Page 25 of The Heir the Fae Forgot
They struck me as creatures who would rebel if ever given the chance—and I’d rather not be on their bad side when they did.
Though, as I took in another deep breath of the fresh air that flowed freely outside the confines of Icarus’ court, I seemed in danger of ending up oneveryone’sbad side the way things were going. At this rate, I’d be at odds with every fae lord, layman, and servant—demon or otherwise—before I even figured out which court I truly belonged to.
Icarus, meanwhile, was a creature that seemingly belonged to both nowhere and everywhere at once.
He was waiting to greet me as I rose into his chambers, the leaves and vines growing together until there was no sign of the stairs that had led me to him. The air hummed with a sound I’d never heard before. It was a shuddering, shifting kind of sound that individually was disjointed, but together was its own kind of music. It came from all around me, from somewhere in the trees that made up the elaborate cage of a room. A moment passed with my neck craned upwards to search the branches until I discovered what it was.
Ravens.
Icarus’ ravens.
There were hundreds of them perched among the branches, their beady black eyes watching me—every last one of them.
The last time that I’d seen them, they were dispersing in a massive black cloud above the Wildness, their caws echoing out the message the dark fae had sent out with them. At the time, I’d been so sure of what it was.
Now, here with Icarus as he drank in the sight of me, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
For a fae who’d once claimed to know my very thoughts, he was looking at me like a mystery he’d yet to solve.
“My Storm.”
His voice was smooth as it had been that first day we met beneath his forests, but though it was, itself, the same, something about how it resonated with me had changed. I’d caught him in the middle of something, some spell I imagined, from the containers of steaming salt water he’d been leaned over, fingers dipping various herbs and roots into them to observe their reactions. I saw nothing, but whatever he saw, it apparently pleased him.
Or it made him terribly angry.
He was far better at keeping the emotions from his face than I was.
We’d found ourselves alone together, not for the first time—but for the first time since we’d arrived at the sullen doorstep to his court. I could remember the last time we were alone. After all, how could I forget?
I still felt the way his hands caressed me, the way his body reacted alongside mine, how he’d coaxed from me a magic all of its own. The image of him there with me in the river was burned in my mind as much as the feel of him was imprinted on my flesh. Ifelthim still, try as I might to forget it if only for long enough to keep my mind clear.
But that was before I learned who he was,whathe was, and more importantly still…what that meant for me. What he wanted from me.
But I wanted something from him now, too.
“So, this is where the great Lord of the Wildness gets to finally be himself?” I asked, turning in a small circle as I took in the enclosure he’d claimed as his quarters. Everywhere I turned, those ravens watched me closely.
Too closely.
Icarus had finally finished what he was working on. He fixed me with a look as he finished washing his hands in a basin, only for a sharp breeze to rush through the open walls and dry them in an instant.
“I, dear Aurra,” he said, finally stepping around the table to move in front of me, “am never anything other thanmyself.”
My mouth went dry as he approached.
It might not be the first time I’d seen him, the first time I’d been alone with him, but it never ceased to overwhelm me just howmuchhe was. It wasn’t just that he was beautiful, that dark, dangerous version of beauty, and it wasn’t just that he was powerful. Those two things alone would have been enough to make even the most indomitable of females weak in the knees.
But then there was everything else that he was, the unseeable things, the parts of him that couldn’t be put into words. It was a feeling, more than anything. That bond that drove me to him time and time again, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. I’d thought it was the Wildness calling me to it, but it had really beenhim.
I felt it now, more than ever, here in the midst of his Wildness. In the midst ofhim. It was all I could do to force my lips to part and something deeper within me to stop aching.
If I kept looking into those large, black eyes of his, I was going to fall into him once more. I’d escaped once, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it again.
So, instead of tempting the fate that had bound us together as he once claimed, I forced my gaze away, only to once again be met by the gaze of another.
“I’ll admit,” I said, suppressing a shudder as I glanced up at one of the ravens that had chosen to perch far too close to me. “I expected you to want a little more…privacy.”
“Is it privacy you were hoping for?” he asked, brows raising slightly. “And here, I thought I was giving you an innocent lesson on the glamour.”
