Jasmine disregarded me.
“I think you shouldn’t let him think that he can sulk and control you in doing it. All right, so maybe you didn’t handle those situations well. But at the bottom of the discussion, you’re right. And that’s indisputable, Ellie.”
Twig and Mossy nodded while tweeting their agreement with Jasmine.
“In the midst of a melee,” Jazz continued, “you do not toss a Nadirii from the fight and you never make decisions about someone’s child behind their back, also behind their back carrying forward such decisions. How you feel badly that you’ve hurt his feelings, I do not know. He’s acting like an ass. The end.”
She was my friend and therefore likely prejudiced.
I could not deny, however, that she was right.
“This is the beauty of sucking his cock,” she carried on to decree. “He’ll get over it and you no longer have to put up with his sulking. Just give him a climax, and in future, make it clear that was a one off. So if he starts sulking again, there will be no more cock sucking. Maybe ever. That’ll end the brooding right quick.”
I frowned for I didn’t think this was such good advice.
Mossy stretched her lips at me.
Twig appeared to be looking anywhere but at Jasmine.
They agreed with me.
In that instant, a blaze of silver and pewter pixie dust streaked by, along with one that was cinnamony and bronze.
Mossy tittered.
Twig waved at us.
And in a glittering waft of ginger, pearl, butter and fern, they flew off.
“Shaft-whipped,” Jasmine muttered, watching them go. “And I’ve met Rocky and Timber and I can’t say I was impressed with either of them.”
“I thought Timber was committing to Twig,” I remarked.
“Forest chatter, Ellie, you need to keep up,” Jazz said, pushing to her feet. “He’s got another. A female called Web. I haven’t met her. She’s probably lovely. But he’s not, seeing as he’s stringing them both along.”
I pushed to my feet as well, saying, “You’re joking.”
She shook her head and we started back toward camp, doing this with Jasmine talking.
“I’ll bet half the reason for the Night of the Fallen Masters was because our ancestors were sick to death of that very kind of rubbish.” She jerked her head toward where Twig and Mossy (and Timber and Rocky) flew away. “And the kind you’re dealing with from Prince Cassius.”
“I doubt our foremothers slit men’s throats because they were tired of having their hearts toyed with,” I replied.
She stopped moving so I stopped with her.
“And how do you feel right now, Elena, when you haven’t realized he knows precisely how you respond to him, because he’s had that experience, my sister, and you have not? And therefore, he knows precisely how to get you to come to heel. Now you’re all tangled up and worried about hurting his feelings when he sent Dora away and he’s never even met her.”
“It was for her safety, Jazz,” I noted.
“How’s this?” she asked. “Elena, I think it’d be best if your ward goes to The Enchantments with your mother. It’s safer for her there than with us. Do you agree? Yes? Excellent. Shall we talk to your mother together, or would you wish to speak to her yourself?” She shook her head in disgust and recommenced walking. “How hard is that?”
It was not hard.
But a few words.
No resultant shouting.
I would have agreed.
Dora would be safe.
Everyone on their way to their respective destinations.
And then Cassius might hold me while we were sleeping.
Not to mention doing other things on that pallet.
Oh, and not least, we’d be getting to know each other better in other ways as we were destined to spend the rest of our lives together as husband and wife.
I watched my feet as we made our way back to camp and fortunately Jazz didn’t press the conversation.
We were outside her tent before she spoke again.
“He’s fine-looking, that’s certain,” she said quietly. “But he’s Airenzian, Elena. Maybe he’s one of the good ones, as well as one of the good-looking ones, but don’t forget that, in the end, he’s Airenzian, and lose yourself in the forgetting.”
Now that, I had a feeling, was good advice.
I looked into her eyes and nodded.
She gave me an encouraging smile, a warm hug, then moved into her tent.
I walked to mine.
When I was inside, I saw there was one lantern still lit, the one by my trunk, which was thoughtful for I could use it to move about and prepare for bed without bumping into things in the dark.
This I did with my back to the pallet and I did it without thinking any further about how thoughtful it was that Cassius had left a lantern glowing for me (something I did not do in the times I went to bed without him).
Once changed, I blew out the light and quickly moved to the bedding because the autumn chill was claiming Wodell, and I’d learned the Firenz desert nights could be cold, but the wet Dellish chill was biting.
Cassius had not moved or made any noise while I was in the tent, so I suspected he was asleep.
This suspicion was incorrect, and he did not delay in communicating that to me for I’d barely pulled the quilt over me before his arm was about my waist and the warmth of his front lined the cool of my back.
His deep voice also vibrated into my hair, causing a trill to trace down my neck and spine.
“Did you see pixies?”
“Yes,” I told the dark.
His arm about me tightened.
My, but I liked his strength.
And his warmth.
And how very long he was.
