He didn’t answer. Instead, Storm reached above the perfume equipment and pressed a hand flat against the wall. Glass next to the bed shifted and revealed a room beyond.
The small bathing chamber was clearly meant for two people. Twin glass sinks were connected by tubes leading outside, she could only assume to catch rainwater. A magnificent shower bracketed one wall, but what made her catch her breath was the stained glass mural on the opposite wall.
A woman seated on a rock tilted her head back to the sun. Her face was so beautiful, so lifelike, it didn’t seem possible the tiny chips of stained glass weren’t melted together. Her expression was filled with pensive sadness, almost had though she had recently lost something. Someone had taken a very long time to create this woman.
She turned to ask Storm what the story was. Her words caught in her throat and died a quiet death.
He stared at the woman as though she had hung the very stars in the sky. His eyes wide, his heart on his sleeve, even his mouth slightly open as he breathed through his lips. This woman meant something to Storm. Something far more than the glass figures of Ayla’s parents did.
“Who was she?” she finally asked, although she didn’t know if she wanted the answer.
“My wife.”
Ayla had no right to feel the jealousy singing in her veins. She didn’t hold any rights at all when it came to him. He was a stranger still, no matter how attracted she was or how much of a connection she felt.
But a wife? She hadn’t expected him to be married. Her stomach turned. She wanted to leave this room. To go back to her own and throw herself atop the bedspread as she had when she was just a child. A wife? He was already taken?
Something about the set of his shoulders made her thoughts pause. He wasn’t just staring at the mural with pure, unadulterated love.
He stared at it with overwhelming sadness.
“What happened to her?” Ayla asked. She held her breath with both guilt and hope. She didn’t want the woman to be dead, not if he loved her as much as he clearly did. But also, she feared rejection when she’d only just found him.
“It was a long time ago.” He shifted, reaching out a hand and balancing himself on the vanity. “Faeries tried to be friends with humans, once. She was at the forefront of such meetings. We thought, for a time, humans could accept us and our kind.”
Ayla had first hand experience on how untrue that statement was. Humans weren’t all that interested in magic. They liked the idea of it, but when they saw it for themselves, they feared the power and its wielder.
“It’s an honorable thing to try to improve the lives of the faeries.” She didn’t really mean it, however. Improving the lives of the fae often led to hardships and war.
Storm coughed out a mirthless laugh. “They killed her for it. Ran her through with a sword, considering this was before guns. I found her broken and bleeding on the street. Tossed out of someone’s house like trash.”
Ayla’s chest tightened, and she wished she could do something for him. Hug him. Hold him. Help banish the memories now that he’d brought them up.
But he didn’t like to be touched.
Ayla refused to let herself tear up. He was still hated by the Air Court and there had to be a reason. But she couldn’t think of a single one at the moment.
“Why are you telling me all this?” she asked.
“Because you wanted to know when the madness started?” He pointed at the mural. “When she died. All that darkness churned to life inside my very soul. When I received the power of the elemental and took the throne... both power and madness mixed to create something dangerous inside me. The air isn’t just what we breathe. It’s also everything carried in the wind and someday, I fear I will lose control of everything.”
She couldn’t stop herself. Ayla reached forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It sounds like grief, not madness.”
He swallowed hard, his throat working, then nodded. Storm stared at the mural for so long, Ayla realized he wasn’t going to speak at all. He was lost in memories. Captured in his own mind.
She dropped her hand from his shoulder and backed away. Strangely, she felt his sorrow as though it were her own.
She couldn’t fix him. He had to learn how to carry the weight on his own.
16
Storm reclined with his arms behind his head and eyes on the sky. On the roof of the palace, his mind was free to wander without ghosts of his past plaguing him.
He only came out here when he needed to think, and he certainly did. Why had he taken her to his private quarters? He’d wanted to share something special with her. Something as unique as cooking with him.
He was no chef, but he knew how to crack a few eggs. She could figure out how to make a perfume that would charm the masses. At least, he believed she could.
Now, relaxing on the roof with the entire sky laid out before him like a blanket, he wondered why his mind was in tangles. He wanted her to think of him as normal. A man capable of many talents. Multi-layered. Difficult to understand, but interesting enough to keep her attentions.
His mind stuttered. Miriam.
He hadn’t thought of his wife in ages.
It was unusual for faeries to marry. They were far more interested in temporary partners until the two desired to go their own ways. But he’d fallen in love with her the first moment they met.
She was bright and bubbly. Too loud for most social situations with a heart as big as a mountain. She had wanted to save the world, and her ambition had captivated him.
Ambition had gotten her killed.
That was centuries ago now. So long ago that he couldn’t remember her face other than the mural, and even then, something in the back of his head thought it was too perfect. She’d had a scar on her lip, hadn’t she? And her shoulders had been larger than what the portrait had.
Miriam had been lovely when she was alive. Full of vigor and hope, but also earthy. Almost human. The mural couldn’t capture those qualities.
