Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine Book 1), page 28
I wanted to tell him more—that Delen worked in Hellebore and that he glowed with good health despite it. Something held me back. As if the servant knew, indecision flickered in his wet gaze and made him swallow.
He shook his head, indicating I should indeed say no more. Then he shocked me by bowing deeply and placing a light kiss to my knuckles.
I watched his thin and towering form head to the door with my breakfast tray, wondering if perhaps I’d been the only stupid creature on this entire continent who hadn’t feared the king of the north.
Not until it was too late.
Molkan arrived moments after I’d donned a weightless lemon dress. Intentionally loose around my torso, the luxurious cotton flared into pleats at my hips. The material whispered against my knees, my bare toes curling over the cool stone as I finished with the three large buttons at my chest.
The king of Baneberry knocked once before entering, then paused in the doorway as I fussed with the oddly unfitted bodice that felt more like a tunic. When I’d returned from the springs, the dress, a wooden comb, and a small brush for my teeth had been left upon the trunk by the window.
I’d only had the chance to use the latter before deciding I could no longer stand feeling the crimson gown I’d worn in Hellebore upon my skin.
Molkan cleared his throat and ripped his studious gaze from me. “Take a walk with me, Tullia.”
It was not a request, and I doubted I would have spared a thought to denying him anyway.
We walked in stiff silence, even as the king who’d sired me kept his hands clasped behind his back in a relaxed manner. I felt out of place in my soiled slippers. He wore no shoes, his linen pants similar to what Florian would wear to bed and his tunic a cream rayon.
The halls were shaded between windows, all of them arched and cracked by time. We meandered through three before the sun brightened a wide set of stairs. Potted ferns sat astride the top of each balustrade, and roses choked the thick sandstone rails, thorns awaiting to prick the skin.
Beneath the stairs was an enclosed terrace patterned with dark and bright sandstone in the shape of diamonds. The palace gates loomed large straight ahead with guard towers on either side. We veered right, leaving the terrace and heading toward hedges that bordered blossoming gardens.
The silence grew warmer than the spring sun as we walked the perimeter of the palace grounds.
Before I could find the courage to break it, Molkan did. “You’ve undoubtedly experienced harrowing horrors at Florian’s hands due to his hatred of me. But if you’re willing, then I would like to tell you my side of the story.”
Horrors was not the word I would have chosen to describe my time with Florian.
I did not say that, but I did feel the need to inform him, “I wasn’t captured.” Slimy and sharp, shame crawled through me. Unable to be masked, it stained my words, making them low. “I went to Hellebore with him willingly, not knowing his true plans.”
Molkan’s steps slowed, as did mine, his eyes traveling the expansive surroundings of his royal home. A home that should have been mine. A home that could perhaps still be mine. “And how long before you realized you’d ventured into a viper’s nest?” he asked.
My cheeks flushed, and not due to the sun.
Molkan deduced enough from my silence. A touch of pity that only made me feel worse lined his voice. “You are young, and though you were born here, you are not at all familiar with the deception and trickery of your own ilk.”
I refrained from saying I was more than familiar now.
We reached the shade of a large apple tree. Molkan plucked one from it, inspecting the glossy red fruit before he passed it to me.
I thanked him, my fingers rubbing over the smooth skin of the apple as he nodded once and we walked on.
“Your mother was my first love,” he said, hands again tucked behind his back and his eyes fastened on the workers who tended a vegetable garden along the wall in the distance. “But she was not my only.”
I paused in bringing the apple to my lips and lowered it.
“Corina’s father was a filthy rich merchant and a dear friend to my own father. Years before they were both lost to the sea during one of their annual adventures across the Amethyst, they’d made plans for Corina and me to marry.”
A smile carried his words. “We dragged our feet, of course. We’d been friends our whole lives, and though we loved one another far more than any friend should, we did not encounter any sign of the Mother-blessed bond. Which worried us, and for a good reason.”
My mind skipped forward, guessing where this tragedy was headed.
“But when our fathers died, well...” Molkan lifted his shoulders, his eyes still glued to the gardens while I tried not to trip while gazing at his bearded profile. “We decided it was time. Corina’s father’s fortune was hers, but not until she married could she rightfully claim his vast estate along the coastline of the Elixir Sea.” A smirk sparked his eyes. “Her father always got what he desired, and it seemed not even death would stop him.”
“So she couldn’t inherit until you were wed?”
“Barbaric, isn’t it?” Molkan said. “Not two weeks after their ship went down, the nymphs hired to search for our fathers’ remains finally found enough evidence to suggest that sea beasts had helped themselves to everyone on board, and so we were wed.”
Just imagining the brutality of dying in that way...
The teeth and scales and mountainous muscle of the sea monsters I’d glimpsed within books turned my stomach.
Molkan huffed, as if he’d glanced my way to see the color drain from my face. Then he continued, “Your mother grieved her father terribly for many years, but I was glad to be rid of my own. He was prone to violent outbursts. So much so, my mother was laid to rest in these gardens after perishing from one of his tempers. We were to never speak of it. As far as anyone knew, when my father was alive that is, she died from complications of a miscarriage.”
