by Jack Whitney
Draven smirked. “Climbing trees,” he said with a shrug. “Battling each other. Constant training. Gifts of Duarb. Take your pick.” His eyes traveled down her own sitting body and he raised a brow when his gaze landed on her hips. “Am I to think Arbina simply gave you that weapon or did you find the secret to a man’s lust on your own?”
Her lips pursed at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Draven huffed amusedly and shook his head. “You know that wall is going to shatter one day,” he mused, popping back another chip in his mouth. “I can’t wait to be there when you’re trying to pick up the pieces.”
She watched him chew smugly a moment, contemplating whether to throw the rest of her tea in his face. “Is it not you who tells your men constant vigilance?” she finally decided to ask. “To never trust words, only instinct?”
His chewing slowed, and he stared at her a moment. “My kind have been persecuted over the years for simply being what we are… for the mistakes of our giver,” he said in a low voice. “Would you expect me to tell them to live as though they could trust every being to walk this land?”
“There are good people in this land,” she said. “Not everyone has ulterior motives.”
“And are you one of these… good people?” he asked with a raised brow.
She pondered his question a moment, the life she lived echoing in her mind like it were playing backwards in her sight.
“I may not have alternative motives… but I don’t know that I would call myself a good person,” she finally determined.
He slowly grabbed for another chip and crunched it in his mouth. “Look at that,” he said, swallowing the food. “A crack.”
Her jaw tightened at his words, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The smirk on his lips returned. He went inside and sat the rest of the bowl of chips on the table, returning with a cup of the familiar potion he’d been feeding her. He sat it down on the ground beside the chair, and then he turned towards the staircase again.
“Drink the potion, Sun Queen,” he called back to her.
Aydra grumbled as she switched from tea to the thick liquid, and then she shot it back into her system before she could hurl at the smell.
CHAPTER TWENTY
DRAVEN WAS NOT the one to bring her breakfast the next morning. He had sent Balandria up to her with food and more of the potion around midday. When Aydra had asked Balandria about where he was, she’d insisted Aydra not be concerned with her king’s whereabouts.
Aydra sipped the potion instead of gulping it back as she usually did, allowing her curiosity the better of her as she sat down at Draven’s desk to pour over some of the maps he had spread across it.
Maps of the southern shores, of the Forest dwellings. She paused at this one, staring at the vastness of the forest home she realized she’d only seen a fraction of. Another set of drawings caught her eyes, and she pulled one page up to the top of the pile, finding on it the drawing of one of the Noctuans— the Rhamocour.
The dragon-like beast was sketched deliberately into the parchment. Long neck raised, great wings spread out, each the same length as its body. The drawing made the beast look like it was all black as smoke, whisps drawn around it as though to signify it as a shadow. But what stood stark was the great horns on its head, and the apple green color the eyes had been filled with.
“You know—”
Aydra jumped so quickly at the sound of Draven’s voice that she nearly fell to the floor.
“—The last time someone snooped in my things, they found themselves in the middle of Berdijay territory on the last night of the Deads.”
Draven was leaned against the frame of the door, shadows over his features as he stared pointedly at her.
“Sweet Arbina, Draven,” she managed, willing her heart to even pace. “Can you—” Her words ceased at the sight of him. A great slash ripped through his shirt, his forearm bleeding from what looked like a scrape.
“What happened to you?” she asked breathlessly.
His jaw tightened, and he pushed off the wall to go towards the tub. “I’ll show you,” he said. “Tomorrow night. In the meantime, drink your potion and get back in bed. I need you well enough to not have to worry about your safety in the Forest tomorrow night.”
Aydra rose to her feet, and she hobbled around to the front of the desk. “So demanding, Venari,” she mused. “Should I look forward to this kind of dominating leer on our journey?” she attempted to banter.