In comparison, Ayla was slight. Like a warm breeze on a summer day rather than the howling storm Miriam had been. He remembered getting swept up in everything she wanted to do. No adventure was too small and always filled with an overwhelming amount of excitement and laughter.
These days, he wasn’t so interested in adventure. He wanted a quieter life, with a partner who didn’t mind letting him go off on his own for a while. He was tired.
Faerie realms, he was so damned tired.
Wind rushed up the side of the palace and something light struck the roof behind him. He knew who it was without even turning. She’d tracked him down. Although, he had no idea how she’d found him.
The roof wasn’t the first place he’d think to look. The dungeons, perhaps. Or whatever depths this castle had.
“Are you hiding from me?” She teased, her voice lifting at the ends. He knew the sound of her laughter well by now. It was quiet, easily missed, but still pleasant and happy when she wished.
He chuckled. “No. I don’t think I could hide if I wanted to. You have an uncanny ability to find people, princess.”
Her footsteps echoed as she made her way across the roof. The padding slap of bare feet made him far more uncomfortable than it should have. Why did he suddenly need to know if her feet were as delicate as her hands? He’d never been interested in a woman’s feet in his life!
Storm resolved himself to the truth. He was interested in everything about her. Every inch. Every thought or desire. She was the most fascinating woman he’d ever met, and he was one of the rare faeries who’d been in love.
Ayla sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” He didn’t move. Hardly even breathed for fear she might leave.
For over a hundred years he’d been coming up to this roof to get away from everyone and everything. All the responsibility. All the dread of having to deal with faerie nobles who expected everything from him but gav
e nothing in return. Storm had always loved solitude.
Now, he realized it was better with her in it. Silently watching the stars.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” she whispered. Her voice was a song laced with sadness.
“I am too.” Miriam’s face flashed in his mind’s eye, but only the one from the mural. He couldn’t even remember if her eyes were that blue. “The past has to stay in the past, however. Or it’ll eat you alive.”
“Oh I’m not so sure about that.” The starlight turned her hair to burnished silver, other than the streaks he’d made, so sparkling they looked like stars danced within each strand. “I don’t think grief ever goes away, you just get better at living with it.”
Something in the set of her shoulders warned him to keep quiet. She was about to tell him something important. Something that had shaped who she was and how she had come to him in this moment.
Storm wisely kept his mouth shut.
“I lost my parents five years ago.”
His heart ached for her. He knew what it was like to lose someone beloved. But her parents hadn’t died five years ago. Perhaps time passed differently for humans. He opened his mouth to inform her of that, only to be interrupted.
“Not the royal parents here in the glass palace.” She waved a hand in the air. “I didn’t know them at all. I have zero memories of this place or them or anything about my life before my human parents. They’re the ones I consider to be my mother and father.”
“Ah.” That made sense, in a way. Storm just couldn’t think of humans as anything but monsters who needed to be squashed under his heel.
They maimed. They destroyed. They killed. This was what humans knew. It wasn’t their fault, although he hated to even admit they had any innocence. Their world bred monsters. He should know, considering he was one himself.
Ayla sighed. “If we’re comparing old wounds, it was a car crash. They were both really good people. Volunteered whenever they could. Always gave to charity. Sponsored starving kids so they could go to school, you know. The kind of people the world needs.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “And then this inexperienced kid was driving home drunk. T-boned them in the parking lot. They weren’t even moving.”
The worst part of tragedy was losing someone too soon. “You hunted down the person who killed them, then?”
“No.” She laughed, but it was a bitter, aching sound. “That’s not how humans work. He got a few years in jail. I think it was just lowered to fifteen. So he’ll be thirty five when he leaves jail and be able to start his life over. My parents are dead, though. And they’ll stay dead.”
What did he say? He tried to consider what he wanted her to say to him about Miriam.
The answer was nothing. Ayla hadn’t known Miriam, and it was a long time ago. He’d dealt with his grief, although it rode his shoulders every day just as she said. So instead of antagonizing or asking more questions, he stayed silent.
Together, they sat on the roof and stared up at the stars. Reliving the moments of their past when sadness hadn’t always been in the back of their mind.
When the silence wore on him, Storm tilted his head to the side and stared at her profile. Even her nose had an upturned end that made him want to press his lips against it. Just to see if he could nudge it back into place.
Silly thoughts. He shouldn’t even consider her a woman. She was the princess, and the rightful queen to the throne he’d taken from her parents.
He hadn’t known she existed, of course. Otherwise, he might not have taken it.
Who was he kidding? He was a different person then. He would have fought for the throne because he hadn’t known it would turn his life upside down. Nor that he would hate its golden seat with all his might.
Storm heaved a great sigh. “I’m sorry about your parents. Both sets of them.”
She shrugged. “I suppose I wasn’t meant to have parents. Something in the universe wants me to be on my own.”
