The Royal Nothings (The Giftborn Chronicles Book 1) by Drew Bailey

Author:Drew Bailey [Bailey, Drew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Published: 2021-06-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

For the first time in weeks, Aiden awoke in an actual bed. It was a bit unsettling, to have it honest, as unnatural as his sobriety and his freshly washed hair, as though he had somehow stolen away another’s life, and likewise swindled the gods. And what’s more, he actually felt somewhat well rested, proper fit too, not falsely gained, as though leeched from The Spellbind. Doubly unsettling, that. Almost surreal. He half expected to peek out the window and behold a lush green patch of garden and a perfectly unblemished white picket fence. A smile nearly came to light in spite of his guilty conscience before a breath caressed the back of his neck.

“Caitie?” he said rolling over. But it was not Caitlyn Ellsbury he found beside him as the prior night’s events caught up with him.

“The maidens know, I am swiftly growing to hate that bloody name,” Val grumbled into her pillow.

“Shit,” Aiden said, his face scrunching up nervously, and his heart set to the race. Well done, fuckwit, peak form. “Um…yeah…sorry…”

Val tugged the bedsheets back over her head, and an edgy silence descended.

“So about last night…” Aiden began as the evening’s events returned to him. And what more could he say, truly? Not only had Val offered him a haven and a warm bed for the night, but she had scrubbed him clean, soused as she was. As clean as he had been in weeks no less.

“We don’t have to,” Val said with a ghoulish murmur from under the covers.

Submissively, Aiden slunk beneath, tethered to the siren of the cintas grove. “Someone that hates the morning more than I, I daresay I thought such an affair nigh impossible.”

He spooned alongside her, pressing his manhood against her bottom, and kissed her shoulder blade on the spot of a tattooed star. He found much of her body was painted in colorful intricately detailed inks. A sleeve raced up her left arm from her knuckles over the arch of her shoulder and across her backside, revealing a mural that comprised everything from beasts and maidens to scripts and symbols captured twixt flowers, waves, clouds, and stars. It was a dream-like assemblage to say the least, almost as though stolen from another world far, far away—as if the sellsword needed anything more to add to her already mystifying allure. Softly, he placed a hand upon her hip and eased it across her stomach toward her inner thigh. He loved the way she felt, smooth as silk, and his hand wandered deeper, his fingers pressing slowly into her.

“You have me wrong, giftborn,” she said, rolling back against him, her eyes cracking open, and Aiden held her lilac haunters, fighting the overwhelming urge to immediately steal away at her lips. “I’ve no quarrel with the morn at all. It’s the morn that takes offense to me.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmm.”

“Well, as it happens, I may know of a place where morning no longer exists.” He regretted the words almost instantly, but with Val, he found he couldn’t help himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.