Page 35 of Crowned By the Fae King

"Until then," he said, expression level.

Nobody else accosted me on my way to my rooms. That was probably for the best. Tech had left me more unsettled than I wanted to admit. I didn't think he was right about Cass, but I also couldn't claim to be one-hundred-percent certain that he wasn't.

What if he was right? If, one day, Cass slipped, and tens of thousands paid for it with their lives?

So we don't let that happen, I thought, brow furrowed. We figure out what Cass needs to handle the Court's power, and we give it to him.

He was in the shower when I got back to the monarchal suite. The water thundered down, and steam fogged the mirror next to the bathroom door. If I focused, I could feel cold pressure against his skin, the water pounding against his head and shoulders. Cass must have used the water to cool off his superheated wings, and was standing there, braced against the wall, letting the shower sweep the soot away.

I followed the steam up, looking at the painted ceiling. Even more than I remembered, it was an oppressive thing to have overhead. The white walls and dark ceiling made it feel like the mountain was descending onto me. Heavy stone loomed overhead, unbroken even by decorative beams, covered with richly-painted horrors. Wolves tore a unicorn to shreds; naked humans bowed in obeisance to an enormous, bird-headed man painted red, with blood dripping from his fingertips. Distant forest fires encroached on bucolic scenes, turning the painted skies black with smoke.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. It was only paint. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to get someone to come in here with some primer and a bucket of ceiling paint, and blot out all the ugliness.

I sat down and got right back up, too full of stress and worry to sit calmly and wait for Cass to get out of the shower. The fact that we had a timeline – that in less than two hours, I had to be in evening wear and walking into a formal dinner with Cass on my arm – harried me as I paced. All of this focus on formal etiquette I didn't understand and the sort of elegant affairs I'd never learned how to attend was making me crazy. I liked the luxury, but I was too unprepared for the rest of it to enjoy any of it. If I'd been a fox in a trap, I would have gnawed my own foot off to escape by day two of this shit, and here I was, five days and an assassination attempt in, facing down another day and a half of it.

I stalked around the enormous bedroom, worrying on it like a dog with a bone. When Cass finally came out of the bathroom with his hair wet and expression set, I planted myself in front of him with my hands up on my hips and frowned up at him.

Cass blinked down at me like an owl, the first expression other than flat endurance I'd seen him wear in days. "Quyen. You're here," he said, with the sort of quiet disbelief that people use when someone stands up for them unexpectedly.

The whole atmosphere of the room shifted with him in it. We stood in a pool of calm, like sunlight breaking through the clouds to fall on us. I wanted to bask in it – to melt against him, his heartbeat under my ear and his fingers in my hair – but I didn't, letting him keep the distance he chose.

"This is my bedroom," I pointed out, my expression easing. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

His wings hunched up in a defensive posture. "Because I am," he said softly.

I tilted my head to the side, looking up at him without reproach, the quiet sorrow in those words squeezing my heart. "Why should that bother me?"

I knew why he might think that. It was obvious. A dragon turned to mincemeat was the sort of vicious display that could turn any stomach. I wasn't going to put the words in his mouth, though. How he said it seemed a lot more important than what he said.

His ears dropped down and the corners of his mouth trembled. "I've spent centuries seeing how frightened people are of my magic." Cass swallowed, looking away. "I don't blame them. It's frightening. Even before I had a Court's power at my command it was frightening. Most people don't look past that."

"I'm not looking past it," I said, searching his expression. "I'm looking right at it. You can't just chop pieces of people off and claim that what's left is the 'real' person. There's not some secret core. You're all of it."

One corner of his mouth twitched back into an expression that looked like sorrow. "I suppose so."

"You're my soulmate, Cass. That's not a problem for me." When his dark eyes flicked back over to mine, I gave him a half-smile.

He lifted his hand like he might brush my hair back behind my ear, then lowered it, his throat working. "Then what's upsetting you?"

All my unhappiness surged to the forefront. I scowled. "How the fuck am I expected to go to a formal dinner after that? I've been patient. I've dutifully attended the world's most tedious viewing parties and done my damndest to have pleasant conversations with rich assholes who look at me like I'm a homeless woman in their favorite park, but this?"

"Quyen…" he started.

I started tapping my foot, an irate habit I'd picked up from my manager at the club. "I'm not done," I said. "Someone literally tried to incinerate you, me, and a nice big swathe of our obnoxious courtiers, like, thirty minutes ago. There are big, wet chunks of dragon all over a bisected courtyard, so why the hell are we hosting a dinner party? Don't we have some seriously more important things to care about?"

Cass raked his fingers through his hair, looking anywhere but me. "Can I put on some pants? Before we have this conversation?"

I looked down in surprise. Not even that far down, because his hips were about level with the bottom of my sternum, and that was where he had his hand clutching the white towel closed. A towel, because he was naked, and because he was still damp from his shower, with droplets of water clinging to his bare skin and wetting the narrow trail of dark hair that led down from his navel.

My eyes tracked south along that trail and my brain short-circuited. The fae I'd seen were pretty hairless, and Cass was no exception, but that didn't mean they didn't have pubes—and Cass, again, was no exception.

His were shaved. There was maybe a millimeter of stubble, the edges of it peeking above the white terrycloth. Black, coarse, dense—

His hand tightened on the towel, dragging it up a half-inch. Heat flooded through me, a molten golden sensation that made me aware of every inch of my skin.

I jerked my eyes back up his statuesque body to his face and put on a tight smile. "Right. Pants. Sure." I stepped to the side.

Cass gave me a nod and strode past, his blush and mine combining to turn my face searing hot. All the feathers on his wings were roused. They gleamed in the light, every one of them a deadly weapon.

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