The words fell out of her mouth in a rush. They were thoughts that had been building inside of her since she’d come to Underworld, to this castle, to this strange world where the truth of fae could not be taken at face value. Yes, Dagen had “redeemed” himself by finally taking Taveon’s side during the Battle for the Crown, but why had he done it? And was it all just some sort of act? He had been the one who had asked Bree to spy for him in the first place. He’d been the one who had almost turned Bree against Taveon completely.
No matter what he’d done since then, those were facts that she could never, ever forget.
“What I want is what I have always wanted: what is best for this realm. For the longest time, I did not believe that Taveon was that, but I have now seen the error in my ways.” He took a step closer, and Bree’s body went tense. “What is best for this realm is for our King, who was crowned only days ago, to take command. We need him on his throne. Not in his bed. I shudder to think what will happen if we cannot save him.”
So, he had come to the very same conclusion Bree had. Not a surprise considering that he was an expert on all things political, and he’d been the Hand of the King for Midas. Hell, he was probably three steps ahead of Bree already.
She gave him a slight nod and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for once. “Have you found anything?”
Lifting his eyebrows, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you found anything, Bree?”
“No.” A beat passed. “But maybe we’d be better off combining forces.”
She couldn’t believe she was suggesting it. Only days before, she’d sworn to herself to never work with Dagen again, but here she was. Asking and hoping and praying he’d say yes. Searching for answers alone made no sense. Together, they could cover far more ground and much more quickly. Taveon would be back on his feet a hell of a lot faster if Bree swallowed her pride.
It was a long while before Dagen deemed to answer, loosing a breath as he ran a hand down his face. “You will have to excuse my surprise, Bree. It was not very long ago that you were insistent on staying away from me.”
“Yeah, well. I think maybe I made a mistake, too, and now I’m seeing the error of my ways. We’re better off working together on this. I want what’s best for the realm, too, and what’s best is getting this curse off of Taveon as quickly as possible.”
“Good. Then, it is settled. We will work together on this.”
“Okay,” Bree said with a nod. “What did you have in mind?”
Dagen stepped closer to her, and Bree swore she could feel his masculine power radiating off his body in waves. “We need to get the entire Court in one room again. Look each fae in the eye. See if we can prod them for information. Someone must know something.”
“All in one room,” Bree repeated. She was following the conversation but only slightly. Somehow, she’d gotten a little preoccupied with his lips. They were so very close to hers, and she felt inexplicably drawn to them. She licked her own lips, wondering if he could feel the same tension she did.
“We had the celebration after the coronation, but it is not unheard of for a new King to throw a separate ball not long after he takes the throne. It is a way to...” Dagen stopped speaking when Bree licked her lips again. “Bree.”
“Yes?” she asked, body buzzing from electricity.
“You are distracting me.”
“No, you’re the one distracting me,” she whispered.
He reached up and cupped her cheek with his palm, sighing as she leaned against his touch. She couldn’t help herself. There was something about Lord Dagen that called to her. Whatever bond they shared, it was far different than what she shared with Taveon and with Rafe, but there was no denying that it was there. At times, she’d been able to push it aside but not now. She wanted comfort and closeness. And she wanted it from him.
“Bree,” he whispered softly. “What has changed in you? I thought you...”
He left off his final words, but Bree knew what they were all the same. He thought she hated him. And she had. Well, kind of. She had distrusted him. She had feared his motivations were not what they had seemed. And, truth be told, she still couldn’t be certain that he was being genuine.
It didn’t change the fact that she wanted nothing more than to feel his lips on her skin.
“Kiss me,” she said, finding a courage she did not know she had. “Please.”
He sucked in a ragged breath and drew her closer, drinking her in with his bright eyes. He pulled her mouth toward his and kissed her hard, his fingers digging into the strands of her hair. She moaned against him, letting herself get lost in the feel of him. He held her with a strength and certainty that made her knees shake.
Bree pressed her body against him, her breasts brushing against his chest. The moan that escaped his throat sent a tight thrill through her gut. Her fingers fumbled with his tunic, a new intense desire sweeping through her core. She no longer just wanted to kiss him. She wanted to feel him. Every part of him. And she wanted him inside of her now.
Her fingers dipped into his waistband, and he gasped. Suddenly, he was five feet across the room, his hair disheveled and his cheeks pink. Disappointment churned in her gut, as well as embarrassment. Did he not want her, too?
“Not like this, Bree. Not here.” He gazed around them at the skulls and the bones. King Midas’s chambers. She had to admit that it wasn’t the sexiest place she could think of, but that hadn’t seemed to matter five seconds ago.
“You’re just trying to turn me down gently,” she said, twisting away so that he could not see the hurt on her face.
“I am not turning you down,” he said, voice insistent. “But I cannot be with you the way I want to. Not like this. Come back to my quarters with me. Let us leave Midas’s rooms behind. His ghost haunts this place.”
But Bree shook her head. The moment had passed, and now she felt like a massive idiot for throwing herself at Dagen in the first place. She’d had a moment of weakness, one she couldn’t have again.
