Truth after truth after truth.
The Queen thought Aveen was gone.
Finally, the confirmation I needed. “I am no more your son than you are my mother,” I said. And with that, I evanesced back to the castle.
Where else would Aveen have gone? Somewhere familiar. Somewhere she knew well. Somewhere like…Graystones. I could start at her father’s estate and work my way out from there. I’d scour this entire island if I had to.
When I reached the Bannon estate, a heady sense of nostalgia clung to the cold, damp air. The last time I’d been here was the day I had married Keelynn. Talk about dreadful.
I checked Aveen’s room first. The thick layer of dust told me no one had been in here in a very long time. The rest of the estate seemed quiet. No horses in the stables. No servants mucking about.
I threw on a glamour. When I knocked on the front door, Lord Bannon himself answered, more silver threaded through his dark hair and mustache than when I’d last seen him. His stomach looked rounder and his face flabbier as well.
His eyes narrowed into slits as he scoured me from head to toe. “Who the hell are you?”
Was that any way to treat a wealthy visitor? And to think, someone so brilliant as Aveen had been sired by this man. “Sir Walter Rich, a friend of Lady Aveen’s. Apologies for calling in unannounced, but I recently returned from the continent and was hoping to see her.”
“What is it with men calling to my door today?” he muttered under his breath. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told the last gentleman. My daughter Aveen is dead.”
The bitter sting of his truth hit me square in the face.
If Aveen had evanesced here, he would know she wasn’t dead. Then again, I doubted she would have made herself known to him after all he had put her through.
I thanked the bastard when all I really wanted was to bury my blade in his belly and watch him bleed out on the marble floor.
Where the hell was Aveen?
7
AVEEN
“It’s going to hurt,isn’t it?” Oh, god. I was babbling, but I couldn’t help it. There was no way something that size would fit in my body without excruciating pain. Why did women do this? As far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything in it for us.
Caden’s calloused palm grazed my cheek as he slowly tilted my head so my wide eyes could meet his steady gaze. “We don’t need to do anything, Angel. I’m more than content to spend the night kissing these lips.” His thumb pressed against my mouth, swollen from his heady kisses.
I loved kissing him too, but I wanted to do more. I’d already given him my heart, and tonight I had decided to give him my body as well. “No. I want you.”
“I want you too.” He adjusted himself in his loose trousers. “Clearly,” he chuckled. “But there’s no rush.”
How could he say that when his ship sailed with the morning tide? The sea was such a dangerous place. What if something terrible happened and he ended up swallowed by the depths? I would never know what it was like to truly be loved by this man who had swept me off my feet when I least expected it. What a travesty that would be.
I wanted to do this on my own terms, with a man I had chosen for myself, not some awful lord my father had picked.
My newfound resolve spurred me onward, and I slipped my hand inside his loose trousers. Instead of letting his size scare me, I reveled in the way his breathing caught and the soft curse that escaped his lips as his hips bucked forward, driving himself deeper into my grasp.
“I love you, Aveen,” he murmured, adjusting his position where he hovered above me so he could untie the laces on my stay.
“I love you, Caden.” Cold air prickled my bare skin as he peeled the fabric away, exposing my breasts. My cheeks heated with embarrassment until his head lowered and his lips locked around one pebbled tip. A different sort of heat bloomed in my core and between my thighs. My grip on his rigid length tightened as his hips edged forward and drew back again and again.
He braced his weight on one elbow and laced together the fingers of our free hands.
“Come with me tomorrow,” he murmured, lavishing attention on my other breast. Candlelight glinted off my nipple, damp from his salacious ministrations.
My back arched, pushing more of my aching flesh into his greedy mouth. Such a tempting offer, especially when he flicked his tongue like that. My toes curled in my stockings.
“I can’t,” I breathed. I couldn’t leave Keelynn all alone with Father.
His hand squeezed tighter, as if loath to ever let me go. “When I am finished this run, I swear to come back for you.” His eyes lifted to mine. “In return, I want you to promise me that you will leave with me aboard my ship.”