tonight. Her dreams would be full of him and the kiss and what hadn’t been said, but what they both wanted. Her blood fizzed like champagne through her veins and then pooled in her belly. She closed the door and leaned against it for a moment.
She was acting like a lovesick sixteen-year-old. No. Not sixteen because she knew exactly what she wanted to do with Caspian. Her skin ached to be touched. There was a heat she hadn’t imagined as he whispered in her ear as if he knew exactly how she’d be spending her night because he’d be awake too. She hoped thoughts of her would keep him up all night. As she locked up the house and turned off all the lights, all she could think about was tomorrow evening and seeing Caspian again.
Felan lounged in his chamber. Bare feet, shirt undone. It had been a long day—even for him. Most of the lords and ladies at Court had avoided him as if they knew the anger that simmered, turning his blue blood red with fury. But he’d been calm. He’d danced and feasted as if nothing were amiss. He’d even managed not to question his mother the Queen over dinner, but then she’d been busy trying to goad his father.
“I have to return. Caspian is unprotected.” Dylis stretched and eased out of bed. She’d been waiting in his chamber as he’d ordered. Her hand feathered down his back. “You have to stop calling me back to Court if you want me to do my job.”
Felan caught her hand. “Do your job and I won’t have to call you back.”
Her smile froze in place. “What would you have me do? Kill Shea ap Greely?”
“We have to be smarter than that.” He released her hand, not sure how to deal with Shea just yet.
“This is more than I agreed to do.”
“You agreed to look after Caspian.”
“I agreed to ensure his safety in exchange for my lover’s freedom. How much longer, Felan?”
Felan stroked a tendril of her blond hair and coiled it around his finger. He drew her close enough to kiss her lips. “Do you still want Bramwel?”
“Yes. You are merely keeping me warm for him.”
Felan laughed. He liked her well enough, and she liked him. Dylis had been a secret set of eyes and ears for him ever since his mother had imprisoned Dylis’s lover Bramwel as a tree and left him in her private grove. He’d found it by accident some years ago and had been horrified that everyone there was alive, just frozen in place and hidden in plain sight. Now Bramwel had to spend his life waving his branches in the breeze and hoping someone would release him—before the power shift.
“Get me the Counter-Window and I shall free him straightaway.” He kissed her fuchsia lips for the last time. “If you fail…” He let the threat hang unsaid. There were too many lives at stake. Human and fairy.
“I won’t fail.” Her eyes glittered like palest sapphire and she drew away as brittle as any fairy. But with Dylis there were no fake formalities. They both knew where they stood in bed and out of it.
He stood and buttoned his shirt. “I value your presence more than you know.” When he took the throne she’d make a fine Hunter.
Dylis inclined her head, the ever-obedient courtier. “Thank you, Prince. I will hold you to your fine words.” She buckled on her blade and checked her appearance before facing him. “What do you know of a fairy called Riobard?”
Felan glanced up. He hadn’t heard that name in a long time. “He left Court a very long time ago to wander amongst the mortals. Why?”
“I was doing some digging in the mortal world and his name was mentioned in connection with the Window.” Dylis was watching him closely.
“Riobard, like your Bramwel, was a minstrel before I’d reached one hundred mortal years. After a fight with his lover he left, never to be seen again.” Felan picked up his waistcoat. “There were a few rumors that he took some things. A silver pipe, a set of dice… trinkets that mortals wouldn’t suspect gave him an advantage.”
“So he could’ve taken the Window.”
“If he did, the loss was never mentioned.” He looked at Dylis. “For obvious reasons.” No one would want to admit to owning it and losing it.
“Who was his lover?”
“Sulia’s mother.” While Sulia’s mother was dead, Sulia was the Queen’s favorite lady-in-waiting.
Dylis gave a low whistle that sounded more mortal than fairy. “Do you think she still has the Counter- Window?”
Felan shrugged. “If she does, I doubt she knows what she has, otherwise she’d have handed it over to my mother.” The word caught and left a bad taste in his mouth. “I could probably get an invitation to her chamber.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment as if calculating her next few steps. Felan liked the way she was always thinking ahead. “Too risky; besides, you told me once you’d rather cut it off than sleep with her.”
He laughed. “I’d make an exception in this case.”
“Better I arrange something.”
She was right. Dylis had reach in places he didn’t—including with his mother’s ladies. He put his hand on her arm. “Watch yourself in that den of wolves.”
“I will.” She inclined her head and pulled away.
Felan walked over to the desk and picked up a box. Made of sandalwood and lined with delicate fairy-made velvet, the box itself was a work of art no human could match, but the gift was inside. “A gift for my son.”
Dylis looked at the box, and then at him. Her eyebrows were drawn down. “Am I to say it’s from you?”
Felan nodded. It was time to let Caspian know he hadn’t forgotten him and that his father knew of the son’s dealings with the banished Shea.
Chapter 7
Caspian walked into his kitchen. His house was empty. After the warmth and heady history of Lydia’s house, his home seemed even worse—just a box of brick and mortar.
For the first time since his divorce, he felt truly alone. It wasn’t the Brownies he missed, or even Dylis. It was the simple pleasure of coming home to someone. Of having someone to care about. He’d walked away from that and never looked back, but Lydia had pulled the blinders off and now he was forced to look at what his life had become. He spent more time with echoes of the past than he did with real people. He hadn’t been on a date in eight months. The three dates he’d been on hadn’t gone anywhere because the whole time he’d been thinking of the lies he’d have to tell and the things he might see about them, even if he didn’t want to. He sighed and fiddled with the broken tea set. The contents hadn’t been touched. If he were a Brownie, he wouldn’t have touched it either.
He shouldn’t have kissed Lydia.
He wanted to kiss her again.
He imagined he could still taste her on his lips, and feel the heat of her body pressed to his. The curve of her hip under his hand and the way her body had shifted closer as the kiss had deepened. After that moment the rest of the evening had been off-kilter. Not awkward, but not comfortable.
Then she’d asked him to stay. Even now he could feel the lingering heat in his blood. It had taken everything he had in him to walk out that door. He craved her touch. But whatever was going on between them, it was a bad idea to act upon it. Not with his heritage. Not if there was a Grey lurking about. He leaned against the kitchen counter and closed his eyes.
Still, there was no doubt his dreams tonight would be full of Lydia.
Something in the air shifted around him and Caspian knew he was no longer alone in the house. He recognized the heady perfume of Court. He cracked open his eyes and saw Dylis; she was what he guessed was her natural height for a change. She had also managed to layer several items of clothing on varying shades of blue to produce an outfit that a fashion designer would be proud of. The longer he looked the more he thought she was wearing enough clothes for three days.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