The rate at which he was suddenly in front of her made her gasp. Papers flew onto the floor. He grasped her hips and pushed her to the top of the desk, his hands pressing her wrists into the wood as his torso came flush with hers. Her breath caught, and she found herself frozen to the spot. His hair tickled her shoulders as he stared down at her, his face only inches from hers.
“Careful what you ask for, Sun Queen.”
Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears at the noise of his growl. She swallowed hard, and in that moment decided to play his game. Her head tilted up at him, exposing her neck. Her thighs squeezed around his hips, pointed toes and heels digging into the backs of his thighs, and she felt her mouth open just slightly as her eyes darted from his sage orbs to his lips. She swore she heard a low groan emit from his throat as she her thighs tightened around him.
“Remember who you’re playing with, Forest King.”
His eyes fluttered for only a moment, and then a small smirk rose on his lips. He glanced down at her lips before suddenly taking a step away from her. “Right,” he muttered with a raise of his brows.
Aydra’s breath returned, and she stared after him as he finished crossing to the tub, where he started pumping the water into it.
The raven flew inside and landed on the desk, where it tapped its beak on the potion cup. Aydra snapped out of her daze and grasped it in her hands.
She shot the rest of it back into her mouth and pushed herself to the bed before she could allow her feet to go to the tub with him.
It was much past dark when Aydra awoke to the noise of a lullaby echoing through the forest. She recognized it immediately, and welcomed the one whom it belonged to. She hobbled out to the deck and sat on the lounge chair so that she could better hear it. She’d heard it once before, a very long time ago, when she’d been taken to the Forest with Zoria.
It was the sweet melody of the Bygon, Samar. The only one left of her kind. She lived in creeks and waters, taking form during the Deads to lure wandering men into her grasp. Her lullaby would rock them into a slumber they didn’t want to be parted from, and then she would devour their blood while they slept.
Her voice grew louder as Aydra snuggled further into the blanket around her on the chair. And when a brisk wind swept through the balcony, Aydra looked towards the misting fog in front of her.
“Hello, Samar,” Aydra called.
Samar’s womanly figure appeared from within the fog. She rose out of it not as smoke appearing to figure, but as bone first, followed by muscle and blood, until the skin wrapped around her, creating the corporal being that came to sit on the railing.
Samar smiled dreamily and twirled her stark straight black hair in her fingers.
“Queen Aydra,” Samar purred with a nod. “It has been a long time.”
“Your lullaby is even more beautiful than I remember,” Aydra said.
Samar smiled. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company on this turn of the Deads?”
“Shadow thieves.” Aydra pointed to the whelps around her ankles. “What about you? I did not think you to venture inside their homes when you’ve so few nights to hunt.”
“I come on occasion of the King’s call,” Samar replied.
Aydra frowned. “I did not hear the horn.”
“That’s because he does not have to bellow or body the horn for my attention. The horn carries many different songs. One simply has to learn them. Draven has near mastered them all.”
“And why does the King call you?” Aydra asked.
“He asks for my lullaby when he cannot sleep. I oblige any way I can.”
Aydra frowned. “What exactly would he be having nightmares about?”
Samar’s lips twisted smugly. “Who said anything about nightmares?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “And what of you, Queen? Why do you not sleep? Has my lullaby not worked for you on this night?”
“You know as well as I that even your strongest of songs cannot put me to sleep.”
Samar jumped off the railing and knelt in front of Aydra then, her breath an inch from the queen’s. “You know I have other ways to help in such times,” Samar whispered, her hand pressing to Aydra’s cheek. She moved her hair off her shoulder, revealing the pale skin of her neck. Aydra’s body shuddered as she felt Samar’s mouth on her skin. Feeling the Bygon’s flesh was different from sharing with a being. Samar’s touch was of fog on your flesh, whispers of touch on your body. She could shift into that which you wanted the most.
So when Aydra found herself lying on the bed a few moments later, legs splayed open as she almost reached her climax, and she looked down to find Draven’s face between her thighs, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Sweet Arbina— Samar!” Aydra hissed, grabbing her hair.
