The next morning I awoke in a weird mood. I’d been falling into this betrothal with Raife pretty hard and it all came crashing down when he’d bluntly told me not to fall in love with him. Now I was going to make an active effort to keep this illusion separate in my mind. Raife was my employer. Raife was a business arrangement. Raife was going to be my fake husband.
With that in mind, I settled into the day as I always did. Cooking us breakfast, running his meetings, and then breaking for lunch.
After lunch, he did the dishes, an act I once saw as romantic but now saw as a duty to keep the kitchen poison free.
“The Bow Men are taking me out later for drinks to celebrate,” Raife said as he haphazardly scrubbed the plate with the brush. “When we do this, the wives have a social night of sorts. A crafting club or something. Would you like to go?”
Crafts? I mean, I’d rather a book club, but I wouldn’t mind making some girlfriends, especially if I was about to become queen.
That fact hadn’t really settled into me yet that I was not only marrying the king of the elves but that I was going to become the people’s queen. A fake queen but a queen nonetheless.
“Sure. I’d love that,” I told him.
He nodded. “I’ll take you over to Cahal’s wife’s house. Just after dinner.”
I wrung my hands together nervously, a bit shy to bring up the next topic. “Have you given any more thought to how you will get my aunt here to heal her?”
He set the plates on the drying rack and turned off the water. Facing me, he dried his hands on a towel. “I gave you my word and promise, I will bring her here and heal her soon, but I don’t think I can do it before the wedding.”
A month? She had to wait another month of worrying how I was? She probably thought I had been sold to the cruel fae king and was in chains all day long.
“The reason for this is that an extraction from the Nightfall territory is not a small feat. It will require a dozen laws to be broken, hundreds of gold coins to be spent, and lives could be lost. I will have to get the council’s approval, and I fear they will not say yes until you are queen.”
Wow, lives lost, laws broken… I hadn’t really thought that through when I’d asked him to do it. My aunt had another month of the seizure medication, which was cutting it close, but I nodded. She’d be okay for another month. “Thank you.”
The rest of the day passed with the usual business that was the king’s life. He’d been stuck up at the infirmary healing for the past three hours while I made a simple dinner of boiled eggs and seared meat with salad.
I wasn’t able to do any of the fancy pastry stuff, but Raife wasn’t complaining and I was enjoying not fearing for my life with every chew and swallow.
Dinnertime came and went and still the king wasn’t back from the infirmary, so I decided to pack the plated food with stainless steel lids into a basket and go see what was keeping him. After entering the front reception area of the infirmary, I waved to the healer on duty who recognized me. “He’s been in surgery for hours. Four-year-old child fell and became impaled, not sure she will make it,” the nurse told me.
Oh Maker.
That sounded awful, and I knew the cases with children affected Raife more deeply than adults. They all reminded him of the siblings he couldn’t save.
Dropping the dinner basket off with her and asking her to watch it for me, I shuffled down the hallway in search of the king.
I found him in the operating theatre, hunched over the lifeless body of a child with blood everywhere. A gasp ripped from my throat at the sight of the gruesome scene as I watched on through the glass.
“I cannot make blood appear out of nowhere!” Raife snapped to a nurse. There was no family in the viewing room and I knew why. This was way too traumatic to watch. They were probably in the waiting room, praying that the Maker protect their child. A sudden calmness came over me, and that same instinctual urge I’d had when the king was dying welled within me now. Walking briskly from the viewing area, I crossed through the double doors into the actual operating room.
Once I was standing under the bright lights and looking at the scene firsthand, Raife’s head snapped in my direction.
“Out!” he roared.
The nurse with him looked shocked at his outburst but I ignored it, merely looking down at the lifeless little girl on the table. Somehow I knew that her soul was about to leave her body; she was on death’s door. And as freaked out as I was, I couldn’t help but follow this instinct inside of me.
“Lani, no!” the king growled, when I crossed the room quickly and reached for the child. Grasping her face, I angled it up towards me and then leaned forward, readying my lips to press to hers.
“I forbid it!” Raife screamed in a panicked shout, and lunged for me.
I didn’t know what his fear was about, but it was too late. My lips touched the child’s and I exhaled. This time I didn’t pinch her nose shut or press my lips hard to make a seal—in fact, they barely touched hers, but the purple magical breath that left me filled her lungs and washed over her face. The nurse gasped at the same time the little girl did, turning it into a sputtering cough.
Raife ripped me away, holding my shoulders tightly and then looking up at my hair with absolute terror in his eyes.
My hands shook. Would there be another lock of white hair? If there was, what did it mean? Stress like Raife said? I didn’t feel stressed.
“She’s… blessed,” the nurse breathed, staring at me in shock.
Blessed? She said that like it was a known thing. A person, a name.
