Page 54 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Forty-Five

The Rook

Wynter

Dyta landed in the aerie, flexing her wings and letting rain droplets scatter.

“Hey, hey!” Wynter said, dropping to her feet and covering her head.

“You are already wet enough.”

“Go find a lake, water snake,” she teased her dragon.

“Go find your fox.”

Wynter glared up at Dyta, who just laughed into her mind and then darted back into the rain. Her fox indeed.

She’d just finished the final sweep. Everyone else had already returned to the mountain after the hours-long flight back to Ravinia.

It had been more grueling to be on Dyta’s back for that long than she’d thought.

She’d gotten used to Kerrigan’s powers transporting them.

It was a valuable shortcut, but it wasn’t always going to be possible.

She and Viviana would need to train the newer riders on these similar conditions.

Viviana, who hadn’t made a single complaint on the flight home. A miracle, even if the reason for it was that the mission had been an utter disaster. Part of that fault lay on Viviana’s shoulders. The woman was taking it better than Wynter would have thought. Ordrax must have been helping.

Wynter needed out of her flying leathers, a hearty meal, and a long, luxurious bath.

That was all she needed before she dealt with the war council and her brother and the decisions that had to be made after what had happened.

They’d all been silent and somber after Kivrin’s and Gelryn’s deaths.

She had no idea what the council was going to make of it.

But first that bath…

And her fox.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked Dozan as she approached the spy entrance.

“Days,” he promised.

“Your sweet Kerrigan returned hours ago,” she teased.

His hazel eyes bored into hers. “And yet I remained.”

“For what reason?”

“I think you know.”

Their first kiss played out before her eyes, the dozens after heating her through, the rain she’d been flying in moments earlier forgotten for his heat.

“A girl likes to hear it.”

Dozan grasped her around the middle and pushed her back against the door. His nose brushed hers. She had always been tall, and still he was taller. It made her feel almost dainty when she had never been called such. She felt like a different person entirely in Dozan Rook’s arms.

“I missed you,” he said as his lips found a sensitive spot on her neck. “I worried when you were not with the others.” A nip at her earlobe. “I do not like to be kept waiting.”

She shivered as he sucked the earlobe into his treacherous mouth. “I’m a commander. I did what needed to be done.”

“And me?” he asked as he pulled back and traced his thumb over her cold bottom lip. “Where do I fit?”

“Maybe you don’t,” she challenged.

He smiled, full and brilliant. “All right. Guess I’ll go find another lady,” he said, turning from her.

“Don’t.” She grasped his forearm and jerked him back to her. His body covered hers, a dirty, delicious smirk on his lips.

“Aha,” he said. “I am wanted.”

Then he kissed her, and she sank into him, forgetting the rest of the world and the oppressive thoughts of her people that she had grown up with. Humans and half-Fae were not beneath them. Not so long as people like Kerrigan and Clover and Dozan existed.

“As much as I want to continue,” Wynter admitted, “I desperately need to get out of these clothes.”

Dozan’s eyes brightened. “Well, love, I’m excellent help at that.”

She snorted and pushed him away. “A bath and some dinner.”

“Is this an invitation?” he purred.

“You’re insufferable.”

“I can make it worth your while.”

She took his hand. “If you’re lucky, I’ll let you join me.”

“That would make me the luckiest man in Alandria.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

Dozan traced her face with his eyes as if he was memorizing every inch of her.

And all he saw was the person she had always wanted to show others.

Not the broken pieces or the shattered heart.

And he liked every dark thought in her head and every dangerous motive.

He wanted her precisely how she was, and it was the greatest gift anyone had given her.

“I can’t sit out the next one,” he told her solemnly. “I can’t wait here to know what’s happening with you. I know I don’t have any magic. I know…”

She put a finger to his lips. “I know. I don’t want that either.”

Then she produced a small silver amulet with a capital R etched into the metal.

Dozan’s eyes widened. “Is that…”

“I met with Clover before the assault. She sends her regards to the king of the Wastes.”

Dozan took the amulet in his hand and rubbed his thumb along the face of it, over the R for his name. “To war we go.”

“To war,” Wynter agreed.