House of Secrets and Vows (Crown of Deceit #1)

16. The Haunted Wood

16

THE HAUNTED WOOD

A s we walk hand in hand through the archway and back into the main room of the revel, the weight of the gazes from the onlookers presses down on us.

Heat flushes across my cheeks and nose, and I can't be sure if it's due to the sudden attention or the fae brandy coursing through my veins.

The buzz is glorious, and I’m not sure what I’d been so afraid of.

I want to spin and dance and just let go, but a quiet voice in my head reminds me to focus; I’ve come here tonight for a reason.

I just can’t remember what it is.

No one stops us as we exit into the fresh outdoors, a welcome change to the perfume-tainted air of the revel. The warm breeze brushes past us, a comfort after the humid atmosphere of the once-crypt.

“Where are we going?” I ask, realizing my hand is still locked with the prince’s.

He stops and looks at me. “Where would you like to go? The kingdom is ours for the taking, Zariah.”

Gods, my name sounds so seductive on his lips. “You choose.”

He closes one eye, opens it, then closes the other. Then he leans into me and, in a near whisper, says, “Are you afraid of ghosts?”

“Ghosts?”

“Rumor has it that the wooded area at the edge of the castle grounds is haunted.”

“Do you believe it is?”

“It's possible. I’ve seen strange things there,” he says. “Want to see for yourself?”

I doubt many others will be wandering along the edge of the castle grounds this late, which leaves me alone with the prince. It's a dangerous idea, a quiet tug inside me warns.

But the liquor swimming through my veins, or perhaps it's the touch of the prince’s hand, has me excited at the thought. “Lead the way.”

We don’t speak as he guides me around the castle. We pass two guards, one I recognize as Zandor, who only stare at us as we hurry by.

How different it must be to be a prince. No one keeping you inside of the rules. A fortune to buy anything you could want, servants to wait on you every day.

We cross a field of tall grass that nearly reaches my knees, its earthy scent reminding me of the many hours I spent outdoors as a child. “There’s no path?”

“No path. People tend to avoid this area, haunted and all.” His thumb grazes my finger.

“Everyone actually believes it’s haunted?”

“Anyone who dares visit always sees something suspicious.”

A haunted forest. The thought alone is thrilling.

As a child, my best friend told me ghost stories when we were outside, playing under the starry night sky. He’d done his best to scare me, but I’d rolled my eyes and told him that they were just stories told to children to keep them in line.

The moon above shines like a firefly in the night. Its waxing crescent is growing, and in just over a week, it will be a full moon hovering above us.

So many dark stories start with a full moon.

A gust rips across the field, shifting the long grass stems in unison as if they were an ocean wave.

As we near the trees ahead, a chill skitters up my spine. After a spring full of rain, leaves are in full blossom. Very little light sneaks through the branches, casting the area below in ominous darkness.

As we pause at the edge of the wooded area, an owl hoots within the small forest.

Nevan looks down at me. “Scared?”

I give a devious look. “Never.”

He pulls his grip from mine and moves in front of me.

I miss the warmth of his touch as my hand drops to my side, but the space between trees is narrow, and there's no longer room for us to walk side-by-side.

Instead, I follow him as he zigzags through the trunks as if he’s done this a thousand times.

A thin branch scrapes my shoulder, and I wince. “You sure we won’t get lost?”

“I’ve never gotten lost before,” he says. “But sometimes I wish I would.”

“You’d rather live in a haunted forest than in the palace?”

“Sometimes, yes.” He doesn’t elaborate, and I let it go, the conversation suddenly more personal than I intended.

He pushes himself over a fallen tree, scaling it with ease.

I opt to go underneath it, crawling like a bear to the other side. I regret my decision when my knee scratches against a rock, slicing my dress. Just as I am almost to the other side, my foot slips and I fall forward with a thud.

Nevan turns and, when he notices me pushing myself onto all fours, he reaches out a hand.

I accept his help, and he tugs me back to my feet before we continue.

After a few minutes, we reach an opening.

Fireflies buzz around a small lake with lily pads scattered across the water’s surface, a frog hopping from one into the water.

“This is beautiful,” I say as I near the water’s edge.

The moon shines down from high above, casting its reflection onto the lake. I grab a pebble from the ground and toss it into the water, causing a ripple of the mirror-image moon to vibrate.

The prince skirts the shore and sits on a large rock. “It’s my favorite place in the kingdom.”

He brought me out here alone, the quiet voice in my head says. This isn’t safe.

And yet, I can’t help but reach my arms toward the sky and spin in a circle while staring up at the night. “It’s so quiet.”

Quiet isn’t the right word. There are plenty of sounds—occasional hoots of an owl, the croaking of frogs, the rustling of leaves in the wind—but no other people can be heard in the privacy of this lagoon.

Nevan pulls his knees onto the rock and hugs his shins. “I rarely get any true time alone. But no one bothers me out here.”

Not having alone time sounds like such a petty problem compared to the Valazicans who freeze in the winter, and yet, I can’t imagine a life where I’d have to escape to a haunted forest to feel at peace.

“Can’t you just order everyone to leave you alone?”

He peers into the lake, which has settled back into stillness.

“I can order most people to leave me alone. But my brother won’t listen, and my father, well, even princes have people above them. And now that...” He tilts his gaze to the moon above. “Now that River is gone, a lot more expectation falls on my shoulders.”

River, the oldest Valazican Prince. Rumors say he’d died at war, but never gave any detail. Shortly after his death, a treaty was drawn between the fae and the Valazican kingdom.

I amble along the shore of the lake, dragging my feet in the sand to draw a curly line. “What happened to him?”

I continue until I stand in front of Nevan.

“His soldiers said he saved them from a creature that roamed inside of the fae forest.”

The two kingdoms have been hostile for centuries, and so many lives had been lost on both sides. The dark subject burns in my mind as the fae brandy pulses in my veins.

I take the prince’s hand and pull him up. “Enough talk of sad subjects, let’s dance.”

The night—and this place—is too beautiful to waste on sadness.

The prince tugs me into his body and places a hand on my lower back. “We have no music.”

“Then we’ll have to pretend.”

As he leads me in dance, I inhale flickers of sweet vanilla and oak in his scent. He smells like an enchanted forest. I run a finger over his collarbone and around the bend of his muscular shoulder.

One of his hands roams across from my shoulder blade and down the curve of my spine. The other rests at the top of my ass.

Dizziness strikes me like lightning, the fae brandy now at its peak. I search for the quiet, logical voice in my head, but it's too deep to find.

His large eyes drink me like a desert soaked by rain.

Everything in me wants to close the distance between our mouths and press my lips to his. It’s the fae brandy, I assure myself. It makes people reckless by lowering their inhibitions and pushing away all reason.

The tug pulling me toward him like gravity isn’t real; it will wane when the liquor fades.

Even under its heady influence, I understand its deceiving nature, but I can’t find the will to care.

He moves a strand of hair from my face. “You’re truly beautiful.”

I don’t move as his finger trails from my cheek to my chin to my throat.

A shudder ripples through me as his gaze lingers on the curve of my neck.

The quiet voice in my head reminds me of what he is, but I'm too lost in the heat of his gaze to care.