“Mommy,” the little girl wept, sitting up easily like she wasn’t just covered in blood and dying moments before.
Tears ran down my cheeks as the confusion settled into me. Did I save her life? How was that possible? What was the purple breath?
Raife leaned forward, resting his forehead on mine. “I can’t save you from your own heart,” he breathed, sending shockwaves of confusion into me.
What? He can’t save me from my own heart? What the Hades did that even mean?
He stepped back. “Miss Baka.” Raife turned on the nurse, who was consoling the scared child. “I will need you to sign a sworn confession promising that you will keep the nature of my wife-to-be’s healing powers a secret. She is to become the next queen, and it is for her utmost safety that this does not leave the room.”
Dread settled in my gut. I wondered if maybe in my ignorance healing the child hadn’t been the smartest thing to do. Not that I’d known that’s what would happen, but also I wouldn’t change it if I did.
The nurse glanced from my hair to the king and back to the girl and nodded frantically. “Of course, my lord.”
Raife was pissed; he was flicking glances my way with his jaw gritted. Bending down, he looked the little girl in the eyes. “I healed you. Are you ready to go see your parents?”
The little girl nodded, wiping the tears from her eyes, and Raife slipped his hand into hers. “Miss Baka, can you please take little Oaklyn back to her parents in the waiting room? I’ll have a member of my staff bring those parchments by later.”
The nurse appeared shaken as she nodded and then pulled the girl from the room. When the doors shut, Raife stared up into the viewing room seemingly to make sure it was empty.
“Why are you mad?” I asked nervously, pulling at the fabric of my dress.
Raife sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’ve just put a target on your back, a target we don’t need.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you mean? What was that? Raife, tell me what I just did. You’re hiding something.”
He walked over to me, placing a hand atop each shoulder, and looked me right in the eyes. “You’re what they call blessed. You can perform the Breath of Life and bring someone back from the brink of death, or heal them from otherwise unhealable things.”
I didn’t have a reaction, I just blinked at him in shock. “Is that an empath thing? Your mom could do it too?”
Bring someone back from the brink of death? That wasn’t possible.
He released my shoulders. “No, it’s something else entirely. Something so rare it’s a myth. We don’t even have books about it, just stories.”
Well, it was shocking, but I couldn’t help but see it as a blessing, which was probably why it was named so. “How wonderful to be able to save someone’s life, Raife. This cannot be a bad thing.”
“It’s horrible!” he shouted, scaring me. “The blessed have only so many Breaths of Life in them before they give their own life and die. Each time your hair goes white, you’ve given one away. When the last strand turns, you will die.”
I stumbled backwards, pulling my hair out in front of my face to see it. He was right, more had turned white since I’d saved the little girl. Way more than when I’d saved Raife. Maybe the more energy used meant the more hair turned white. The more of my life I just gave away.
“If you’d been around when I was fourteen… my family would still be alive.” He was angry, I could feel it. He was mad at me for having this gift.
“If I had been around, I would have saved them, you know that,” I pleaded.
His jaw set. “I know that, but if word gets around, you will be hunted. People will force you to heal family members, loved ones. The Nightfall queen herself could kidnap you in an effort to become immortal.”
My hands trembled. “I… I wouldn’t do that for her!” I snapped.
Raife shook his head. “Not even if she held a knife to your aunt’s throat? Or an innocent child’s?”
My stomach dropped. I… I would do anything for my aunt or an innocent.
“You should have told me,” I said frustratedly.
“I wasn’t sure,” he muttered. “I was half conscious last time, and like I said, they were only stories I’d heard as a child. I thought your one strand of hair was from stress.” Reaching out, he fingered the lock of my new white hair. “Now I see it’s not.”
Hades. Being confronted with my own mortality at nineteen years old made me feel a little sick. Still, I didn’t regret it.
“I’m not sorry I saved the little girl,” I said, and held my chin high.
Raife hooked his palms together and gripped the back of his neck. “Go back to the castle and dye your hair, Lani. We cannot let this get out.”
I frowned. “But I thought we were going out tonight? I brought dinner—”
“I’ve lost my appetite, Kailani,” he snapped, releasing his hands and walking across the room. He pulled his cloak off a hook on the wall and walked over to me, wrapping it around my shoulders. He then pulled the cloak up and started angrily shoving my hair into it.
I was stunned by his anger until I reached up to brush his hand and felt a fierce protectiveness. It was like a rabid animal standing over a fresh kill. Wild, unrestrained feral possessiveness bubbled through Raife and it was all over me. The protectiveness was in fear of my safety. He would kill for me, die for me, do anything to keep me safe.
I grasped his hand and he stilled.
“I’ll be okay,” I told him.
