A Throne of Ruin (Deliciously Dark Fairytales #2)(58)

“Or I could help you with the everlass.”

He shook his head. “Too dangerous. I don’t want to leave you out there alone. It doesn’t take me long to tend to it, anyway. And since you’ve been working the field on the castle grounds, you’ve already lightened my load.”

Hadriel crested the stairs, took one look at us, and about-faced.

“I was just leaving, Hadriel,” Nyfain said, then stole one last kiss before stepping away from me. Regret rang through the bond.

“Don’t leave on my account, sir. I was just getting lost, anyway.”

“No, no. I have things to see to.” Nyfain stroked my cheek, his touch soft and intimate, his eyes delving into my soul. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Or…tonight, when you get back?” I asked.

He hesitated, and a grin pulled at his lips. “Tonight, then. Wear something slinky.”

A thrill ran through me. He clearly felt it through the bond, because he smiled.

Before he left, he asked, “You still have what you need for the tea, correct? Should I gather anything from the other villages?”

“We’re good for a while. Hadriel isn’t passing it out to everyone.”

Nyfain’s brow furrowed as he glanced at Hadriel. “Why are you— Ah, no. Not the draught for demon magic. The regulator tea. To prevent pregnancy.”

“Oh.” Shiiiit!

I belatedly remembered the conversation we’d had in the woods. Since returning to the castle, though, I hadn’t thought a thing about it. It had literally never crossed my mind. I’d had it in my head that he was just being cautious, and there had been so many other things going on, that…I’d forgotten. Fuck.

Goddess help me if his caution wasn’t unfounded. Please, please let Hadriel have been correct and knowledgeable and Nyfain was just nervous and overreacting.

Whether it was the look on my face or the feelings through the bond, he clearly read the situation.

His demeanor changed in a moment. His eyes hardened. He turned to Hadriel.

“Tell me you’ve been giving her the tea,” he demanded.

Hadriel’s face paled. “I… I…”

Nyfain grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him closer. “I specifically told you to make sure she was drinking that tea.”

“Y-yes, sir. Except that was the first time, and you guys hadn’t…you know…and then she came back, and… I…”

Nyfain growled and lifted him off the ground. “Go make that tea. Right now. Watch her. I want to know when she bleeds.”

“It’s not supposed to happen for…” I looked downward as I thought frantically. As I struggled to remember the moon’s current fullness.

Nyfain’s terror bled through the link.

“When?”

I jumped at the ferocity of his tone. The hardness of his gaze. An inkling of fear wove through me as a pang hit my heart. I’d been ready for this temper when we first met, but I’d grown used to the other guy lately. The guy who showed everyone else this side and not me.

Tears filled my eyes, but I straightened up, refusing to bow under his stare. “Not for another few days,” I said in a rush, and I was pretty sure that was correct.

He blew out a breath and stuck a finger in Hadriel’s face. Then he turned his back on me and jogged down the stairs.

When he was gone, I sagged, shaking and suddenly exhausted. A tear slipped down my cheek, and I batted it away. A few more followed, my heart aching. I hadn’t been ready for his rough treatment. I still wasn’t. It would take a second to harden myself toward him again.

“You said he could only impregnate his true mate, right?” I asked Hadriel, my hand shaking and the key pinging off the sides of the lock.

Hadriel hugged me from behind and then took the key from me to do it himself. He butted it against the door, then the side of the lock, then off the metal of the keyhole. He was worse off.

I took the key back as he said, “Yes, as I understand it.”

“Then what is his deal? We obviously can’t be true mates because he’s a dragon and my animal purrs. Purring is probably a big cat. Well, hopefully a big cat. Being a tabby cat will be a bit embarrassing.”

For all of us… my animal thought.

“If we don’t have the same animal, we can’t be true mates. And if my parents were dragons, I wouldn’t have been allowed to live. So…”

Hadriel shrugged. “I don’t know. But he’s adamant, so we better do it. I’ll get that tea.”



Nyfain didn’t show up that night. I lay awake at about the time he was supposed to come in, feeling the strangest emotions through the bond. Anger and fear and anxiety and self-loathing and regret and determination and…hopelessness. I had a feeling the anger was his dragon’s, over his sudden change of heart, but I couldn’t understand why he’d been so adamant, so ugly.

Was it something in his past that had set him off? Or maybe he had an irrational fear of fatherhood because of his problems with his own father? A man could go to extremes not to be like his dad.

Or maybe…Hadriel hadn’t known the full extent of how the curse worked, like Nyfain had said.

Tingles washed through me, and I turned my head to look out the window. The moon hung heavy in the sky. I’d been right—it should be a couple days or so until I bled.