The Bygon shifted into her self again and wiped her lips of Aydra’s wetness as she grinned over the startled queen. “Something wrong?” Samar asked innocently.
Aydra drew the knife from the bedside table and pushed it to Samar’s throat. “What are you playing at, Bygon?” she hissed.
Samar’s eyes danced, a thin brow raising on her face. “Not what you were expecting?”
Aydra pushed her off and sat up, chest heaving at the thought of Draven being in bed with her. She swallowed hard and straightened her hair. “Get out.”
Samar frowned. “But I have not completed my task,” she argued.
Aydra glared at her over her shoulder. She wouldn’t deny herself still in want of an end, of her body to give in to the tire her mind felt. “No more tricks. Find someone else in my subconscious to mimic,” she warned the shifter. “I want nothing of his face near me.”
Samar gave her a nod, and in a whisper, the Dreamer Ash appeared before her, and she settled back into the bed again.
“That’s better,” Aydra muttered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE NOISE OF the birds woke Aydra from the deepest slumber she’d had in weeks. She rose up from the sheets and stretched her arms overhead, relishing the feeling of her muscles waking and stretching with the glow of her mother Sun coming in through the opening.
“You should really learn some manners, Sun Queen,” came Draven’s voice.
She was getting used to him appearing from no where by then, but the sound of his voice brought back the memory of the night before, and it caused the flash of his face between her legs to come to mind.
As he leaned against the frame of the door, wearing the same brown pants and dark green sleeveless tunic he’d worn just days before, smiling smugly at her, she felt the color drain from her face.
Perhaps she hadn’t been as quiet as she’d thought.
“Manners?” she made herself repeat. “This coming from the Hunter who pushed me on a desk yesterday without my asking for it.”
He huffed amusedly under his breath, his eyes glancing towards said desk. “I take it Samar paid you a visit last night?” he asked with a raise of his brow. “I’m guessing her lullaby didn’t work for you either.”
Her teeth clenched as she pushed herself to the edge of the bed. “How I fall asleep is no business of yours, Venari,” she made herself argue.
“It’s not. Except when your moans are what kept me up for near an hour. Tell me, who was it she mimicked that took so long to bring you to your end?”
She almost fell onto the floor at his question, and she glared up at him, but she didn’t reply. He smirked at her and pushed off the doorframe.
“My men brought back deer two days ago. We have hash and potatoes for breakfast if you’d like to come downstairs today to eat.”
Her brows narrowed. “What, eat with your people?”
He shrugged. “Unless you’d like to continue eating alone…”
She paused and considered him a moment. “I could eat.”
“Perhaps later, you can accompany me deeper into the forest. Help me with the creature that tried to kill me yesterday.”
“Shame it missed,” she bantered, to which he smiled. She eyed him again, pondering his being nice to her. “Remind me again why I am helping you?”
His gaze flickered over her, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Because we made a deal. And because your little princess rode in here this morning like a bat spat out of Duarb’s roots and I am the only reason she is not dead.”
Her eyes widened. “Nyssa is here?”
Draven’s jaw clenched and he gave an upwards nod towards the stair case.
“—off of me!” she heard her younger sister complaining.
“Shut up, Nyssa, and come here,” Aydra called out.
She heard rushed footsteps up the stairs, and met Draven’s annoyed gaze as Nyssa reached the deck. The young girl didn’t hesitate before bounding into the bedroom.
“Drae!”
Nyssa’s jumped into Aydra’s arms and nearly knocked her off balance. Aydra grasped to the poster of the bed and held tight. “Nyssa, please. You’re—you’re hurting me—”
The strength of the girl’s grasp around her made her wince. Nyssa pulled back and placed her hands on Aydra’s cheeks.
“Are you okay? You—” Nyssa’s face suddenly furled, and she took a quiet step back from Aydra. “Has he not let you bathe?” she whispered.