“I should have let you apologize the way you apologize,” he shared.
This was unfortunate, for now I was wondering why I’d even apologized.
I decided not to reply.
He continued to share.
“I do not respond well to shouting.”
I decided that it might not be constructive for me to reply to that either.
“I should also have let you say farewell to Dora.”
Like he should be able to let me do anything.
I clenched my teeth together.
“And I see now it was hasty that I made arrangements with your mother without your participation, but although I made it clear how I feel about stipulations in such matters, I will also note that I did it not once thinking you wouldn’t agree with me,” he said.
So now he was making caveats while (somewhat) apologizing.
“It would be useful if you participated in this conversation, Elena,” he remarked when I remained silent.
And now it would be useful if I participated in our conversation, one he instigated, when earlier he made it clear he had no desire to participate in the one I commenced.
“I wish to go home,” I announced.
His arm got even tighter.
Indeed, it was near to cutting off my breath.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“I wish first, for you to let me breathe,” I wheezed.
His arm loosened, though not that much, at least I could breathe.
And speak.
“I wish to go home,” I repeated.
“To leave me?”
“No, you can come with me.”
His body pulsed in surprise behind me.
“To The Enchantments?” he asked.
“We are delayed due to Ha-Lah and Aramus going to the sea. We have time. The sea is much farther away than The Enchantments. If we don’t dally, it’s but a few days ride from my home to Notting Thicket. We’d be there before Ha-Lah and Aramus, for certain.”
“You could see Dora,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“And I could see your home.”
I felt my eyes grow round.
Had he lost his mind?
“No,” I said
.
“No?” he asked.
“You’ll wait outside The Enchantments while I go in, see Dora and visit with my mother.”
For a moment, he was completely still.
After that moment was over, neither of us were for I found myself on my back with Cassius for the most part on me.
“Say that again,” he growled.
“I would…you would…that is…” I stammered, staring at his shadowed head and not able to think because first, he seemed suddenly to be very annoyed in a way that was concerning and second, his weight felt altogether too good. I decided to finish with, “My visit won’t last long.”
“You’d have me wait outside The Enchantments?” he asked.
“Um…”
“Like a dog waiting for his master to return?” he demanded.
“Not exactly like that,” I mumbled.
“Not exactly like that?” he bit.
“Not at all like that,” I amended. “Like a human male fishing and, um, practicing with your bow and, well, whatever else men do when they while away time.”
“While away time waiting for you,” he declared like I’d said, “While away a hundred years waiting for me to live my life, marry another, have dozens of children and perhaps take a trip to the heavens.”
“Well…yes,” I answered, before I stated the obvious. “I mean, you can’t go in.”
“Why not?”
I wasn’t sure there was time to enumerate all the reasons.
I decided to prioritize.
“You’re a man.”
“I’m your betrothed.”
“That makes you no less a man,” I pointed out.
“Where you go, I go,” he declared.
“Forever?” I asked, my voice pitched higher.
“That is what marriage is, Elena.”
My night was not improving.
“We’re not married yet,” I noted.
“Let’s call this practice then,” he drawled.
“Cassius—”
“You can let me in,” he declared. “You have that power. Am I correct?”
Oh goddess.
“Not any Nadirii can let in a male,” he continued. “It has to be by agreement, sanctioned by the queen, and accomplished by a coven. But the direct royal line can. This is true, right?”
It was.
A nifty trick my many-greats grandmother had given us for reasons she wrote in her diaries had to do with emergencies.
As far as I knew, only one former queen had used it, and that had been to let in a contingent of Go’Doan to assist in healing efforts when an epidemic was threatening our sisterhood.
“Elena,” he said in a warning tone.
“Cassius, I can’t just let you in. Like you said, it has to be sanctioned by the queen.”
“You can send a bird, informing your mother we’re coming. She won’t object.”
“She might.”
“She won’t.”
She wouldn’t. She was very much all for Cassius and I being a Cassius and I.
“She might,” I repeated, though not very convincingly this time.
“Does everything have to be a struggle with you?” he asked.
Truly?
“Does everything have to be a struggle with you?” I asked in return.
He fell silent.
I was beginning to feel somewhat pleased with myself that I might have gotten the upper hand (rightly) when he changed strategies.
“I wish to see your home,” he said quietly. “Meet Dora, finally. See where you live. Where you were raised. Be amongst your people. As dire as it will be, I’ll be giving all of that to you.”
As dire as it would be?
Before I could recover from his quiet, cajoling tone and ask about that remark, he carried on.
“Has True seen your home?” he inquired.
“This isn’t about True,” I replied.
“Has he been in your home?”
I decided not to answer that.
“He’s been in your home,” he muttered.
“You really must stop pushing True between us,” I advised.
“A man has the mother of his future children under him in their bed, there’s another man who has more of her and will always have more of her if she keeps things of herself from her lover that she’s given that other man, then that man will always be between them.”
