Page 130 of Dare

40

Flare

The silk shawl rippled through my hands like a watercolor. Blues and greens swam across the ancient fabric and poured through my fingers. A treasure, easy to hold and just as easy to release.

Bolts of cloth and open chests crowded the textile cellar. Because the rainforest found its way into everything, blossoms snaked through the jagged crevices. Petals illuminated the space, along with the torch I’d ignited.

I should have been gathering preserved blankets and pillowcases. Instead, my fingers unfolded the shawl and pictured an ocean wave unfurling. I envisioned two bodies lost in that sea, lost in each other. Their bodies joined at the waists, the male’s hips lunging between the woman’s spread thighs.

My eyes closed. And I remembered.

Mere hours before, when the lashing waves had surrounded us. My limbs tied around Jeryn’s wet muscles. His pants low and his cock pivoting into me. Divine Seasons, how violently the villain prince had claimed me, and how wildly I’d claimed him back.

In our shared cell, sex with Rune had been a distraction. In this rainforest, I could barely name what had happened with Jeryn, because no description felt large enough, wide enough, or deep enough.

I’m going to fuck you until we break.

My skin heated as if I’d been dipped in a cauldron. Yearning gripped my chest, my stomach, my throat.

In the dining hall, I had told him to leave The Phantom Wild. That had been my wish, the rightness and wrongness of it clashing on my tongue, so soon after mating amidst a star-filled ocean. I had meant every word and hated it at the same time.

… until we break.

He’d kept his promise. From the moment his mouth had slammed against mine, too many emotions had been severing me in half.

I folded the shawl and placed it back into the chest. As I rose, his scent wafted from my skin as if he’d seeped into me. Unable to stop myself, I inhaled the back of my wrist, drawing needle forests and blustering winds into my lungs.

His home, which I would never see. His court, which would take him from me.

A shadow materialized. A slender hand glided into view, a leaflet of parchment tucked in a set of groomed digits.

“You forgot this,” Briar said from beside me.

Turning, I accepted the sheet with a tired smile. The princess stared, empathy painting her freckled features. A plait of red hair blazed from her head, and the scarlet ribbon hugged her wrist, proving she needed no other embellishments to set this continent on fire.

We hadn’t known each other for long, yet we’d saved one another’s lives, and a true kinship had formed. I had missed her dearly, and she’d come here for me, and that bond had tightened. I loved her, as I loved Poet.

As I reached out to cup her face, Briar’s gray eyes softened, expressing the same emotion. In fascination, she took in the sumptuous gowns and swimming garments, amusement filling her voice. “It’s a wonder we managed to tear Poet from this chamber during the tour. Though, it won’t be long before he returns.”

We chuckled. Then her attention traveled to the blossoms coiling through the cellar, the petals glowing like jewels. Shaking her head in awe, the princess swept her gaze to me and beamed. “You found what you were looking for.”

Not quite yet. I had found the rainforest, a fauna pack, and a clan of friends. And I had found more in the prince. But I hadn’t yet unearthed the key to my purpose, still hidden somewhere among these walls.

I thought back to what Jeryn had said at the cove, when I confided in him. What did I suppose my mission would be? What part of me would serve that purpose? And why couldn’t I answer that without the rainforest’s help?

Meaning your self-made abilities are irrelevant compared to what nature designates for you? That discovering the map had only to do with fate instead of any personal skill?

You’re selling yourself short, Flare.

I hadn’t known how to respond to that. I’d only ever assumed the forest would dictate everything. Yet the unsettling questions had been burrowing deeper, forming a gaping hole of uncertainty in my head.

Nonetheless, my spirits lifted. Briar had remembered what she’d said in Autumn’s dungeon, when we first met.

I hope you find what you’re looking for.

While explaining my quest to the clan, I’d told them about being summoned to the rainforest through the song lyrics and its hidden map. Because I had called to the jester and princess, The Phantom Wild had allowed them passage as well. No one had seen them come, and no one would see them go.

I took up the leaflet and quill. But truly, this forest found me.