale's staff would doubtless have preferred to find in considerably better order.
Having nothing more useful to occupy herself with, she began straightening them.
By the time the concealed door opened once more, the bed looked almost respectable again.
Daevyn emerged fastening one of his cufflinks.
He had changed completely.
A charcoal suit replaced yesterday's more casual clothes, perfectly tailored as always, while his pale hair had been drawn neatly back into its customary tail. Save for the faint shadows lingering beneath his eyes, there was little to suggest he'd slept any less poorly than she had.
He glanced towards the tall clock standing quietly beside the fireplace before offering her an apologetic smile.
"I think we might postpone the grand tour of House Vale."
She looked up from smoothing the coverlet.
"I overslept," he admitted. "Rather more than I intended, and I have a meeting in less than an hour."
"Probably just as well," she replied. "Strangely enough, I find myself rather ill-equipped for wandering around a country house."
His gaze travelled, quite innocently at first, towards the bathrobe.
"I have discovered," she continued with impeccable seriousness, "that I possess precisely one item of clothing."
His mouth curved.
"It would appear so."
"And despite your increasingly alarming tendency to carry me from one place to another without consulting me first, I don't imagine barefoot tours of ancestral manors while wearing nothing but a bathrobe are considered proper Winter Court etiquette."
The smile reached his eyes now, warming them despite the weariness that still lingered there.
"I imagine," he observed thoughtfully, "there have probably been exceptions."
"Oh, no."
She pointed a warning finger at him.
"I know that expression."
"Do you?"
"I do."
He regarded her with entirely too much innocence. "I haven't said anything."
"You haven't needed to."
His eyes drifted once more, very deliberately, over the length of the bathrobe before returning to meet hers.
"I can practically hear you thinking."
A slow smile spread across his face. "And what am I thinking about?"
She folded her arms. "Don't. I’m still mad about last night, and not in the mood."
"I wasn't going to."
"You were." She started to back away towards her bathroom.
"I was considering that I still have an hour..." He admitted and the light in his eyes was mischievous as he stalked her.
"Daevyn." She reached behind her, feeling for the doorhandle.
"I've done nothing." He held his hands out, palms toward her, his expression innocent, whilst he continued to move forward.
She yanked open the bathroom door as he lunged forward, seizing her around the waist and throwing her onto the bed, his body immediately on top of hers, pinning her to the still shaking mattress.
He was laughing breathlessly. The scent of his soap and aftershave were fresh on his skin, his cheeks smooth and soft from shaving, and she felt desire unfurl within her. His kiss stole her breath beneath its fire, and he released the knot on her bathrobe opening it to expose her to his touch.
“This isn’t an apology…” She grumbled as his kisses trailed along her jaw and down her neck.
“I’m sorry.” His hand squeezed her breast gently as he sucked the nipple into his mouth and she moaned, throwing her arm over her eyes.
She was mad at him…
… wasn’t she?
“I’m very, very… very sorry,” he apologized in between kisses that crossed her chest to the other breast. The nipple that he abandoned furled into a tight point as the saliva he’d left behind cooled in the air and she shivered.
Despite herself, her other hand rested on his back, feeling the shift of muscle beneath the material as he teased the other peak with his tongue.
She sighed as her body surrendered to his seduction. “I’m very mad,” she muttered weakly, not sure if she was reminding him… or herself.
“I can see I’m going to have to apologize most profusely then…” his voice held the edge of laughter and he slid down her body.
She gasped arching, and her hand clutched in his hair as his tongue found her clit. “Oh… Fuck.” She cried out, arching her hips in reaction.
His hands tightened on her thighs, spreading them wider for his shoulders and she felt the vibration of his laughter against her.
His fingers joined the apology, coaxing her body towards the edge of orgasm, before abruptly pulling away just as she neared the cusp.
Outraged, she lifted on her elbows and glared at him. “Daevyn!”
He flipped her abruptly and stripped the robe from her. She caught her weight on her palms as he bent her over the mattress. “Fuck!” She cried out in surprise.
He nudged her feet apart with one Italian leather shoe and released his cock from his trousers.
His hand fisted in her hair, pulling her head back as he thrusted into her, and he curved over her body, grazing his mouth along the line of her neck. “I am so very, very sorry for last night. My only possible excuse is that my ancestors were Vikings,” he purred into her ear. “I imagine that’s where the instinct to throw naked women over my shoulder and carry them away to my home comes from.”
“God,” she sobbed in her breath as he flexed his hips, grinding himself into her.
He gripped her hips with his free hand, tugging her back into him and moaned. “Ah, yes,” he released her hair in order to grip her hips in both hands and drove himself against her with enough force that she had to push back against her hands in order to prevent herself from collapsing forwards onto the mattress.
There was an animalistic freneticism behind the sex and her mind wiped under instinct, her body responding to being taken, her moans melding with his, words stolen from both of them. She came, and felt him follow, heard his cry as he spilled into her, and then his sag over her, panting.
He chuckled into the hair near her ear. “You can bring clothing back with you tonight,” he said as he pulled out of her and fixed his clothing, before stooping to retrieve her bathrobe from the floor and handed it to her. “Come, I’ll take you back to your parent’s on my way.”