Page 83 of What Sleeps Within the Cove

Estrella stopped her, grasping her wrist with a gentle grip that the woman looked down at in shock. She covered Estrella’s hand with her own, letting her eyes drift closed as if she truly believed herself to be touching a deity, to have the hold of a supreme being on her. I supposed in a way she was right, and while my grandparents might have been Primordials, I could certainly understand the way she would worship them.

After all, the humans of Nothrek had once worshipped me in the same way, believing me to be holy and worthy of adoration.

“What if the sacrifices no longer wish to fight for me once they remember who they are? Do they go free if this is not what they want for themselves?” she asked, bringing a smile to my face. For Estrella, free will was the most important gift she could give to anyone. She never wanted someone to serve her because it was required of them or because the consequences of doing anything else were too great for there to truly be a choice. Even if her entire army wished to leave her alone on the battlefield, she would let them leave her.

Because what they wanted mattered to her, in a way it had never mattered to me. That single trace of humanity within her was exactly why she would make the perfect Queen. Why my people would adore her so fully that I wondered if they’d even see me as their King.

“That is entirely up to you, my Queen, but I believe you underestimate the power of what you can offer them through their allegiance,” Xela said, finally opening her eyes to guide Estrella out the front door of the cabin.

“What is that?” Estrella asked, and I didn’t need to hear Xela’s answer.

I felt it in my bones, felt the truth of it bang like a gong that would mark the turning of the tides.

Revenge.

FIFTY-THREE

CALDRIS

The massive, long tables they’d pulled into the edge of the woods were decorated with vines that sprawled down the center. Flowers were dispersed through the vines, candles lit to offer dim lighting as darkness descended. Pieces of tree trunks were cut in perfectly uniform pieces, forming stools where people would sit. The plates were simple and white, crafted with painstaking precision to keep them as close to a perfect circle as possible. The same white fabric that Estrella and I wore was draped through the trees at the edge of the forest, cascading and framing the tables flawlessly. The trees were wound up in faerielights, strings of glowing embers that never burned looking like starlight.

“It’s everything I’ve read about,” Estrella thought, referencing the books she had buried herself in during our brief time with the Resistance in Nothrek. It seemed so long ago now, that she’d been unaware of who I was and fighting her own curiosity about the Fae and Alfheimr. She’d read about the festivals we celebrated, the mealsand the dancing that we’d all partaken in back before our world had descended into darkness. This kind of carefree celebration was before my time even, for Mab did not believe in joy. She chose only to celebrate the darker of our holidays, the ones that she’d twisted into sacrifices and a brutal version of sex. Some of our ceremonies were sexual in nature, but she’d taken the beauty of those moments and twisted them into darkness. She’d taken them from life to death.

Joy became punishment. Pleasure became pain.

The area beside the tables remained empty, a large space that was dedicated to nothingness. To Estrella, it probably looked like a place where the Fae and humans could dance together, could revel in the sounds of the human who played his lute with a soft and soothing sound, but the undercurrent of notes was sensual. It struck a chord deep within me, the magic of his music stoking the embers of a flame that I knew he would build over the course of the dinner.

If I was correct, that clearing wouldn’t be where we danced the night away in celebration. It would be where Estrella was expected to accept pleasure. Where she was expected to enjoy herself and the knowledge that all who joined her here would wish to watch her with her chosen partner for the night. This was a celebration where an unmated woman would have chosen a partner from the crowd, where the rest would have wished it was her.

While they were unlucky enough that she would never be theirs to touch, it was fortunate for them that my little star loved to be watched. That she loved to come undone with an audience to bear witness to her pleasure.

All eyes were on us as we approached the head table, letting Xela guide us to the seat at the head. Estrella waited for me to sit, her eyes widening as I pulled out the tree stump and motioned for her to take it. The implication of placing her at the head was not lost on her, but she was the only one who was surprised by the act. Everyone around us knew that Estrella was the guest of honor, the one who would be at the center of attention for this night. She swallowed as she took the seat, carefully arranging the fabric of her skirt so she did not need to worry about the curious eyes watching her.

