Page 31 of Avalon Tower
I realize my jaw is hanging slack and snap it shut. Mortified, I force my gaze away from his body.
His room is nearly as stunning as he is. The space is ringed with towering mullioned windows twenty feet high. A desk stands against them, set with plants, candles, and books. Mahogany bookshelves are stacked with gold-lettered spines. Of course he lives in a place like this—a place fit for a king.
“I thought we were going to the wardrobe person,” I whisper.
Raphael’s muscles look tense, his expression glacial. “I’m one of the few people here who has lived in the Fey realm. I know how they dress.”
Serana looks at me strangely. “Yes. It’s a very important job. Mr. Launcelot will get you set up.” She leaves me alone with Raphael, and I survey the room again. His chamber windows overlook the entire city of Camelot to the north. From here, I can see a bridge beneath the tower connecting two buildings, as well as the monumental walls that enclose three sides of the city.
“Nice place you have here.” I turn back to him. “It’s not the sort of room trash would live in, is it?”
One black eyebrow raises. “Listen, pixie. I understand you think very highly of yourself, but we’re not in the vineyards anymore, you know. You’re at Avalon Tower, and I’m a knight of the Round Table.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Is that really a thing?”
“Yes, that’s a thing. Don’t get too comfortable here. We’re going down one floor so you can try things on. I don’t know if we have anything for someone so ridiculously short, but I’ll see what I can find.”
He reaches behind me to open the door, and I inhale a rich, earthy scent like wood-smoked barrels, a heady musk swirled with the whisper of fertile soil. Immediately, my mind flicks back to the sun-drenched vineyards in Bordeaux, the way the grapes looked in the morning sun. The things he’d told me about them, thirsty and aching for life. I feel nostalgic for something that was never real.
Those holidays always have a dark undertone when I think about them now.
I must have a strange look on my face because Raphael pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t disguise your emotions well. Obviously, something is wrong.”
There’s something intoxicating about him, and I scramble to think straight. “Am I going to be alone with you? Undressing?”
He stares at me, and his expression betrays little emotion. “What, exactly, are you worried that I’ll do?”
Nothing. I hate him, but he isn’t creepy. It’s more that the idea of being alone with him seems dangerous, and it makes my chest flush. And that’s particularly confusing when I know that he thinks I’m trash. “I don’t think you’ll do anything. Mostly, I just think you’re an emotionless robot.”
A line forms between his brows. “What the fuck is a robot?”
I grow flustered. They no longer exist, and he never saw one in the Fey realm. “It’s like…a person made from metal. They used to make them before the Fey invasion fried modern technology. I guess most of them didn’t look like people. Some were like…vacuum cleaners? I think we had one at home. A Roomba.”
Silence stretches out between us.
“Never mind.” I take a long breath to steady myself and smooth my hair. “You said we wouldn’t be around each other, and here we are.” My voice comes out sounding tinged with hysteria, and I wish I could rewind several minutes.
“Perhaps I’m starting to regret bringing you on, pixie,” he says softly.
He pulls open the door, and I follow behind him.
“Ah, but you need a Sentinel,” I remind him. “You need me.”
And maybe—just maybe—I needed to get away from home as much as they needed me here.
Behind a curtain, I slip into a dress made of filmy scraps of silk. I feel like I need a PhD to figure out how to put it on, but eventually, I reach a situation where my breasts are covered with crisscrossing swaths of fabric, my belly is exposed, and a skirt with a thigh-high slit sweeps down to the floor. It’s a gorgeous lavender color, and the material is semi-transparent but thick enough around my breasts and hips to cover my nipples and underwear. It’s pretty hot, to tell the truth.
And if Serana and Tana were on the other side of that curtain, I’d have no problem at all strutting out, head held high.
It’s just that around Raphael, I feel acutely aware of every inch of my skin.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself. Closing my eyes, I imagine that I’m fully clothed and the cotton sleeves and long hems are my armor from his piercing gaze.
I step out from behind the curtain, the cool castle air whispering over my bare skin. I might as well be naked.