Dagen blinked and gave a nod. “Very well, Bree. If that is what you wish. Then, I suppose I will see you tomorrow. Come to my office when you’re done with training. We will work out the details for our ball. And we’ll find whoever has done this to the King.”
Chapter 10
Bree
In the mornings, Bree trained with Rafe, Eurig, and Lyra. Before, she had always looked forward to her time with Rafferty, but Eurig was making the Academy practically unbearable these days.
Rafe clapped his hands and raised his voice when his three trainees had joined him in the center of the room. Eurig had been late. As always. “Today, we’re going to be working on building your strength.”
Bree smiled. This was one exercise she was used to. They had worked on it together before the new recruits had arrived. Bree would shift into her beast, and she would pick up pieces of stone off the floor until she was too weary to continue. She flexed her hands and smiled when her claws immediately responded to her call.
“Not like that today, Bree,” Rafe said before Bree could get too far into her shift.
Frowning, Bree let her claws snap back into her skin. “Then, like how?”
“In your fae forms,” he said with a tight smile, knowing how she’d feel about this particular brand of training. “There will be times when you are unable to fight in your beastly form, where staying fae is a far better option. And we need to train your abilities as a fae, just as much as we need to train your beast.”
With a sigh, Bree nodded. She knew he was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. The truth was, Bree’s fae form was far weaker than her beast. And no matter how much training she did, she doubted she would ever excel without her wolf.
Eurig, on the other hand, looked smug as hell.
“What are you smiling at?” she snapped.
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “With those puny arms of yours, I should have guessed you wouldn’t be happy about training your
strength. I bet you cannot even do a single push-up.”
She glared at him. “Excuse me? Did you just call my arms puny?”
“Prove to me they aren’t then,” he said with a smile, and crossed his arms over his chest.
Bree stomped over to him, sizing him up. Okay, so he was massive, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from showing him up. Not that she could really show him up. He had muscles larger than her head, and it didn’t look like he even had an ounce of body fat. If she tried to punch him, she’d probably hurt herself far worse than she’d hurt him. But she could not stand the smug expression on his face.
He didn’t expect her to actually do anything. She could tell by the glint in his eye. He knew that she knew just how much of a muscular tank he was. Sometimes, the element of surprise was everything.
So, Bree pulled back her fist and slammed it straight into Eurig’s stomach. Pain lanced through her hand as a crunch echoed through the room. She cried out loud, doubling over at the sharp stabs that shot through her knuckles.
Shit!
Tears sprung into her eyes, but she blinked them away. She couldn’t bear the thought of him seeing her crying after she’d just tried to punch him in the chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he hadn’t budged an inch from her attack. He just stood there looking at her as if nothing had happened at all.
“Bree.” Rafe’s soft hand was on her back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said through gritted teeth. And, in fact, she was fine. The pain in her hand had already begun to ebb away. Taveon’s healing powers poured through her veins and pooled around her throbbing knuckles, softening them until the bones clicked back into place.
Rafferty stared at her hand, frowning. “Do you need to—?”
“No,” she said firmly. She would not let Eurig get the better of her. “I’m fine. Let’s continue with training.”
Rafe gave a nod but leaned down to whisper in her ear before he left. “Try not to punch your fellow trainees, eh?”
Heat filled her cheeks, and she kept her gaze focused on Rafe. She knew that Eurig was still staring at her, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him look into her eyes. Instead, she pretended he wasn’t there for the rest of the session.
Rafe had them doing all sorts of bone-wearying tasks. They ran sprints from one side of the domed room to the other. He counted out push-ups. First, they did ten. Then, they did twenty. Somewhere, he’d found a rope that he hung from the ceiling, and they were forced to climb to the top at least once.
Bree could only make it halfway up before her limbs gave out. When she fell hard onto the stone floor, she could have sworn she heard Eurig laugh.
At the end of the session, Bree could barely think straight. She stumbled down the corridor back to her quarters, but a hulking monstrosity stepped right into her path to block her way.
“You look as though you’ve been trampled by horses,” Eurig said.
She stopped short and glared at him. “Get out of my way, Eurig. I really don’t feel like fighting you right now.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Funny, you were the one who punched me. You never even gave me the chance to fight back.”
“Is that why you’re here?” she barked out a laugh, though she could barely manage the words with the weariness that clung to her bones. Her knees almost buckled, and she had to place a hand on the wall just to keep herself upright. “Fine. Hit me then.”
But instead of knocking her flat onto her ass, Eurig swept Bree off the ground and into his arms. Irritation flickered through her, and she hated how she could feel his muscles ripple as he held her close to his chest.
“Put me down,” she said through gritted teeth. “Where are you taking me?”
“To your room.” He kicked open the door to her quarters and dumped her unceremoniously on her bed. “You looked liked you were going to pass out. Get some rest, Bree. You’ll need to be ready for round two tomorrow.”
