Page 43 of Ash and Roses
I only take two wrong turns on the way to the kitchen, but at least there are no wolves in sight. That is, until a soft sound in the hall ahead of me has my palm sweating so much that I might drop the knife before I get the chance to use it. I move forward as quietly as I can, knife pointed ahead of me as far as my arms will reach.
I hear the sound again, closer this time, and look down to find a tiny mouse scurrying along the side of the wall. Laughing at my ridiculousness, I lower the weapon. “Aren’t you just the little survivor?” A kingdom of wolves with no prey to speak of, and yet this little mouse is perfectly at home here.
I move to the far end of the kitchen and set my knife down on the table while I search through various stores and cabinets. I find some bread and break off a few pieces. I look down at the plain bread on the plate and know there has to be something I can spread on it or dip it into. Even just some honey…
I open a pantry and find it filled with jars upon jars. I select the closest one and turn the lid until it opens with a pop that seems too loud in the empty castle. It’s eerie without the staff running around every which way, cleaning and cooking and maintaining. I’ve lived in a palace my entire life and my lack of understanding of what the staff does is shameful. I wouldn’t begin to know how to run a house, never mind a place like this. Tess certainly has her work cut out for her, and I make a mental note to tell her that everything she’s done for me is appreciated. I’ll even see if she’ll let me help in some way. I’m not a princess here, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t do my part.
I examine the jar in my hand. I’m sure this is a jam of some kind, but I’ve never had the opportunity to try it. Such things weren’t common in Lunae, and if we ever did have such a treasure, I wouldn’t put it past my stepmother to hoard it for herself. I bring the jar of shiny orange mush to my nose and inhale deeply. The fragrance is intoxicating and unlike anything I’ve smelled before. Anything that smells as wonderful as this must taste divine.
“I hope you weren’t planning to use that on me.” The voice comes from somewhere behind me, breaking the steady silence and bringing a scream to my lips. The jar slips from my fingers and explodes in a splattering of glass and preserved fruit when it smashes against the stone floor. Quinn looks just as startled by my reaction when I turn to him, but it quickly fades to amusement.
“You bastard,” I almost growl as I fight to regain control of my racing heart. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”
The cocky smile doesn’t leave his face as he strides towards me, stretching his arms above his head as if he’s just woken from the best sleep he’s had in years. He takes a rag off the table and bends down, completely unbothered by the mess. One by one, he gathers shards of glass that are near-invisible against the ashen floor. “I think out of the two of us, you’re the one doing the sneaking. I didn’t even hear you leave.”
“That was the point,” I grumble, bending to his level. There’s no way I’m going to let him clean this up for me—even when it’s entirely his fault.
His nose wrinkles at the cloud of fragrance that envelops us. “Did you have to drop this one? It’ll take months to get the smell out.”
Anger bubbles up inside me, mingling with residual panic and immense guilt. The people of Lunae are starving and not only did I just waste perfectly good food, but the prince here is upset that I dropped thewrongfood. “Spoken like a prince who has never been hungry a day in his life.”
His jaw tightens at my words, but whether that’s regret for his or a quickness to anger, I don’t know. Before he can say anything else, I move to scoop up the whatever-it-is in my hands. Perhaps some of it can be saved.
His eyes widen. “Wait, there might still be—”
“Fuck!”
“—glass.”
I pull my hand away as a river of red runs down my wrist from the side of my palm and falls in thick droplets that mingle with the jam. Any hope of eating it now is definitely gone. I let out a groan of frustration and pain. My hand stings more than it should, as if whatever fruit this came from burns like the fire of the sun.
I whip my head left and right in a frantic search for something—anything—to stop the burning. What kind of cursed fruit is this? Something this painful to the touch should not smell so tempting! Does it do this to the mouth, too?
“Let me,” he says. Before I can object, he lifts me off my feet and sets me down on the table next to a large bowl. He fills it with water from a pitcher and then dunks my hand into it, shaking it gently until most of the jam has sopped off and the water turns to a murky pink. “Hold still.”
He lifts my hand from the water. A shard of glass juts out from the side of my palm, no bigger than the nail of my smallest finger. I brace myself for pain when he hovers an impossibly still hand over mine, but when he pinches the glass between his thumb and middle finger and tugs, I don’t feel a thing. The glass pops out and scarlet flows freely from the hole it left in my skin.
He tears a strip of fabric from the bottom of his loose-fitting shirt, fibres splitting with ease under the force of his fingers and revealing the bottom of his chiseled abdomen. I cough to mask any sign that seeing any part of his body again rekindles the fires of the night before, but the return of his cocky smile tells me he noticed.Smug bastard.
He ties the fabric around my hand and lingers there, rubbing the broken skin with a gentle thumb. “We’ll have to find you something cleaner, but that’ll do for now.” He’s far too close to me, and the smell of him is nearly as intoxicating as the jam. I wonder if he would take me here and now if I asked him to. I clamp my mouth shut, so it doesn’t say the words fighting to spill out.Fuck me right here on this table.
When he finally releases me, only then do I realize that I’d stopped breathing. I search my brain for words—any words—to interrupt the moment between us. What happened last night was nothing more than sex, so whatever it is I’m feeling now is just lingering arousal. “What fruit was that?” Why do I sound so breathless?
“Citrin. You’re lucky it was just the jam. The juice itself would have brought you to your knees.”
Getting on my knees doesn’t sound all that bad right now.I mentally slap myself. These thoughts are getting out of hand. The sex was good, butcome on. I’m better than this.
“I’ve never heard of citrin before. For something to burn like that, it must have come from Dragoria itself.”
His boisterous laugh echoes off the walls. “Dragoria? Now that’s a word I haven’t heard since childhood. Has Tess been filling your head with stories?”
“I’m not illiterate,” I say, hoping he can hear the annoyance in my tone. If I’m fighting with him, I can’t be fucking him. What happened last night can’t happen again, no matter how much my body craves it.
He ignores my tone—how very gentlemanly of him. “Citrins come from the Jade Coast, where the weather is warmer. Wolves travel far and sometimes they don’t make it back before they shift. When that happens, it’s not unusual to have someone return with rare delicacies.”
I cling desperately to my anger, but guilt overpowers it. I gaze down at the mess around us and think about how no one in Lunae would even dream that such a fruit existed, never mind get the chance to sample one. Worse still, those from Marein would have grown up on foods like this. Not only are they missing out, but this is a piece of their identities that was stripped away. Whether that was by wave or war, I still can’t be sure.
He must have noticed my face fall because the brushing of his fingers against mine bring my attention back to him. “I can’t imagine living a life of constant hunger. I know that me telling you it’s okay doesn’t make it so, but no one is going to go hungry because of this. You’ve hurt no one. Except yourself,” he adds with a smirk.