House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(130)

He glares at my lips as though they’re tricking him into striking oaths he doesn’t care for. In a tremendously grumpy tone, he grunts, “Right.”

“Good, because if you did, I’d never put my mouth on your body again.”

His gaze narrows. “Is that right?”

“Yes. Like you said, I’m crafty.” I shoot him a dark little smile. “Perhaps I should have you ink the terms with a quill, like you—”

He flips us around. “I’ve no need for a quill.” He binds my wrists with his fist and holds them over my head, then proceeds to compose his promise on my chest with his tongue.

Moans and giggles alternately escape as he scrawls his invisible words. When he reaches my navel, he cranes his neck to peer at my flushed, wide-eyed expression. I’m no longer laughing.

“I’ve run out of space to sign my oath,” he murmurs, his cool breath skimming the loops of damp he’s left behind.

I stare and stare, mind full of lust that transforms into anticipation at the wicked rise of his mouth’s corners.

“Oh . . . wait.” He spreads my legs and lowers his head, his nose dragging through my curls. “I’ve found the perfect spot.”

There, on the throbbing intersection between my thighs, he indolently tongues his full name.





Sixty-Three





I’m awoken by pangs of hunger, which is a first. Then again, considering my recent nocturnal exercise regimen, it’s entirely unsurprising. As my stomach gurgles again, I stretch out and groan, then turn to ask Lore if he has time to have breakfast with me, only to discover a lone sheet of paper discarded on his side of the bed.





I trace the words your mate with a fingertip, a smile cleaving my face in half. How incredible that I, Fallon Báeinach, possess a mate. A king, no less.

I reread each pretty word before reverently folding the note and hunting my sun-soaked bedroom for a place to store it. My nightstand has no drawers and neither does the low table in front of the hearth. I consider placing it in my closet but I assume someone enters it from time to time to replace the clothes I slide into the wash.

I wonder who it could be and make a note to ask Lorcan so I can not only thank the person, but also accompany them to the magical laundry room. Now that I’m well again, and settled, it’s time I pick up some slack. Perhaps I can help tidy more rooms than just my own. Or perhaps, since I know my way around a kitchen and bar, I can give Connor and Reid a hand at the tavern.

Deciding the safest place for my note will be my underwear drawer, I hop out of bed. At least, that’s how I imagine myself moving. In reality, I unpick my carcass bone by bone from the sex-rumpled sheets and totter toward my closet, muscles throbbing.

After slipping the folded paper beneath underthings made of white lace and selecting a pair for the day ahead, I scan the row of clothing, settling on brown suede pants and a white cotton blouse that ties at the neck and wrists with silk ribbons. Instead of silk slippers I choose sturdier footwear—tall boots polished to a high shine. Like everything else in the closet, they must never have been worn because they sport not a single crease.

As I stand in front of the mirror propped against my closet wall, my heart performs merry little pirouettes. The clothes Sybille filled my closet with back at Antoni’s had probably never been worn, but they’d clearly been bought off a rack. These were handstitched just for me. They’ve never graced anyone else’s body, not even a mannequin’s, not even a potential customer’s.

Thinking of Antoni’s home frays the edges of my delight because I cannot think of it without thinking of him. I shut my eyes when I begin to picture him bleeding in some dank tunnel. Is he alive? Wouldn’t the Fae have tried to ransom him if he were, though?

I blink back the heat that creeps up into my eyes. Antoni is strong and cunning. If anyone can survive the impossible, it’s him. “Be alive,” I whisper as I head toward my bathing chamber.

After unsnarling the mess atop my head with the boar bristle hairbrush beside my sink, I eye the block of black charcoal and hesitantly pick it up. Although I believe Lore may appreciate to see my face painted, I worry it will attract unwanted attention and unkind whispers.

I can already hear his people murmuring that the girl who spreads her legs for their monarch doesn’t merit warrior stripes. My face grows as hot as my chest. Gods, why must I care so deeply about other people’s opinion of me?

I set down the block and wipe my palms on a towel, then set out toward Sybille and Mattia’s bedroom.

“Syb?” I knuckle the wood gently so as not to disturb her boyfriend.

I stand and wait. And wait. Then try the handle, but there’s no give.

“Syb?” I say it a little louder this time, and I hear footfalls.

The lock clicks twice before the door sweeps open, and for a second, my breath catches and I think Gia is standing before me because the woman who greets me sports a halo of kinky curls. But then she steps into the beam of torchlight, and I expel my trapped hope because this woman’s skin is blacker and the shape of her face, softer.

I smile as Syb attempts to pry apart her squinty eyes.

“Is it morning?”

I nod.

“Is Gia—do you have any news?”

I don’t want to raise my friend’s hopes until the transaction is done and her sister is handed over, so I shake my head. “I expect we’ll have some in no time, though. Still up for breakfast?”