Sadly believable. Miscarriage and birth were feared killers of faerie females.
“My father never wanted to be king,” Molkan said quietly. “He loved the sea a great deal more than he could have ever loved my mother and me. He felt trapped, and though I hated him, I eventually empathized when I first saw Lilitha.”
Something cold coiled around my heart, my fingers tightening upon the large apple.
“Some decades ago, we had an annual tradition that is now no longer. Each kingdom would meet right here in Bellebon upon the spring equinox. For three days, we’d celebrate. The palace was open to every noble and creature of importance from across Folkyn, and the city outside overflowed with citizens and visitors from our neighboring kingdoms.”
There was no mistaking the nostalgia in his voice, nor the slight thickening that hinted toward regret.
“Lilitha had been confined to her kingdom until she reached seventeen years, and I do believe Florian would have kept her there until she’d fully matured—had he been able to.” He released a gruff bout of laughter. “She escaped, of course, after convincing her father that she had an urgent message that must be delivered to her brother immediately.”
Recalling those mischief-glazed eyes in her portrait, I couldn’t help but smile.
“Hammond was beyond caring what his daughter got up to, and he certainly hadn’t enough soul left within him to keep her from danger. So dressed in his night robes, he materialized his daughter to these very gardens, merely nodded when he’d found me gaping at his unexpected entrance, and then vanished. Lilitha, who’d been slow to shake off the dizziness of her arrival, first looked at me, blinking such huge blue eyes.”
We slowed as we neared bowing workers along the far wall.
Molkan’s voice dropped even lower. “I knew instantly, and I suppose she did, too. For although I resumed mollifying a courtier who’d finally gained my attention, Hellebore’s princess walked straight to me.” He chuckled. “She just waited there in a shimmering silver gown, her long dark curls over her bare shoulders, until the courtier grew tired of failing to keep my stolen attention.”
We wended back across the plush grass toward the palace.
“I’d like to say I avoided her. She was so young.” His sigh was more of a groan. “As I said, she hadn’t even reached the age of full maturity, but I am certainly no saint, and she was incessant. First a dance, then too much wine, then she dragged me beyond the lake and deep into the trees to seal our fates.”
“But she knew you were married,” I said, then remembered she had been all of seventeen years, and evidently lost to the overwhelming intensity that came with finding such an attraction. That came with finding a mate.
“We both forgot that fact entirely too quickly,” he admitted soberly. “Florian was the one to find us. To this day, I still don’t know how. I assume someone informed him, for last I’d known, he’d been in the springs with a horde of females and higher than the moon on toadstool dust.”
Even as my very bones protested at the thought of him with others, I almost snorted.
Almost.
It was hard to imagine the rigid and refined Florian in such a way.
Which must have shown on my face, for Molkan said, “I do hear he does not partake in such revelry any longer. In fact, I’ve heard he’s become quite the cold bore. Like his father but at least with ambition.” A darkly humorous hum. “Suppose that’s my doing, of course.” He exhaled heavily. “So Lilitha was immediately materialized back to Hellebore, and Florian was sitting in my chambers the following morning, watching my wife and me sleep.”
My eyes widened, although the image was much better matched with the arrogant king I knew.
“He hadn’t needed to say it,” Molkan said. “The way he’d stared at Corina was warning enough.”
“He was going to kill her?”
Molkan chuckled. “Skies, no. He was not so cold-blooded back then, but he was certainly cruel when he wanted to be, and his entire frame pulsed with his desire to be as menacing as I’d made him feel by daring to touch his young sister.”
“He would tell your wife.” I swallowed, finding it odd to say, “My mother.”
Molkan nodded. “And despite quietly vowing to never touch Lilitha again, he still did. He smirked at my pleading and waited for Corina to stir, then he rose from the chair to crouch by her ear and whisper my transgressions, his eyes on me while I tried to keep from leaping over our bed to knock the audacity from his pretty face. He vanished before I could, and your mother...”
A warning. Florian had issued a warning to this father of mine to keep far away from the sister he’d raised when his father, Hammond, could not.
Quiet reigned for some minutes as we passed the apple tree and more silent yet bowing workers, and I absorbed all he’d divulged.
When we reached the shade of the terrace, I had to ask, “Did she forgive you?”
Molkan gazed up the stairs, appearing lost in thought. “Never, but as time passed, she did come to understand. I’d found a mate, and rejecting a force that has been ordained by the mother of fate is near impossible. I still tried. For some years after that life-altering night, I tried and tried.” He sighed. “And tried.”
He needn’t have bothered saying more. He’d tried, and he’d clearly failed. Molkan hadn’t stayed away from Lilitha, and now, here we all were.
He said nothing more as he climbed the stairs, with the exception of parting words. “We will resume tomorrow.”
I’d been dismissed, but after all he’d said, I didn’t mind.
I stared at the apple in my hand, then looked back to the sunlit gardens that had seen so much history.
For the remainder of the day, I walked the halls and viewed the scenery beyond the windows and palace walls, lost to the beauty of this land I longed to explore more of and the chaos of my thoughts.