He yanked his hand from mine. “Whatever,” was all he said, and then he tore from the room.
I tried and failed to keep the tears from flowing down my cheeks. Raife Lightstone sure had an interesting way of caring for someone. It was all too confusing for me to bear. Keeping my hood up, I left the room and passed the front desk, not even grabbing the dinner basket I had made. For all I knew the nurse had poisoned it. This was my life now, living in fear at every corner, all because of the Nightfall queen and her psychotic vision to rid the realm of magic.
My stomach grumbled. That chicken and boiled eggs I’d made sounded pretty damn good right now.
I wasn’t sure who wanted to kill the queen more right now, me or Raife.
AFTER TELLING Mrs. Tirth I had some early graying hair I wanted to cover, she ran out and purchased some brown hair dye for me. I spent the entire night dying my hair, twice to cover the bright silver strands, and then made a second dinner because I was starved.
I took a long bath, and then got into my nightgown and tucked into my book. The character was having a hard time coming to terms with her new reality of being able to see the spirit realm. It sounded familiar. I’d like a vacation from my reality right about now.
There was a knock at the door. I threw a robe over my silk gown. “Yes?” I said through the wood.
“It’s Raife,” a slightly slurred voice called from the other side.
I tore the door open, and all thoughts of our earlier fight were forgotten when I looked at his sleepy eyes and the way he swayed in the doorway. His long blond hair was pulled into a sexy messy bun at his nape, and he put one hand on his hip.
“You’re drunk!” I said accusingly. I didn’t know why this made me happy but it did.
“I may be slightly ib-riniated. Inebretatid.” He frowned, unable to say the word, and I couldn’t help but bark out in laughter.
“Oh, Raife, this made my night, thank you.” I beamed, then a thought struck me. “Who tasted the beer for you?”
“Mybowmen.” He rushed the words together and then stepped closer to me, so close in fact that I had to step backwards into my room.
“I’ve been thinking.” His gaze fell to my lips. “If we are to kiss only on our wedding day in front of thousands, it won’t look real.”
My stomach bottomed out and I licked my lips in anticipation. Gone was the angry Raife from the infirmary. He didn’t even look at my hair or say anything about my being blessed.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked. If he wanted to forget my saving the little girl tonight, I was totally okay with that.
All this talk of kissing seemed to have instantly sobered him a little. He stopped swaying, his eyes looking more alert as his gaze fell to my nightgown. I glanced down, following his gaze.
Oops. My cloak had opened, so I covered myself up again.
“I was thinking in order to make it look natural, we should practice. One kiss a day,” he stated.
Now I was the one swaying. A heady rush consumed me and my heart pounded madly in my chest.
Kiss Raife? Like a real kiss in order to make our fake kissing look real? I didn’t know what was what anymore, but if I was being honest I’d thought about kissing this guy a lot since the first day I met him. Most women might care that he was drunk. I did not. Whatever it took to get him to open up about his desire to kiss me was okay with me. Raife lived a lot of the time in his head. He needed to drop into his heart once in a while.
I shrugged casually. “I suppose that would be okay. Especially if you’re no good at it. Then I’ll have to coach you.”
My words had their intended effect. Shock and anger slashed across his face, and then stone-cold determination. One second he was standing before me and then next he rushed forward. One hand grasped my lower back and pulled my body against his, and the other cupped my jaw. He used his thumb to force my chin higher, in line with his. When he breathed, the scent of pumpkin mead washed over me and I inhaled in anticipation.
But he didn’t do anything. He just looked down at me as if drinking in my eagerness.
Do it! I wanted to scream.
He grinned then and my knees went weak. Leaning in, he brushed his lips across mine. It was so delicate it almost tickled. Everything in my body went numb and hot all at once. Just when I thought that might be it, he went for the kill.
Pressing his lips to mine with urgency, I whimpered in relief, opening my mouth as his tongue brushed along my own. His fingers dug into my back in a way that felt good, and I pressed my pelvis harder into his.
Our tongues were doing a dance that felt coordinated, and yet I could barely think.
This is the best kiss of my life.
I decided in this moment that every single kiss before it was pathetic and should be forgotten. I would have to burn my journal entries about them because they didn’t hold a candle to this kiss.
I felt giddy and slightly intoxicated as Raife’s emotions began to bleed into mine. He liked the kiss too, more than liked, but there was a sadness there too, always underlying his happy moments. I wished I could take his pain, forever, not just in these moments.
He pulled away from me then, panting.
I grinned. “I look forward to practicing that again tomorrow.”
The halfcocked smile he gave me caused my stomach to flip over. “As do I, Lani, as do I.”
Turning around, he left and shut the door, leaving me wondering if I was in fact dating my betrothed.
I slept better that night than I had all week.
