Page 16 of Crowned By the Fae King

"You could jack it a bit less," I said flippantly, before I could consider how bitchy that would sound.

His whole body went tense again. One of the oil paintings on the wall crashed to the floor, making me jump.

Cass looked like he might be sick, the skin around his eyes going tight and his ears turning back like an animal about to be struck by an angry master. "You can—" He sounded horrified. "You can feel that?"

"It's, uh, it's not a big deal," I said, holding up my hands, my eyes darting from the broken painting back to him. "I'd be dead in a bunch of ways if it wasn't for, uh… you. I can handle the weird side effects. But maybe we can talk about, like, a schedule?"

He turned away, wearing an expression of nausea, his wings moving as he panted. "Gods," he said in a guttural moan. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I had no idea you were… Quyen," he said. He knew my name without me telling him, just like I knew his. Cass looked back over at me, his dark eyes tormented. "I had no idea I was doing that to you. I know that doesn't make the… the experience of it better, but—"

"Hey," I said, lowering my hands, surprised at the vehemence of his unhappiness. "It's seriously not a big deal." I started walking towards him. The gown made shushing sounds against my legs as I moved. "I didn't mean to sound pissy."

I reached out to touch him, trying to be comforting, and he jerked away.

"Don't," he said, his whole face going tense. "Don't touch me."

My brows snapped together. I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I'd meant to do that all along. "Sure. Fine. Whatever."

His ears pinned flat. "I'm a reflexive command healer," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "You're my soulmate. If you touch me, I'll surely affect your body with the same intensity as I do my own. Whatever you're dealing with now—"

The door opened. Cass stopped talking, his expression going flat.

"Your majesties," the fae woman in the doorway said, her eyes flicking between us. She was a pear-shaped woman, with thick thighs, a soft stomach, and small breasts, giving her the look of an ancient fertility statue. "It's time."

Cass glanced over at me. "Did Dani tell you what's happening?"

"She gave me a rapid-fire runthrough," I said with a shrug of one shoulder. "Walk up a bunch of stairs, kneel, get crowned, sit on a throne, receive a bunch of important people. Sounds like a misery, but she asked me to play nice, so here I am."

"I appreciate that you are," he said softly. His eyes flicked back over to the fae woman waiting in the doorway. "Let's get this over with."

The woman's eyes narrowed, her expression going hard. She didn't like Cass, I thought, and that dislike probably extended to me. Given the silver tears painted on her face, her elegant bearing, and the general confidence with which she moved, I suspected she was a powerful person, and since Danica's list of people I needed to look nice for included a high priestess, she was probably religious.

So I smiled at her, giving her a slight incline of my head. "It's been a trying morning," I said, keeping my voice even and polite. "The timing of my arrival was rather miraculous, but miracles aren't very comfortable, are they?"

She made a thoughtful sound, nothing more than a hum, but her expression did relax, the pinchedness around her nose and mouth easing. "The gods are fierce creatures, so surely their miracles are no less fierce," she said in her pleasant voice. She stepped back and bowed, holding her arm out. "Your majesties."

Cass stalked out. He walked like a soldier, with total command of his body, his strides eating the ground. I would have had to jog to keep up with him, so I didn't bother trying. I kept my head up and stalked down the hallway in his wake, fixing my eyes on Cass' back and cooling my expression as I paced after him.

It took him until he reached the door to the outside to realize that he'd left me halfway down the hall. My cheeks went hot with his embarrassment, the blush showing on my face when it barely rouged his darker skin.

I didn't hurry my pace. I made him wait there, holding his gaze with my expression aloof, and when I reached him I stepped up to his side, looking away. "Walk slower, your splendor."

His wings made a metallic scrape as he folded them tighter. It wasn't an unpleasant sound; more like the slide of a knife across a sharpener than anything squealing or sharp. "I ask your forbearance," he said in a calm voice belied by the tension in my shoulders and thighs. He felt like he wanted to launch himself into the sky. "I'm unused to measuring my strides for a partner."

I gave him a nod.

"Do we just walk up?" I asked after a moment, when he made no move to do so.

He exhaled through his nose. The tension dissipated, a purposeful relaxation that probably reflected his control more than his emotions. "Yes." He still didn't move.

I rolled my eyes. He'd had six weeks to get used to being King, but I'd had an hour, tops, to do the same. Whatever dislike he had of the coronation itself, he needed to get over himself.

In silence, I started forward without him.

He caught up to me in two strides, then had to pace himself for my significantly shorter legs. I didn't even come up to the man's collarbone. It made his pace stately and mine purposeful, a pairing that I thought would work visually, as opposed to making me look like a child next to him. In the fancy clothing and sparkly jewels, I looked like someone rich and famous, and his military-style finery and deadly bearing made his slower pace look deliberate instead of lazy.

The landscape on the walk up reminded me of some of the wildest forests I'd bushwhacked through on my way to Cass. Dense evergreen trees with short needles played host to small birds and fluffy, vivid green lichen. The stone steps were swept clean of needles, but they were shrouded with lichens and mosses, and in a few places enough dirt had collected for tiny plants to take root, leaving the steps spangled with tiny pink and white flowers.

Unlike the wild forest, though, this one seemed aware. Birds paused in their singing as we passed, hopping onto branches and watching us with dark eyes, heads cocked. A small lizard scuttled out onto the stairs ahead of us and flared a cerulean-blue frill at me before ducking back into the leaf litter. Even the breeze seemed to parallel us, stirring the leaves and flirting with my loose hair.

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