Page 21 of The Queen The Fae Forgot
The longer she waited in silence, the more the male’s face paled. He glanced at me again, and again, it almost seemed as if he was trying to say something, but it kept slipping away from him before he was even able to fully form the thought. Our gazes met briefly, and then he hurriedly diverted his attention to the floor.
Phina, at last, decided to put him out of his misery, but only because she seemed to be struggling with the same thing as him. Her eyes trained on him for just a second before settling back on me.
“That’s three that have disappeared over the course of this week …” I heard it in her voice, too strained, when she spoke. She stopped halfway through her thought, her brown furrowing now, too as her voice returned louder this time. “That’s three …three …just this week, just since …”
Once again, her voice caught. She glanced first at me, then at the male now standing more concerned than ever in the door.
She looked away quickly then, uncertain who she was addressing with her anger—or even, it seemed,whyshe was angry to begin with. She stood up abruptly and moved to gather her things.
“I’ll leave you for now,” she said tersely, refusing to look at me now. “I should take care of this.”
It was all I could do to hide the excitement from my voice as I stood and bowed.
“Of course.”
She looked more confused than ever as she stopped in the door. She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something more, but again, she just shook her head and left.
The moment the door clicked shut, I sprang into action behind her.
The guards were unprepared for the command that spilled out of me on the way out the door.
“Stay, don’t move.”
The sting of the command, however simple, lingered long after I’d fled the hallway leading from my rooms, but it did nothing to stop a relieved smile from spreading across my face. Even the cat was left surprised, mewing in alarm as it was trapped behind the door as it swung shut behind me. Any genuine interested I’d had in Phina’s missing scrolls was replaced by a far more pressing problem.
This new glamour.
It was a rare moment that I had to myself, and I knew exactly how I intended to spend it.
I hadn’t seen Shiel, Zev, or even Finch—him, most surprisingly of all—in days. They were the only few I knew well enough to trust, and so naturally, we’d been separated from one another.
But they were not the fae I sought out.
CHAPTEREIGHT
I remembered all too wellthe last time I laid eyes on Icarus.
His rooms were somehow fitted exactly to his taste, a mirror of the innermost nature of the fae standing before me, frozen, half turned from the table where he’d been working on whatever wicked thing he plotted next. It was the only place in the castle that was not all white limestone and crimson scattered light. Perhaps it was beneath it all, beneath the velvet drapes that blanketed the walls and pooled on the patchwork of dark rugs like shadows reaching out from the corners of the room. The work of some illusion magic had to have been used to turn the furniture into dark wood and shiny black obsidian. Even the fireplace had been overlaid with stones so dark that they seemed to suck some of the light out of the fire crackling within.
The Lord of the Wildness had brought some of it with him, that earthy, musty smell of his court wafting out to envelop me the moment I threw the door open. It mixed with the scent of my bathwater, with dried rose petals and that smoky aroma of the fire to create a near mesmerizing combination.
But now was not the time to be mesmerized. Now was the time to keep my head clear.
Or, at least, as clear as it ever was in the presence of the dark fae.
Icarus turned his head slightly, his black hair falling over his shoulder in a silky curtain. His eyes were as dark as the obsidian furniture, and they glinted with amusement as he surveyed me from head to toe. I straightened my spine, refusing to let him intimidate me.
I cleared my throat, trying to sound as confident as possible.
“Icarus.” That single word came out muffled amongst the drapes and dark tapestries that lined the walls.That was not, however, where my mind dwelt.
I couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down my spine at the intensity of his gaze as it lingered on mine. He was beautiful, there was no denying that, with his locks of dark hair and sharp features. But he was also dangerous, and there was no denying that, either.
“What brings you to my chambers, Princess?” he asked, his voice smooth as silk.
I resisted the urge to flinch at the sound of my still-yet-unofficial title on his lips. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, but from him it sounded too strange. When Zev and Finch said it, it was one thing … but for Icarus, it was something else entirely. When the Lord of the Wildness said it, it was anything but endearing. It was just another way for him to exert his dominance over me.
Again.
