Page 130 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

JASPER

Three days of breathing room was all I could give Enora before I was back at her door, earlier in the morning than appropriate, ready to face the repercussions of my impulsive actions.

I was ready to grovel on my knees if I had to.

To plead with her. Apologize profusely.

Whatever I needed to do to take a step towards mending these years of damage.

At least three days was somewhere between the no time at all that Maksym had suggested I give her and the stern warning Eilir gave me to stay away from my friend indefinitely so the sprite could see to her education and wellbeing.

Sad, really, that I’d lasted fifteen years without seeing her agonizingly beautiful face, and now, mere days felt like torture. I refused to let my mind venture into how much worse that feeling was going to get when she became my best friend’s wife and my queen. That distance might be what finally broke me, but I would ensure the most was made of every moment before.

There was only one issue.

Enora was not answering her door, even after my fourth attempt at knocking. The young woman I’d known could sleep like the dead, and it was clear time had done little to sway that quality. I wasn’t sure what drove me to test the door handle, but I was surprised to find it unlocked. I was even less sure of what drove me to open the door a crack and peer inside.

The warm, russet glow of sunrise had fully washed over Enora’s room through thrown-wide curtains, and her bed held nothing but rumpled sheets. A beat of unease kicked up in my chest, and I slipped farther into her room on light steps. The last thing I needed to do was startle her after barging into her personal space without an invitation, but there was no sign of her on the sofa, at the desk, or at the table. No sound coming from her bathroom either.

“Enora?” I called out. “Are you in?”

Silence.

Well, fuck.

That didn’t bode well.

I hurried over to her terrace door and found it deserted too, save for a lone copy of a text on the dark pantheon discarded on the wrought-iron table. I fetched it quickly to spare it from an untimely, thunderstorm-driven demise and left it on her bed. Just to be certain, I checked her bathroom and had no luck.

Enora was gone, and it was only just sunrise.

She hadn’t left her room in days, from what I’d heard. Not since I less than tactfully laid out the gaping cracks in the carefully constructed image of her father. Her hero, really. Well, she had apparently seen Maksym sometime later that day, and I’d gathered that hadn’t gone well either, not that I’m entirely confident he would have known either way.

All the more reason for her absence to cause an uncomfortable amount of concern.

I was back in the hall before I knew it, staring down the door of the king who was about to be wholly displeased with me.

I knocked on his door.

Once. Twice.

A third, slightly more desperate time.

“Max?” I hissed-yelled. “Are you up?”

After another couple of knocks, the door swung open.

A vicious amber squint greeted me, framed by bedraggled black hair and a bare, pewter-gray chest littered with bargain marks. “What?” he rasped before clearing his throat. “This had better be good, Jas.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to my readied question. “Is Enora in there with you?”

Maksym had the audacity to look amused. “Is Enora in my quarters? With me? At sunrise? No, my friend. I am quite unfortunately alone here. Why?”

That didn’t bring me an ounce of relief. “She’s not in her room.”

His amber eyes narrowed as those words took a solid second to wash over him. When they did, he was brushing past and hurrying down the hall.

He mapped the same path I did through Enora’s room—over to the terrace, into the bath, around once more for good measure—before returning on a string of mumbled curses.