She allowed the fantasy of Draven being with her to live in her head, allowing her subconscious to find her end, no matter how much it hurt her chest that it was not actually he between her legs.
Jannah was dripping with her finish when she kissed Aydra again, and Aydra slipped from between she and the Belwark, urging Jannah atop his extended length. She watched as he filled her, and then she stood to put her dress back on.
“I have to go,” she told them softly, crouching down at their side once more. She kissed Jannah hard, followed by the Belwark. As she pulled back, her eyes met his, and she whispered, “Finish her grandly, Belwark,” to him.
She cursed Draven’s stupid face under her breath as she made her way back to the castle.
It wasn’t a dress that Aydra chose for the meeting that day. It was a black long jumpsuit that hung off her shoulders. A wide belt hugged her waist, thick black tulle flaring out over her backside beneath it. The jumpsuit featured tightened fabric that clung to her arms and legs. The tulle cape billowed behind her and tickled the floor as she walked. She gave her hair a fluff and placed the crown on her head just as Lex entered the room.
“Oh, this is my favorite,” Lex mused as she watched Aydra push her ring on her finger.
Aydra smiled at her over her shoulder. “Are we late yet?”
“Early, actually,” Lex told her.
The apprehensive look Lex gave her then made Aydra’s stomach knot. She picked her shoes off the floor and shook her head at her friend.
“Don’t,” Aydra warned.
“I said nothing,” Lex argued.
“You were thinking it.”
Lex huffed amusedly under her breath and leaned against the poster of the bed. “Watching you torture yourself is more amusing than I thought it would be.”
Aydra threw a shoe at her face.
The Council had yet to sit upon Aydra’s entering the room. She was met by a startled silence, followed by the low bows of the people around the room. Dorian swept to her side upon seeing her, and he escorted her to her chair.
“I cannot believe how early you are,” he muttered to her. “Thought you would have still been cleaning yourself up after the beach.”
Aydra’s eyes flickered to the guests that had accompanied her earlier in the day, and she gave Jannah a nod. “It was a good day—”
Words ceased in her throat upon finding the darkened eyes of the one she’d been avoiding all day. She drew a jagged breath and allowed her eyes only a moment to take his his figure leaning against the stone, the sage green of his low cut tunic and tight of the pants he wore searing into her memory for later. His crown of thick hair splayed over his shoulders as he pretended to be interested in whatever it was the Ambassador was saying to him.
“—Drae?”
The sound of Dorian’s voice made her do a double-take out of her stare. “Hm?”
“I asked if you were okay,” Dorian continued.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
The doors opened once more, and Rhaif filed into the room, causing every person standing to bow upon his passing. Dorian squeezed her arm and excused himself to his normal place, standing at the back of the room, when Rhaif came around the corner.
Aydra felt her lips purse upon his coming up to her. Rhaif paused just beside her and gave her a full once over.
“Something you’d like to say before we get started?” she mumbled.
His gaze met hers, and he whispered, “This one I like,” in her ear.
Her jaw tightened, and she took her seat without another glance at him.
She was thankful the meeting was a short one.
They spoke of the Infi being banished in the streets, the expected crop of the wool for the winter— one of the Ambassadors had brought a sample of it for them to approve of. Rhaif declared the wool scratchy, not as soft as in previous years. Aydra rolled her eyes and insisted the wool was perfect, not wanting the Ambassador to feel as though his hard work had been for nothing.
But it was the way that Draven’s eyes kept flickering to her that made her chest red, her face heated. The confusion in his gaze made her heart constrict. She wanted to tell him what was going on, why she was avoiding him…
The moment the meeting was adjourned, she slipped from the Chamber through the servants tunnels.
She watched from her window when he left the castle on horseback around midnight and rode into the darkness back to his realm.
And she cursed herself for avoiding him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE LETTER CAME the week after the next dead moons cycle.
Willow delivered it to Aydra at the breakfast she shared with her siblings on that morn. Aydra nearly ripped it open sitting at her seat, and it fell from her hands into her egg scramble.
The boats are here.
—was all it said.
Her heart skipped. The boats. Draven…
She hadn’t expected him to fulfill his promise to inform her after she’d treated him so terribly after the last meeting. But her chest constricted at the thought of him, and she could hardly contain herself.
Aydra wiped her mouth and stood from the table with such haste that she nearly knocked her food onto the ground.
“Everything all right?” Dorian asked from across the table.
Aydra nodded quickly. “Yes. Yes, everything is fine. I have to… fucking Infi… I have to go.”
She exited the Great Hall without a second look back at her siblings, and immediately went to her room to pack. Lex fell in behind her the moment she caught up with her.
“Where are we going?” Lex asked.
Aydra handed the letter back to her. “We leave in an hour.”
“Boats… oh, the boats! Fucking Infi— And we’re going where?”
“The Forest.”
Aydra didn’t need to see Lex’s face to know she was smirking at her.
“Shut up,”
