Page 53 of Crown of Slumber

His silence was answer enough.

I pretended to keep looking through the wardrobe for supplies as I heard him move behind me. Then, a light splash sounded, indicating he’d gotten in the tub.

I exhaled, my chest loosening, before I turned to him with several bottles in my hands. He was fully submerged, and he groaned in pleasure as he slid so low that only his head and the tops of his shoulders were visible.

“Gods, that feels good.” His voice was low and husky again, and gods above, I couldn’tthinkknowing he was completely naked under that water and making sounds like that.

“You have blood in your hair,” I blurted.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes. I fought goblins yesterday, you know.”

“I can wash it out for you.”

He chuckled. “You are quite hospitable today, aren’t you, darling?”

I rolled my eyes and moved closer to him, setting the bottles down on the small table next to the tub. I squirted a bit of lavender soap on my palm before running it through his hair. Despite what we’d been through, his hair was still soft and thick. It was matted and tangled and sticky with blood and sweat, but it was still soft.

Fenn cleared his throat, fidgeting as I weaved my fingers through his hair. “You know, this is ridiculous,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “You had a goblin take a bite of your shoulder, andyoustill managed to bathe yourself.”

I found myself smiling. “Yes, but I didn’t have the goblin’s teeth pierce all the way through my shoulder to the other side and then continue fighting through the injury, making it worse.”

He scoffed. “Are you scolding me? If Ihadn’tkept fighting?—”

“I know,” I said softly. “We both would have died. As much as it pains me to say it… you saved my life yesterday, Fenn. I couldn’t have fought them without you.”

He said nothing. For a few moments, silence fell between us as I worked my fingers gently through the tangles in his hair. The act was so intimate that I felt my face burning again. I wasbathingthis man, this prince. He was naked in a tub in front of me and I was lathering soap in his hair.

I abruptly dropped my hands, letting soap drip onto my skirts. “Should be ready to rinse now.” My voice was strained, and I cleared my throat.

Fenn didn’t seem to notice. He took a breath, then slid into the depths of the tub. He lingered for so long underwater that I worried I would have to pull him back up. At long last, he resurfaced with a gasp and shook his wet tresses out of his face with a grin. “That was quite pleasant.”

I rolled my eyes. “You are a child.”

“Will you be applying soap to myentirebody, little firebird?” He cast a dark and heady glance my way, which I dutifully ignored.

“I will wash your right side, but that is all. The rest you can reach with your uninjured arm.”

He chuckled, and I forced my thoughts to distance themselves from the task at hand. Instead of dwelling on the fact that Fenn was naked in this tub, and my fingers would be roaming across the expanse of his skin, I thought of the last book I had read. It was a mystical tale of a dark plague that had befallen a kingdom of elves.

After a steadying breath, I poured soap onto my hands and knelt by the tub. I felt Fenn’s eyes on me, but I stared at the soap as I rubbed my palms together, forming bubbles.

The elven king sought out the help of the wise enchantress to banish the plague from the land,I recalled, focusing on the words from the pages I’d read last week. Gods, had it only been last week that I was reading in the library, with Gigi pestering me to go riding?

Knots formed in my stomach, but I pushed them away and dived into the elven kingdom I had been so eager to read about.

All magic has a price, the enchantress told him.

“Aurelia?” Fenn asked, jolting me from my thoughts.

I realized I was kneeling next to him, my soapy hands poised mid-air. I must have looked quite foolish, sitting there utterly frozen.

“Raise your arm, please,” I said quietly.

Fenn obeyed, lifting his uninjured arm out of the water. I methodically began scrubbing the grime and blood from his skin while recalling the details of my book.

Name your price, the elven king had said. The enchantress had told him the plague had been created by a dark curse enacted through a blood sacrifice. A life had been given to bring about the plague. And a life would have to be given to end it.

“This is the most serious bath I’ve ever taken,” Fenn said.

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