Damned if his heart didn’t twist into a knot. It wasn’t fair a woman like her felt she was bound to be alone. He couldn’t stand the thought of her sitting up here, alone, as he had for all these years. Waiting for someone to show up who wouldn’t fear her, while knowing it was unlikely that person existed.
Storm sat up. He braced himself on his arms for a moment before he realized there was only one option here. Only one thing he could do, even though he knew it might be madness.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was his heart.
He scooted closer to her and twisted to face those beautiful pink lips, upturned nose, and eyes as big as the moon. Every muscle in his body locked tight, even his biceps trying to force him to stillness.
But nothing would hold him still when he desperately wanted to lift his arm and touch her. So he did. He reached out his hand and touched a single finger to her cheekbone. Storm traced the swell of her cheek down to her strong jaw and followed the bone all the way to her chin. He pressed his thumb against her bottom lip, staring at the rosy velvet like it held the meaning to life itself.
“You aren’t meant to be alone.” he whispered. “I’m certain of that.”
“How do you know?” Her eyes were too large, too filled with starlight and the moon for him to hold himself still.
Storm didn’t ask. He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, stealing a kiss that shouldn’t have been his. He didn’t know if she had a suitor, a husband, or if she even liked men.
For a second, she froze beneath his touch. She stopped breathing and though he moved his lips against hers, he worried she might want him to stop. That he’d read this situation wrong.
Then she moved. Ayla surged onto her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck and blossoming beneath his touch.
He shifted closer. Placing a hand against her indented waist that was so tiny, so perfect, so damned fitting for his hand. He held her jaw with the other, trapping her against his body. Storm devoured her lips, inhaled her breath, and drank of her essence.
She wasn’t just a princess. She was a tempest brewing in the body of a woman who could carry him far away from here. Far beyond the horizon where no one knew his name.
He didn’t know how long they explored the depths of each other’s lips. He only knew her scent clung to him like a warm hug. And that she didn’t just smell like lilacs and the world budding to life.
She smelled like spring.
Ayla pulled away from him first, her breathing fast and her body trembling against his. She took a deep breath, then looked up and met his gaze. “They call you the Mad King because you spread madness to all you touch?”
Not the conversation he wanted to have after kissing her for the first time, but if that’s what she wanted, he supposed he could oblige. Breathless, Storm nodded. “Yes.”
She licked her glistening lips. “Then let’s be mad together.”
Damned if he didn’t melt at her words. Some knot he hadn’t realized tangled in his chest loosened just with the knowledge she didn’t mind the danger. She accepted him entirely, with all the flaws and horrors he had yet to show her.
Storm leaned down and kissed her again. He intended to spend the rest of his night drinking her in. And he did. They let their lips cling together until the sun rose on the horizon.
17
That kiss.
Ayla woke up the next three mornings thinking about it. His lips on hers had felt so right. That made little sense, considering how many air faeries hated him.
She didn’t understand it. The entire court seemed to want him removed from the throne. Although she understood the desire to no longer spread the madness, how many people touched the king? It seemed a little odd they would constantly be coming in contact with him.
And if he could kiss her, then why couldn’t other people touch him?
And then her thoughts would go right back to the kiss. He knew how to kiss, and her heart fluttered with the memory of it.
She’d thought his mouth might be a litt
le stiff. Most men she’d kissed had always been a little... well. Awkward. None of them knew how to move their lips, nor did they care if she enjoyed it. Kissing was a stepping stone to what they wanted. And when she made it clear they wouldn’t get what they wanted, they moved on.
The first morning she saw Storm after the kiss, she tried to get him to cook with her. Breakfast was a great way to a man’s heart. Besides, she didn’t want to walk up and kiss him again if that’s not where things were going.
Storm had been so awkward. Stammering words. Incapable of speaking to her. Denying he wanted anything to eat at all and then racing from the kitchen like he’d caught on fire. She’d retreated to her room for the rest of the day.
The next two days were much of the same. And though her rosy glow still held strong, it was waning in the wake of a man who clearly didn’t want to spend more time with her.
Was she just a terrible kisser? Was that it?
Ayla didn’t understand why he kept running away from her. Or why he had hidden himself when all they’d done was kiss.
Today, she decided it was better to find him and talk about it. She wouldn’t sit here, worried she’d done something wrong, when she could just talk about it. She strode down the hall, searching through all the clear rooms, desperate to understand what she’d done wrong.
A thousand questions burned in her mind. He was the only one who could answer them.
Now she just had to find him. And that was proving to be more difficult than she’d thought it might be. Blowing out a breath, she rounded yet another corner into yet another wing where she hoped like hell he would appear behind the glass.
Foiled again. She could see through every wall and not a single glimpse of the wayward king.
“Where are you?” she muttered.
A small breeze coiled around her shoulders and ruffled her hair. Almost like the wind knew who she was and was stroking a hand over her head.
Anywhere else, she would have thought herself crazy for even thinking a wind had personality. But she was in a floating glass palace in the middle of the sky. Anything was possible.
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