As the others took their seats, leaving the place to my mate’s left for me, she scanned the group. Xela took the seat beside her to my surprise, but it made sense that the only other person Estrella knew would be the one to guide her through the evening. Rheaghan and Medusa were conspicuously absent from the feast, confirming my every assumption about the purpose of the strips of cloth in the littleclearing. Someone must have told Rheaghan not to attend, more for Estrella’s comfort than his as he did not know they were related.

Xela poured wine for both of us, and Estrella’s nerves were obvious as she lifted the cup to her mouth and took a deep sip of the liquid. Estrella didn’t ask any questions, hearing the facts in my mind as she raised the wine to her lips once again. The others at the table did the same, mirroring her movements. She groaned as she drank the liquid down, the magic imbued into it undoubtedly stroking the flames the music had already begun to build within her. A Fae woman snapped her fingers at the foot of the table, and Estrella jumped back on her stool slightly as her plate filled with food.

“Please, eat,” Xela said, smiling as Estrella picked up a piece of fruit. She studied it cautiously, taking a gentle nibble at first before she dug in with more relish. While time moved differently here, while certain realities of the living were made less important in this strange place, it had been far too long since my mate enjoyed a meal.

Conversation started around us, casual and easy about the training or relationships that had begun among the people who called the village home. Estrella listened as she ate, grateful for the distraction from the trials that had been so stressful. Her thoughts wandered, the normalcy of the events occurring around her lulling her into a sense of calm, making her comfortable in a situation where she might have been on edge otherwise. She sank into the ease of it, the tempo of the music remaining calm and carefully sensual as she listened, offering a smile and partaking in the conversation where it called for her attention.

I slid my hand to her thigh beneath the table, sinking beneath the fabric where it parted. Her bare skin was as smooth as silk, gooseflesh rising in response to my touch. She smiled, though it was tense, as my touch wandered closer to the haven between her thighs. I didn’t touch her there, but let my fingers play over the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh as she clamped her legs shut to attempt to dispel my touch. I grinned at her as her attention turned to me, leaning in to press my mouth to hers so sweetly that anyone watching might have thought it a moment of affection had it not been for the scent of her arousal on the air. I couldn’t say for sure that anyone else would notice it, but I was far too attuned to my mate’s desires to miss it.

“How did you two first meet?” a woman halfway down the table asked. Her face was lit with a bright smile, her eyes crinkling in the corners as she raised her wineglass to her mouth. “Was it love at first sight given your mating bond?”

The Fae who were in the settlement were limited, and I hadn’t seen any mated pairs since we’d arrived. The understanding of our bond was probably limited given the erasure of all the memories that had come before, a bit of a fascination to the humans who either had never experienced such a thing or couldn’t remember a time when they had.

“It was for me,” I said, locking eyes with my mate. She rolled hers in response as my thumb stroked against the seam of her pussy under the table. She jolted at the contact, her body primed and ready for me so that even the faintest tease felt like a jolt of lightning in her veins. “I obviously had the privilege of knowing about our bond before I ever found her, so the moment I laid eyes on her, I was done for.”

“Cheating, if you ask me,” Estrella said, the mumble earning a laugh from the rest of the table.

I couldn’t help but smile at her, sinking my teeth into my lip. “But even if I hadn’t known, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

Estrella rolled her eyes again as her lips pursed, ignoring the sound of women swooning at the sweet moment. She knew it to be true now, could feel the genuine emotion behind the words, but that didn’t mean that Estrella allowed herself to feel that. It didn’t mean that her own self-conscious nature could accept them fully.

“What did you think of him, my Queen?” Xela asked, her eyes finally straying to me. Her stare wandered for the first time, but it wasn’t entirely with the weighted gaze of attraction or the burn of lust. Instead, it was strangely calculating, though she did seem to conclude that she approved of what she saw.

Determining if she thought me worthy of Estrella, measuring me to decide what my mate might have seen the first time she looked at me.

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