I could not argue that.
Though True was not between us because I wanted Cassius, Cassius, Cassius.
I couldn’t tell him that either.
“This is actually my bed, you’re just in it,” I mumbled.
“Your bed is my bed, Elena,” he gritted.
I could argue that.
I just didn’t have the energy.
“Cassius, maybe we should go to sleep,” I suggested.
He did not acquiesce to my suggestion.
He asked, “Why did you ask me to go see the pixies with you?”
By the mercy of the goddess.
“Elena,” he prompted.
I’d had enough.
He wanted to know?
I’d tell him.
“Their flight is beautiful,” I whispered, and felt his body go still over mine when he heard the reverence in my tone. “The pixie dust that soars from their wings, the contrails they leave, it’s breathtaking. Especially in the dark. The magic of the forest…it’s always the strongest magic. It feels like home.”
I took more of his weight into me as his body relaxed into mine in a way that was less relaxing and felt more like it was…melding.
I needed to ignore this, and how good it felt, and I did it by carrying on speaking.
“They’re this world within a world. This beautiful culture with their own clothes and music and traditions. I wished to share that with you. And we would be away. Away from the camp. Away from all these people. I like to be social, but I also like to have quiet times, to think, to reflect, to meditate. I do this in nature, staring at the moon or the sun filtering through a canopy of trees. And I thought, if you went with me, I might not be alone, but there wouldn’t be so many people around. I could introduce you to the magic of the pixies and we could talk, away from the activity and all the company of the camp.”
Cassius was whispering too, when he queried, “What did you wish to talk about, my princess?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You’re very wrong.”
“All right then,” I said quietly. “It did matter. But you made it so it doesn’t matter any longer. Now will you slide off so I can go to sleep?”
“We’re not doing so very well, you and I,” he stated pensively.
“I do not wish to broaden the distance between us, but I’m uncertain that has much to do with me.”
As he had on earlier occasions, he shared his wisdom.
Wisdom learned from his time with his dead wife.
The problem with this was that I was not his dead wife and what he’d learned in his time with her didn’t necessarily hold true with me.
“Between a man and woman, both need to take responsibility when things are not going well.”
“Yes, and when one does just that, even if she’s uncertain she actually should, the other should listen and not drive her into the night to commune alone with pixies.”
Cassius had no reply to that.
And it could be argued I ruined my clever statement by going on to mutter, “Though I wasn’t alone, I had Jasmine. Still. I think you understand my point.”
“I do indeed, Elena.”
“Good,” I replied. “Now will you slide off?”
He did not slide off.
“Cassius,” I prompted, lifting my hips a little to further communicate my request.
His response was to cup my jaw in his hand and murmur, “Cease doing that, lamb, it’s stirring.”
I grew very still to the point I wasn’t breathing.
I forced myself to breathe.
But that was it.
That said, the breath came uneasy, especially when his thumb started to stroke the edge of my bottom lip.
He was right.
Stirring.
I took it, liking it too much, confused by how much I liked it considering the state of play between us, and just when I was about to say something to stop it because I couldn’t bear it any longer without doing something about it that I might regret, he spoke.
“I’ll send a bird to Queen Ophelia tomorrow, informing her of our visit.”
I stared up at him through the dark.
He continued to stroke my lip, though it was no longer stirring.
Had he been present at all that night for either of our conversations?
Most precisely the parts about him making decisions without my consent?
“I’ll tell Mars and True in the morning,” he carried on making decisions. “Hera and Jasmine will ride with us, as will Mac and Ian. I’ll have to leave the rest of my men behind to make certain my father doesn’t do anything foolish while I’m away. But three Nadirii warriors and three Airen soldiers won’t have any trouble. Not in Wodell.”
Now I was not only breathing, I was deep breathing to control my anger.
“Bonus, you and I will have time to get to know one another much better without so many distractions. And you’ll have opportunities to have some time to yourself, which I sense is important to you. Last, by the time we arrive, Aelia very likely might be there and I’m eager to see her as I miss her.”
That first, I wasn’t sure I hoped for any longer.
The second might be considerate.
And the last was sweet.
But…
In order to perhaps not shout the tent down around us, something he didn’t like, but mostly something I didn’t have the energy to do at that time, I focused on something else.
“You’re thinking Mother will allow three Airenzian men into The Enchantments?”
“Yes.”
“Cassius—”
I ceased speaking and his thumb ceased stroking, both as he pressed his lips hard to mine.
I pressed my head hard to the pillow.
He didn’t seem to notice and ended the kiss with a wet, delicious swipe of his tongue along the crease of my mouth that made me wonder why I was pushing my head into the pillow.
Only then did he slide off, turn me to my side and press into me along my back, cocking my knees with his own.
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