Page 111 of Crowned By the Fae King

He stilled, then pushed himself up, frowning at me. "What makes you say that?"

"Don't be mad," I started.

A pained look took up residence on his face. "That's not a promising start."

"Yeah, I know." I chewed on my lower lip. "Are you going to freeze up if you see a bunch of opals?"

His ears pinned back, and my chest went tight. "I don't think so," he said cautiously. "Not if I have warning."

"Okay." I blew out a breath. "Give me a second. I'm going to go grab them."

If anything, all my muscles got tighter, but Cass didn't protest. It didn't take me more than a couple of seconds to dig out my little collection of opals from its home in the back of the drawer. I left the towel around it and came back out into the room, taking a seat across from where Cass was still lying.

I set the towel on the table between us. "Are you ready?"

Cass grimaced and pushed himself into a sitting position, folding his wings behind him. "You were keeping opals in your room?" he asked in a small voice.

I hated hearing that—the fear. "I didn't know where else to put them," I said, keeping my voice soft and gentle, trying to soothe the anxiety tightening my ribs and tying my gut into knots. "It wasn't for nefarious reasons. These are opals from the mine I was at before everything happened."

He nodded, his ears not moving from their fearful position. "Alright," he said. "Show me?"

My shoulders went tighter as I unwrapped the towel from around the opals, to the point where I winced. Cass' cheeks darkened, and a moment later the strain eased.

"Is this okay?" he asked, his eyes searching my expression. "I know I shouldn't be controlling my reactions, but is dampening the physical effect on you alright? It seems foolish to make you suffer when I can do this without smearing my emotions across the Court."

A smile touched my mouth. "Yeah," I said, relaxing away from my own stress. "This is great, actually. Good compromise, Cassie."

His chin came up and ears perked forward in an expression of pleasure. "Truly?"

"Truly. It's perfect." I tapped one of the opals. "Are you ready for the bad part?"

"This isn't it?" he asked, eyeing the rough-cut gems like they might jump up and bite him.

"I would've left them in the wardrobe if this was it," I told him. I shook my head. "No, the issue is that I know exactly how many quarter-sized black opals with this kind of fire came out of that mine, and after talking with every jeweler in Taeskana over the past couple months, I'm aware that nobody's been able to get opals of this size or quality for the past fifty years at least, unless they're importing them from halfway across the continent. The local mines are all played out, or private." I took a deep breath. "Those two cabochons on the gloves he gave you could maybe have been from the mine I was at, but while we pulled out a bunch of these smaller gems, we only found five others big enough to get inch-wide circle cabochons out of."

"And that's bad?" Cass asked, his eyes fixed on the opals and his ears pinning back again.

I draped the towel back over them. There was no reason to keep making him look at them. "Talien's got a necklace with a dozen of them that he's putting on my neck tonight," I told him grimly. "The mine was sending their gems south, even the shitty ones. If he's got enough really high-class opals to drape them on me just to fuck with you…"

"He must have access to other mines. Maybe many other mines," he said faintly. His eyes lifted to mine. "You're wearing them tonight?"

I wrinkled my nose at him and nodded.

Cass heaved a sigh, dropping his head back. "Well, fuck. What the fuck is he doing with that many opals?" His brow furrowed. "What the fuck can be done with that many opals?"

"Fuck if I know," I said. I leaned back on my hands. "I was hoping you did."

He grimaced and shook his head. "No fucking clue. They're sometimes used to make cells for temporarily holding mages, but iron's usually better for that. Anti-magic shields during warfare, so that people can't simply glamor their way into your camp." Cass shuffled his wings, looking uncomfortable. "Sometimes as 'moats' around castles or manors, especially in the deeper wilds. If you have amplifiers built, you can temporarily cut off a small area to shield from wild magic surges, or attacks from certain kinds of monsters, but if you leave them up for too long, everything faery inside the barrier starts getting sick. That takes a lot of gem-quality opals."

"Well, we can think about it." I sighed. "It's not like he can get up to trouble while he's busy flirting with me."

"Ugh." Cass shoved himself up with a dark expression. "I fucking hate that."

"Jealous, splendor?" I asked in an innocent voice.

He started pacing. "Jealous, possessive, greedy…" Cass growled and swiped a hand through his hair. "He looks at you like you're some sort of object to collect. I want to punish him for it every gods-damned time, even while the damn soulmate bond is snarling that you're mine." Cass rubbed the back of his neck, looking self-conscious. "Vad and Dani might not be the only people with avalanches to manage after tonight. I don't know that I'm going to handle him putting opals on you all that well."

"What if I promise that you get to be the one to take them off?" I offered, watching him pace.

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