Page 39 of A Palace of Smoke & Mirrors
I have a mate.
He’s a very lucky man.
Bookworm.
“Lucais.”
“Auralie.”
My heart, a thunderous stampede of wild horses trapped within the flesh cage of my chest, was on the verge of stopping. If not for the fact that it simply could not keep up with the heart of a man who beat five times for every pump instead of two, then for the fact that it looked like he wanted to kiss me until he could learn to tolerate it well enough to do it as part of his morning routine every day for the rest of an exceptionally long life. And Icouldn’t.
I felt the pull of his mouth like a hand cupped around the back of my head. I could feel the mating bond stretched across my body, intertwining with every cell and flowing through my veins. The answer was right there within my reach.Yes, yes, yes.
But I couldn’t take it. I knew I couldn’t take it—at the very least, not until he gave me answers.
All my other concerns and grievances aside, I knew that kissing him again would wipe my memories.
If I allowed myself to fall, I’d fall so hard I’d give myself a concussion. I’d stop caring about anything else but him—the beautiful blond man with eyes like the molten core of decaying stars and hands that could shelter my entire heart in a house of skin and bone. I would get tunnel vision through a secret pathway that led straight from my heart into his, following a string that fate had woven between his rib cage and knotted inside of mine.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I couldn’t see that tie made, that bond formed, that fate signed and sealed away like the faeries in the Court of Darkness.
Because what had he done to me? What had he done to his own people? Everything he revealed to me was recent, but he locked himself away inside of the House long before then.Why?
All I’d wanted when I trashed the palace was for him to tell me the truth, but he would rather watch me destroy priceless heirlooms than open up to me. If enough pressure was appliedin the right way, he might be inclined to respond with honesty. But if I was his mate, his intended High Queen, I deserved to know things for no other reason thanthat. I should not be held solely responsible for seeking out answers using faerie-friendly phrasing.
Not with him—not with anyone, butneverwith him.
It was like asking me to move across the world for him and then leaving me alone to speak in broken French to strangers.
Lucais had riddles of his own to solve, and I suspected that he planned to play me in his games like a pawn while keeping me in the dark so I didn’t give his position away.
Finding my father in the Court of Darkness? Is that idea even real, or another ruse? What else is he planning that is so important he has to chain me to his carriage to ensure his schemes are protected?
He would never tell me.
I wasn’tworth itto him.
This is futile.
“Are they still alive?” I broke the silence with a metaphorical dagger jammed straight into the heart of the conversation and waited for the blood to leak out around us. When nothing happened, I probed. “Can you tell by looking at the Map?”
Lucais’s gaze had settled comfortably on my face. “I am unsure.”
My eyes flickered between the High King and the table. “Why…is…that?”
“Because presently,” he began concisely, his voice a velvet-smooth purr, “I am too busy looking at you.”
Oh, the insufferable fool.
Inhaling a deep breath through my nose, I climbed to my feet and walked over to the other side of the table, leaning over the Map to examine the Court of Darkness in greater detail. The shadows had returned, misting over the space allocatedto Blythe’s land without imposing upon the other Courts. An enigma, a great temptation. With considerable strength, I resolved not to touch it again.
Why did my hand scare them away?
“If there are faeries still alive in there,” I mused, as Lucais adjusted his position on the floor so he could see me, “does that mean thethingisn’t as malevolent as we assumed?”
I heard the surprise in his voice when he repeated, “We?”