Aydra’s lips pursed, and she could see Draven smirking at her from the balcony. She pushed it from mind and shook her head. “What are you doing here? I told the Orel to tell you I was fine—”
“Rhaif thought it was a trap devised by the Hunters,” Nyssa whispered, glancing around them as though to make sure Draven was not near. “He thought they’d kidnapped you and forced you to say you were okay. The only reason he is not here with an army is because I convinced him to let me come to you and find out for myself.”
Aydra’s eyes danced over Nyssa’s face. “He thought I was coerced?”
Nyssa leaned forward. “He thinks they are taking turns raping you.”
“Taking turns—WHAT?” Aydra shook at the thought that her brother thought such of her. “None of them have touched me. They have helped me. Draven has been nothing but hospitable, aiding me, helping me heal. Did you tell my brother I could not walk?”
“I did. But he did not believe me.”
“And will he believe you when you go back without me and tell him I am okay?”
Nyssa frowned. “But you’re coming back with me.”
“I am not finished here,” Aydra argued. “I will remain the remainder of the Dead Moons. Draven needs my help with some things.”
The brows on Nyssa’s face furrowed, and her eyes danced around the room in confusion. “But—“
“Nyssa, did you know about the boats?” Aydra demanded.
Color faded from Nyssa’s face. Her weight shifted on her feet as she stepped back from Aydra. “What… what boats?”
The fear in the girl’s eyes made Aydra’s blood boil. She clenched her jaw. “The boats on Lovi’s shore. The boats my brother refused to help the Venari and Honest defeat. The boats of strangers who Draven asked for help defending the realm from. The boats who’s strangers on them killed some of Draven’s and the Honest people. The boats, Nyssa.”
“What?” Nyssa managed breathlessly. “What—what are you talking about?” Her gaze darted between Aydra and back to Draven’s stiffened facade leaning on the railing. Nyssa took a step back and shook her head voraciously. “I… I… I didn’t—”
Aydra’s nostrils flared. “Nyssa…”
“I didn’t know that would happen,” Nyssa promised. “I swear, I ha
d no inclination that these people were dangerous, that a battle would be fought. I thought… Rhaif… I happened to be in the Chamber when the letter came, and he threw such a fit. He made me promise not to tell—”
“How could you not tell me?” Aydra asked softly, her heart breaking.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was serious—”
“My men died on that beach,” Draven interjected from the balcony. “Do you call that not serious?”
“Not now, Draven,” Aydra cut in.
Draven settled back against the railing, arms crossing over his chest. Aydra turned back to Nyssa’s pain-stricken face, and she realized Nyssa was shaking.
“Drae, please,” Nyssa begged. “I didn’t realize.”
A heavy sigh left Aydra as she watched the terror on her sister’s face, the genuine regret in her bewildered features. She shook her head, feeling her face soften.
“Don’t ever lie to me again,” she dared. “I know you think he is righteous and he has the kingdom’s best interests in mind, but… “ She paused and swallowed hard, her hand clutching to the pole at the end of the bed to steady herself. “If you hear anything that he tries to stifle down, you have to tell me. You cannot believe any promises he ever makes you.”
Nyssa’s brows narrowed just slightly at her words, but she didn’t argue. Aydra sighed again, and then she hugged her sister. Nyssa clutched hard around her.
“I’m sorry,” Nyssa whispered against her. “I’m so sorry. I won’t—”
“Did you eat yet?” Aydra interjected.
“We didn’t. We rode through the night.”
Aydra glanced back at Draven’s annoyed figure leaned against the railing still. “Draven, do you mind if my sister joins us for breakfast?” she asked him.
“What— join the Venari?” Nyssa frowned. “But what about—”
“Not so long as she remembers who’s table she’s sitting at,” he answered, eyes traveling deliberately over Nyssa’s embarrassed figure.
Nyssa’s eyes darted between the pair. “But—”
