Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Whoa, hey!” I scuttled away when Aeris slipped her scrub pad between my legs. “I can bathe myself— Actually, I insist on bathing myself.”
She just laughed. “Don’t be silly.” Deceptively strong arms pushed me right back down. “I know you think us savages, but I swear to you, Queen Ana, you will want for nothing while you live in this castle.”
Two men in light armor walked into the room.
“What the fuck!” I snatched a water bucket, using it to cover Emiana’s bits as best I could. “What do you think you’re doing just walking in here? How dare you. Get out!” The shock was mine, but the imperious tone wasn’t.
I sounded like an outraged princess, instead of a regular outraged girl. Was that how quickly the curse took hold? How long until I forgot my family’s faces? Two days?
“Forgive us, Your Majesty.” The fore-man dropped to his knees, bending his head low. His wings crowned to stabilize him—a curtain of beautiful, iridescent black feathers.
Raven feathers, if I was correct. It was hard to be sure, because the curse had yet to reach his face.
He straightened, giving me a proper look at his face, and I near gasped—clutching my bucket tighter.
Inky eyes trapped me, sucking me down into bottomless depths where the sun never shone. Shocking, haunting, unnatural—but that wasn’t what cowed me. From one look, I knew why the curse struggled to touch more than his eyes.
Even it knew to mar such a face was a crime against Meya and nature.
Hawk nose; rock-hard, dimpled chin; long, black locks framing an unblemished face; and that smile. He had a smile like he’d just done something naughty, and no matter what it was, he was going to make you do it too.
The second-most handsome faeman I’d ever seen, solidly throwing Kirwan from the spot.
“We welcome you to Lumenfell, Your Great and Wonderful Majesty.” He bowed deeper, his forehead touching the wet tile. “I am Bradach. This is Foalan.”
Say hello to number four, Kirwan, you ugly bastard.
Foalan tipped his head to me, and silver strands fell over his golden eyes.
I didn’t know where to direct my stare. At the wolf ears perched high and alert on his head. His rounded, almost snout-like nose. Or his broad shoulders; trim, masculine beard; sharp, glass-cutter’s cheekbones, and full, cherry-kissed lips.
How did the curse choose their animal? Why was Foalan becoming a wolf, and Bradach becoming a raven? Was it even polite to ask?
A deep, soothing baritone rolled from Foalan’s throat. “It is a pleasure, my queen.”
“It is our pleasure to serve you,” Bradach said from the floor. “We are your royal back scrubbers. At your service.”
My eyes bugged. “Really? You are?”
“Fuck no, keva.” He popped up, dropping that subservient tone so fast, I looked for it on the floor. “Damn, they say you Lyricans are a pampered, high-nosed lot. Royal back scrubbers? What’s wrong with you?”
I gaped at him—both for plopping down next to me bold as day, and calling me a keva—otherwise translated from High Fae as strange person, odd, or freak. “I didn’t say that, you did, and— Hey!”
Bradach tugged on my bucket, making me cling on for dear life. “Why are you hugging this? They need it to wash you.”
“I’m hugging this because two strange men just walked in on me taking a bath.”
“What? Where!”
No word of a lie, Bradach and Foalan both spun around, clutching their hilts and looking for the strange men.
“I meant you two,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Please, leave.”
“Us?” Bradach’s brows snapped together. “Why?”
“Because I’m naked.”
“Oh, that?” He waved that away. “We don’t mind.”
“I do.”
“Do what?”
“Mind!”
Understanding finally dawned on his handsome face. “Oh, I see. Forgive us, my queen. Aeris told us to study your customs, but we thought this one was a joke,” he said. “Lyricans can only be naked in the same room if everyone is naked.”
“Oh, right.”
“Of course.”
“I can’t believe I forgot,” Aeris cried. “Queen Ana, please, forgive me. No wonder you’re uncomfortable.”
Bug-eyed and slack-jawed, I didn’t have words as they all stripped off their clothes, leaving me and my bucket in a room full of naked faeriken. What was even worse... Bradach was right. It was socially acceptable in Lyrica for me to be naked in a bathhouse with other women—
The key word being women.
Bradach sprawled across my stone chaise, making himself comfortable. Foalan sat straight-backed and crisscrossed beside me. I sat like a folded-over pretzel, using all of my limbs to cover all of my parts after Aeris finally wrestled the bucket away.
“Once again, introductions,” Bradach began. I hyper-focused on his face and didn’t let my eyes drift an inch lower. “Foalan Volk. He is commander of Lord Lumenfell’s army.”
“Lumenfell?” I broke in. “Who is Lord Lumenfell?”
“Who is Lord Lumenfell?” he repeated slowly. “He’s your husband. You married him a few days ago, keva. Don’t you remember this?”