“That’s because you’re proper. I wore jeans. Horseshit didn’t stick to jeans like other pants.”
“What about leather?”
“I didn’t get leather, are you kidding? I got jeans, and I got ignored.” I puffed out a breath and thought about turning the door handle. “Fuck, why am I here? I’m a stable handle. I shouldn’t be trying to talk to the fucking prince!”
“Stable handle? Are you still drunk?”
“Still drunk? I didn’t drink earlier tonight. I stayed in the library and fretted. That’s what I do now. I fret. That’s all I’ve been doing for the last three days. But yes, I’m a little drunk. I took a couple swigs to bolster my courage, and then I got carried away.” I pulled my hand away from the doorknob. “Why? Do you think it’s noticeable?”
She rolled her eyes, which wasn’t a particularly helpful response. Would the dragon pull my head off? He’d been unhinged since the demon king took Finley away. More so than usual. He wasn’t safe to be around.
“You’re the butler,” she whispered.
I stared at her for a solid beat because fuck her, that wasn’t helpful either.
“But will the dragon pull my head off!”
“Shh!” she said.
Right, yes, that was too loud. He probably heard that.
I stepped away from the door and took a deep breath. Finley always said oxygen helped the brain. She’d take deep breaths when facing danger.
I took another deep breath.
It wasn’t fucking helping.
“Right, okay, let’s go over this again.” I rolled my neck. “I’m going to go in there and tell him that he needs to get his head out of his ass.”
“But respectfully.”
“Sure, yeah. And then I’m going to tell him that Finley left him with a job to do, and he needs to do that job or what was the point of her leaving…”
“Except don’t mention her leaving.”
“Because he might explode into a rage and kill me, right. And I’m going to…” I stalled because that was about as far as I’d gotten in previous practice sessions before I ran out of courage. “Why the fuck does this fall to me? Have I asked that yet?”
“You’re doing this because Finley made you promise to keep the master on track,” Leala said. “He’s lost his way. You need to live up to your end of the bargain so that he can live up to his.”
“Right, yeah. The thing is, I always felt a helluva lot more courageous when she was around. The woman gives literally no fucks about what people think. Zero fucks. It’s inspiring. Without her, I remember that I am a sad-sack, mediocre butler who used to get picked on by dragons.”
“That was only because of your smart mouth.”
“No, it wasn’t only because of my smart mouth! It was because they have a tendency for random acts of rage.”
“When someone mouths off, yeah.”
I took a deep breath, hoping this one might be the one that helped.
It wasn’t.
“Fuck it. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die.” I stepped forward, grabbed the handle, nearly lost my nerve, but then found myself walking into the tower room.
The familiarity of it was like a gut punch. Finley hadn’t been at the castle all that long. Months compared to the years that I’d been cooped up here. But in that short time, she’d left a mark. I missed Finley. I missed our banter. I missed her passion for plants and her company. Everyone who knew her felt her absence. This room had utterly been claimed by her. Her favorite weapon—a dagger—lay on the bedside table. Slinky but plain dresses peeked out of the half-open wardrobe. Her spicy smell permeated the air.
I might’ve just imagined the last one. I still didn’t have access to my animal. Actually, the master hadn’t pulled out any of our animals. He was supposed to be preparing our kingdom for war, curing the people who still needed it and reuniting all of us with our animals, but none of that had happened. He’d shut down instead. Which was why I was here. He needed to get moving, and apparently I needed to be the kick in his ass.
He sat nude on the bed, facing the window as the sun crept over the horizon. A gash marred his back and dried blood crusted against his skin. He hadn’t bothered cleaning himself up after battling in the Royal Wood the previous night, and I doubted he was worried about tending his wounds so they wouldn’t scar. He’d started doing that when Finley came, I thought because he wanted to stop adding to his collection of scars for her sake, but it was obvious he didn’t think she was coming back. He didn’t want her back. He wanted, above all, for her to be happy, and for some fucking reason, he didn’t believe he had anything to offer her. He was an incredibly powerful alpha prince, hot as all hell, with a stellar body, had the sort of rage she liked (she was insane), gave her mighty orgasms (quite loud ones, too), and he didn’t think he had anything to offer. He was a real dipshit when it came to women, that much was clear.
He was bent over with his head in his hands, his fingers pushed up through his unruly dark brown hair. The force of his power and status shoved at me, uncomfortably strong, and I didn’t even have the primal kick of my wolf to tell me that I should watch myself because a big ol’ alpha was in the room.
Releasing the suppression magic had given him access to his incredible reserves of power, even if it hadn’t given him his wings back. Not yet, anyway. A bunch of people surmised that when the curse was broken, life would go back to the way it had been, and not just in terms of electricity and running water and all that modern goodness. They believed anything that had been damaged because of the curse would be fixed.
I wasn’t so sure. If the curse was broken, would all my memories of shame-fucking demons go away? Somehow I doubted it.
I sidestepped a little closer. And a little closer still.
“Sir.” I cleared my throat. “Sir, might I have a word?”
“No. Leave.”
His blast of power stung my eyes, but a command hadn’t ridden his words. He clearly didn’t want to be alone. Fuck. I wasn’t sure I was ready for this. I should’ve had another drink.
I inched a bit closer.
“Yes, sir. Only, I was tasked by…” I pursed my lips because I didn’t know how to do this without saying her name and setting him off. “I was tasked by…the woman who is sacrificing herself for us—”
The blast of power made me yelp this time. I looked back at Leala, haunting the doorway with a worried expression. She gave me a thumbs-up, like that might help.
I took a deep breath, like that might help.
“She was very clear, sir,” I said, inching ever closer. Trying to will myself enough courage to stand in front of him. I didn’t really want his full focus, but Finley would expect results, and I didn’t want to let her down. I’d already let her down by not finding a way to go with her. “You need to pull the animals out of suppression. Only you can do it. There isn’t anyone else strong enough. Not with her gone and your court cleared out.”
“They’re hurting her,” he said, his voice gruff and filled with enough misery to prick my eyes with tears. “She must’ve arrived there recently because the type of pain has changed. It has increased tenfold. She’s hanging on to my power with everything she has just to stay afloat. The pain is drowning her. I can feel it. I shouldn’t have let her go.”