“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” Lex mumbled.
Dorian and Nyssa bid them goodbye from the gates. Aydra didn’t go into detail about where they were going, only telling them she would send word in a few days of what she’d found and whether she needed help from the Village.
It was on the morning of the fifth day on their journey that they finally ventured inside the Forest of Darkness. Aydra could feel the morning creatures stirring through the wood, waking rabbits and deer stretching and welcoming the day as it wrapped around them.
They traveled an hour inside the wood before Aydra’s raven suddenly flapped in front of them and called out, Archers!
Aydra pulled on the reigns of her horse and looked into the trees. Lex’s horse stamped impatiently.
“Why have we stopped?” Lex asked.
Aydra didn’t have a chance to respond. From within the darkness, she saw a figure appear, hood pulled over their head.
“Your business, Lady Ravenspeak,” the man said without removing his hood.
“I was summoned,” she replied. “Take me to your King.”
A quirk of a smile rose on the man’s face. “I’m beginning to think you like it here,” he muttered.
“Take us to your King, Hunter,” Lex spoke up. “Else watch your kneecaps be shattered.”
The man pulled his hood off his head, and Aydra smiled at Dunthorne’s smirking face.
“Calm, Lex,” Aydra said. “Dunthorne means us no harm.”
Dunthorne’s dark eyes danced at her, and he gave her a quick nod. “This way, Sun Queen.”
Aydra could hear the men moving in canopy of the trees as they followed she and Lex back to their home. It was another hour into the wood, the trees growing grander and grander, until finally a clearing swept open beneath great branches, and Aydra had to pause to take in their forest kingdom in the daylight.
Men walked on the thick branches above them, climbing down on ropes to reach the ground as they approached. Aydra exchanged a glance with Lex, and then they continued forward. Hunters gathered around, all whispering amongst themselves. Aydra noticed a few people she did not recognize, and she knew by the dreads in their hair that they were not in fact of the Venari.
And then she saw Draven standing by the armory shelter with Balandria, a large piece of parchment in his hands. The sun basked down on his walnut hair and made her stomach knot at the sight of him in his battle leathers.
Draven did a double-take upon seeing them. A frown spread over his face, and he twisted the map in his hands up tightly, the squeeze of his hands apparent against the parchment. She couldn’t figure out the look on his face as he pressed the map into the chest of the man behind him.
“I see you found trespassers, Dunthorne,” Draven called as he crossed the space between them.
“She says she was summoned,” Dunthorne answered.
Aydra’s jaw clenched as she and Lex stepped down from their horses. Draven paused over her, staring down his nose at her figure. She raised an expectant brow, unsure of the apparent annoyed twinge pulsing through his core.
“You can escort yourselves to my home and wait there,” he said shortly with a glance at Lex. “Second Sun,” he acknowledged her with a short nod.
“Forest King,” Lex replied with the same nod.
Aydra wasn’t sure why she’d expected anything more than a cold shoulder from him, but it hurt nonetheless, and she reminded herself this was the freezing temperature she’d treated him with the last he was in her realm. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Draven turned on his heel away from her.
“Bael, take their horses to the stables and give them food and water. The rest of you get back to your duties. We don’t have time to waste.”
Aydra stared after his retreating figure, and then she caught eyes with Balandria’s flaring facade. Balandria said something upon his reaching her, but Draven grasped her arm and pulled her backwards with him.
“Something tells me he wasn’t expecting us,” Lex muttered at her side.
Aydra’s narrowed gaze took a turn around them. “Something tells me you’re right,” she mumbled back. “Come on. We’ll wait for him upstairs.”
It wasn’t long that they had to wait. Aydra put the kettle on to make tea, yearning for something warm after their long journey. She’d just poured she and Lex a cup when she heard footsteps coming up the staircase.
Draven met her eyes when he reached the entrance. His fists curled and uncurled at his sides as he stood there.
“Making yourself at home, I see,” he acknowledged.
“It’s tea. Would you like some?” she asked coldly.
He stared at her, and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
“Go ahead, Venari,” she uttered. “Spit it out—”
“What are you doing here?”
Aydra frowned. Her eyes met Lex’s, and her friend raised a concerned brow.
“You—”
“Oi, Venari,” came a voice with skipping steps up the stairs. “What’s the plan, why—”
An unfamiliar man no older than they paused in the doorway at Draven’s side. He stood nearly as tall as Draven, only a few inches shorter. His shoulder blade length blonde and caramel tightly wound corkscrew curls some of which had been dreaded, he had half pulled back away from his face. They not only made him look more of a darker, muted, ecru olive tan than he was, but much more handsome than Aydra wanted to admit. Blonde spiced hair danced along his jaw, short against his skin and wrapped around his lip, the color of it standing stark against his skin. His almond eyes darted between the three standing in the room.
She suddenly felt as though she were dazing into the ocean as his gaze found her, for his eyes were the clearest cerulean color of the ocean she’d awoken to out her window every morning of her life.
“Who’s the stiff?” asked the unfamiliar man.
Aydra balked as his words brought her back to reality. She blinked and nearly slammed the cup in her hands down on