I bathed alone and quickly, not wanting to find myself in another awkward position, then ate a light dinner of pork and a large leafy green salad delivered by a different male servant. There were few items in my room to amuse myself with—only a handful of dusty books and the view from the window.
So I sat upon the bed with a novel containing historic uses of poisonous flowers, and mostly gazed through the window to the city aglow with soft touches of night.
The next morning, I was awake and ready when Molkan arrived, better rested than the day prior but still haunted by blue eyes and careful and cruel lies.
“How are you finding the food?” the king asked once we’d reached the bottom of the sandstone steps.
This time, we didn’t veer right toward the gardens we’d traversed yesterday. Molkan strolled toward the western side of the palace. He waited when I paused at the sight before me. “I suggest leaving your shoes behind.”
I smiled and kicked off my slippers.
A pond, almost a dam, rich with algae and water lilies, stretched along the base of the western wall. Beside it was another terrace that met with the emerald grass, vines crawling up the pillars of the stone shelter.
Remembering he’d asked me a question, I stammered out, “The food is delicious, thank you.”
Molkan hummed, fingers curling at his back once more, and licked his teeth as if pondering his next words before he set them free. “We would have more in the way of meats, but our livestock has diminished, and now our poultry, too.”
Florian.
Though I didn’t need to ask who was responsible, I did say, “What has he been doing exactly?”
The wagons—of which I knew were likely just some of many that had been taken elsewhere—and the conversation I’d had with Kreed swam within my mind. My toes scrunched over the soft grass, but my blood chilled when Molkan spoke again.
“He has his warriors steal our livestock. They’re resold for a hefty sum in the middle lands, where meats are not as rich and bountiful. And if they cannot be stolen from us and used for his own gain, then they’re destroyed or poisoned.”
I wasn’t surprised. I’d known he’d been tormenting Baneberry.
Yet I found myself struggling to understand all of this in its entirety. “All because you loved his sister?”
“Love,” Molkan said, squinting toward the harsh glare of the sun. “A strong word, though sometimes not quite strong enough.” He lowered his gaze and scratched at his beard, then re-hooked his fingers at his back. “Lilitha was an obsession, an addiction I could not quit.”
“What happened next?” I couldn’t resist asking. “You said you tried to stay away but you knew she was your mate.”
“Well, I didn’t see her again for years. Of course,” he huffed, “when I did, she made sure it was when she was maturing—the heat upon her like an iron noose around my throat.”
I failed to suppress the rising memories of my own experience with the heat. Memories of molten lips, possessive hands, and the insatiable hunger within glowing eyes that stalked my dreams and imprinted upon my soul.
Those endless days and nights were a crushing weight within my limbs. A poison I’d forever carry in my heart. No matter how much I wanted to rip them from my memory and wake wishing they’d only ever been a dream.
Molkan, as if lost to memories himself, cleared his throat. “I couldn’t refuse Lilitha. She’d learned to materialize and appeared in my study, desperate and sick, and I just...” He blew out a rough breath. “We stayed in the cabin of one of my father’s prized and forgotten boats along the river, and it would be some days until we left. Then I made the mistake of materializing her home, thinking that would be it. That I could walk away for good.”
A lizard, blue and mottled violet in the sun, scuttled across the terrace to the rocky bank of the large pond. The spikes upon his tail changed from cream to gold when he reached the water and turned to flick his forked tongue our way.
“I told your mother I was away with unexpected business, and though she didn’t believe me and ignored me for weeks on end, she never did question me. But a month later, she finally ceased her silence with a stern request for a babe. A test,” he said. “One I was determined not to fail, for I’d already failed her too much.”
“A test?” I questioned.
“She wanted to know just how lost I was to this connection with Lilitha, and though I was lost beyond being found, I still adored Corina. I still wanted our lives to remain as they were. We were blessed, and I’d foolishly thought bringing another blessing into the world might keep me where I needed to be. Might keep me from continuously falling prey to temptation for what I could not have.”
There was a heavy pause.
“As you might already be aware, for those of us with royal blood, there is no such thing as termination of marriage. It risks upsetting the bloodlines, you see.”
It was impossible to keep my shock from showing, so I lowered my gaze to the grass. My cheeks heated with yet more shame and fury.
Another lie Florian had hand-fed me like food for the pet I had been. That should both parties agree, a marriage could be terminated. He’d known royals were forbidden to leave a marriage, no matter what, and he’d known I was too desperate to know any better.
A relief, then—that he’d dragged his feet on the matter.
We hadn’t married, and as Molkan walked in silence while nodding to some passing groundskeepers who kept their gazes from me, I had to wonder if Florian had ever truly planned to make me his wife.
My relief burst beneath more flames of hurt.
Once we were alone, not another soul to be seen or heard as we traveled the length of the towering palace, the king went on. “Corina was due for another contraceptive potion, so in answer, I told her not to take it.”
Alarm spiked sharp and sudden.
Not because I recalled Florian offering me a contraceptive potion he’d brought with one of many trays of food to his chambers during the heat.
But because that merciless creature had given me the choice.
Too early in the heat to care about why he’d presented it in such a way, I’d swallowed the brew without thought, desperate for Florian to tend to me again.
