Page 67 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
It wasn’t as painful as he’d thought it might be. Maybe it was her flippant attitude that made it all seem like a minor topic and not a hushed court secret. The gentry instilled that in him from the time he was a small child, the way they whispered in dark corners about his family like there was something shadowy and tragic about them. Something cursed. “It’s only my brother, my sister, and me, and we all have different parentages.” He explained that his mother, the queen of Danu, didn’t have much luck in her marriages and was married four times. “Her first husband was a prince from Amisterre. He died only days after their marriage by falling on his own sword.” He told her about the speculation that erupted and how his mother remarried quickly to dispel the rumors. “Within the year, Cael was born, but then his father died in an unfortunate encounter with a sandpit when Cael was only a baby.”
He continued with the account of the queen’s third husband becoming sick with an unknown ailment just days after their marriage, then wasting away and dying in a matter of weeks. “Which brings us to husband number four—my father. He came to the marriage with a daughter in tow. Melizan was five years old at the time, and I was born several months later. Our father lasted a bit longer than the previous spouses, but he died in another accident when I was seven. He was attacked in the Wilds by a crazed stag. At that point, something in my mother died, too. At least that’s what Eris tells me. I was too young to fully understand. Eris said she became convinced she carried a curse that would bring ruin to her children as well. She walked into the woods one day to save us from similar fates, and she never came back. My brother was only twelve at the time, and was crowned king a week later, with Eris as regent. I was the spare, trained and destined to lead the order of knights as Knight Commander—until six months ago, when Cael was captured. I pity his captors.”
“The fact that they took him and not you is telling. Maybe they considered you a worse lot of trouble.”
Against his will, he smiled. “I can’t argue with that. Actually, Cael does have his finer points. He loves parties and gatherings and never saw an invitation he didn’t like. Anything to take him away from the throne. He’s a social charmer. He can turn it on and off like a faucet. He mostly keeps it on for the far-flung gentry. It makes him a favorite among them, and that comes in handy in dealing with the other kingdoms.”
She rubbed her chin. “Important point. You’re definitely not the charmer of your family. How is Cael closer to home?”
“Stingy with his charm. Pain in the ass. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? Bears saying again.” She was quiet, and he knew he had said too much. “But I don’t want you to think he’s not worth saving.”
“Noted,” she answered. “I suppose none of us would be worthy of saving if only judged by our worst qualities.”
CHAPTER 45
The grove murmured. Swayed. The leaves sighed. It had become accustomed to the girl and her nightly visits. Dancing. Reaching. Hoping. The trees swallowed her up. Welcomed her. She reminded them of a boy who once climbed their limbs, a boy who fell in love beneath the boughs of a forest, too. They remembered the boy, because trees never forget—not the touch of mortals, creatures, or gods.
The girl’s steps were soft. The trees felt them in their roots, in the swish of fallen leaves, in her tiptoe hope. The god’s steps were heavier, but no less hopeful, a deep wanting the trees understood, the yearning for a season to pass—or begin.
But then they sensed another lurking nearby. Watching. Not with hope, but with the deadness of winter. The leaves trembled, quaked as warning. But the girl didn’t notice. Neither did the god. For them it was only spring.
The music was hypnotic, the air fragrant, heady.
Bristol twirled in the moon shadows, her steps matched in time with a phantom.
A phantom that made every part of her feel alive.
She looked at the weave of branches above her, at the blanket of stars beyond, and felt a whisper-soft caress near her ear, barely there, but as powerful as a storm. Her eyes fluttered shut, willing that invisible caress to touch her in other places. Her neck. Her lips. The buttons of her dress . . .
Her fingertips tingled with want. She longed to run her hands over a burning bare chest, her nails across the hard muscle below.
Music pulsed beneath her skin. Something else pulsed low in her gut. The drumbeats. The air. The back twirling against her own, even the sweat on her brow, was an elixir consuming her, seducing her. Holding back was torturous, yet exquisite, like hot metal being burnished to a sharp point. The music slowed. Their movement slowed. The blinking of the stars paused, waiting, every inch of the universe ready to ignite.
Silence.
Second after second passing.
Tyghan, she whispered in her head, hoping he could hear her.
And then the bows plucked, the fiddles crooned, the drum resumed, and so did their movement. It was a dangerous, teasing dance. But she yearned for more. A dance that would drown her completely, until she couldn’t breathe at all.
With each step, it grew harder not to want more of everything.
But she understood, too—maybe in a way that no one else could.
The exposure.
The risk.
The safety of invisibility.
It was a line she had walked her entire life.
Small steps.
She swayed.
She swallowed.