Chapter 11
Bree
Over the next week, ball preparations combined with the new Academy training schedule meant that Bree barely had time to eat, let alone seek Rafferty out for the kind of intimacy she yearned to share with him. It turned out that a courtly ball, hosting most of the prominent members of Dark Fae society, took a lot more work than Bree had given Dagen credit for.
There was the menu to sort out, the various ingredients needed to cook each course. The wine and the spirits. The musicians, the tables, the decorations. She and Dagen were in charge of it all, and while it was a ‘fake’ ball in a way, both of them wanted to get it right.
It would be the first ball since Taveon’s coronation, and many of the fae would be expecting something grand from their new King. Most of them had no idea that he would not be in attendance.
Bree strode through Dagen’s open door after another brutal training session and plopped onto his sofa. He sat behind his dark wooden desk, frowning down at a long stretch of parchment that she knew held the list of all the names who would be attending the next day’s celebration.
“While I enjoy your company at every turn, Bree, might you not choose to change out of your training leathers before our planning sessions? Surely you would be more comfortable in…something else.”
Bree snorted and shot him a grin. “Trust me. I’m far more comfortable in these clothes than I would be if I wore some stuffy dress.”
The truth was, Bree had kept her fighting leathers from the Light Fae realm. Rafferty had given her a few Dark Fae sets, but she kept on going back to the ones she’d worn on that fateful day when she’d left her old realm behind. Something about them...comforted her. It felt like an anchor to the past, to who she had used to be. Sometimes, like now when everything was so up in the air, she needed that reminder.
Lord Dagen’s gaze flicked up and down her torso. “They do suit you, I admit. Though you look particularly stunning in gowns.”
Her cheeks flushed, which was ridiculous. One little compliment and she’d turned ten shades redder. Things had been strangely tense and electric between them since that day in King Midas’s chambers. Neither of them had brought up the kiss...and Bree had no intention of doing so now either. If Dagen wanted to pretend like it had never happened, then Bree would, too.
“How is your training going?” Dagen asked, breaking the tense silence between them.
“Honestly?” Bree let out a belabored sigh. “I liked it a lot better when Eurig wasn’t around to scowl and throw his whole alpha-ness into everything we do. Did you know that Rafe has us working on our strength now? In our fae forms, not in our shapeshifter bodies. Push-ups, pull-ups, sprints, the works. And every single damn time, Eurig shows me up.”
“A better physical demonstration of power does not mean that Eurig is stronger than you.”
“Yeah?” Bree frowned, not convinced. “So, then what does it mean?”
Dagen placed the parchment on his desk, stood, and strode over to the sofa. “It merely means that he has built more muscle than you have. He is larger. But not necessarily better. He is certainly not faster.”
“Hmm. He took Rafe down in a fight.”
“You have gone head to head with our King Taveon, who I daresay is much more impressive than some outposter who has lived on wooden docks in the middle of the sea his entire life.”
Dagen was right. Kind of. But there was something about Eurig that kept getting under Bree’s skin. She wanted to beat him, somehow, even though they were not competing in anything. And she wanted him to see just how powerful she could be, if only to see the look of respect on his face.
One day. One day, she would be the one to win.
Training had been called off the next morning in preparation for the night’s upcoming celebration. So, instead of beating up her body in a million different ways, Bree took a luxurious bath and styled her hair in long loose waves around her shoulders. She donned a new gown to celebrate the occasion. It was silver blue and
flowed softly down her body, hugging her waist and her hips. The sleeves opened wide at the ends, revealing her long and slender arms.
This time, she attended the ball alone. She and Dagen had decided to split up and roam through the crowd on their own, each listening for curious conversations. When Bree stepped through the large double doors, the crowd that had gathered took her breath away. It seemed there were more fae in attendance than there had been at the Silver Moon Ball, and the expansive space was practically heaving with evening revellers.
Bree dropped back her head and gazed up at the ceiling. It had been decorated with a million tiny glowing balls of light. This had been Dagen’s doing, Bree thought as her stomach clenched tight. She scanned the crowd, seeking out his familiar face. Everything within her wanted to speak to him, to look into his eyes once again. She had been wrong not to follow him back to his quarters that night, and she wanted nothing more than to see that warmth in his face once again.
But instead, Eurig stepped in front of her, still wearing his golden fighting leathers. Just like always. He was so large that he blocked out everything behind him, forcing Bree to drink him in. He had given his hair another cut, not that it had needed it. But Bree couldn’t help but notice that his groom had only highlighted the strong lines of his jaw and his neck.
Bree stepped back, hating the way her face flushed with heat. “I’m surprised you bothered to come tonight. You didn’t seem particularly interested in the ball before.”
“That’s because we were at training. Silly matters like balls are not important when you are learning how to fight.”
Bree rolled her eyes. She didn’t miss the way he’d phrased his sentence, pointedly directed right at her. In his mind, he wasn’t the one learning how to fight, because he already knew how. Bree, on the other hand, needed all the help she could get.
A Heart of Midnight (Dark Fae Academy Book 2) Page 6
