Seeds of Sorrow (Immortal Realms Book 1)

The hearth crackled in Eden’s room, tempting her to crawl into bed and fall asleep. It’d been a long day, one that left a smile on her face. The time at the lake with Draven had left her wanting more. By the sun, despite the heated moment in the hallway, she never thought he’d indulge her in such a tantalizing way. Still, Eden yearned to explore every inch of Draven and learn the ways of pleasuring him.

Unfortunately, he’d been called away to Midniva. For what, she didn’t know. But Eden wished she did, that she wasn’t viewed as some trinket to be set away or pulled out for guests. If she were to truly be the queen of Andhera, she’d want to aid in ruling it too.

With a sigh, she sat at her desk and penned a letter to Aurelie. She missed her friend deeply, and there was much to tell her. For all her friend knew, she’d been consumed by the nightmare king. The thought gave Eden pause, and a dark laugh erupted from her. If only, she thought.

Regardless, Aurelie deserved to know the truth of who she’d been betrothed to.

As she finished the letter, movement caught her eye. Eden spun in her chair to see Loriah moving toward her. If blood could have drained from a revenant’s face, that’s what had happened to her handmaiden.

“Loriah, what is it?” Eden stood and crossed the space between them. She searched the woman’s gaze and lifted a brow in question.

She hesitated for a moment. “His Majesty has returned . . . ”

Eden’s eyes widened. He had? Was he all right? Her thoughts jumbled together. “Is . . . he well?” Everything in her wished to see for herself, but Draven was likely weary from his efforts, and the last thing he needed was Eden hovering, surely.

“Well, he is and he isn’t.” Loriah’s slight frame plopped onto the bed, then she fidgeted with her blouse. “He’s been drinking, which is a rarity, but it’s a telltale sign of how dour his mood is. His Majesty has been physically wounded too. Those marks will fade, but I’m not so certain his emotional ones will.”

It was a bold remark coming from Loriah.

“I will go to him.”

Loriah shook her head. “I don’t think it’s best to see him like this.”

“Perhaps, but I will need to at some point. It may as well be now.” Eden grabbed her black velvet robe and secured it over her sheer nightdress. She left the room and ventured down the hall, only to find a cluster of goblins outside of Draven’s study.

Drizz sat closest to the door, one of his clawed fingers rubbing his ear in a soothing gesture. Whatever state Draven was in had upset the goblins too.

Eden bent down to scratch beneath his chin, then prepared for whatever lay beyond the door.

She caught Seurat’s eyes as she walked into the room, but her gaze didn’t linger long on him. Draven sat at his desk, grimacing at his goblet, and didn’t look her way.

By now she should be used to how quickly things could change, but it still surprised her.

Inwardly, she assessed him as she drew closer. She saw a wound on his shoulder, but it wasn’t as bad as the one on his side. This one still bled actively, and judging by the cloth’s current stage, had already bled quite a bit.

“Not now, Eden,” he muttered.

She stood before him, leaning against his table. “I’m glad to see you’ve returned alive.” Eden paused, her brow furrowing. “Barely.”

Draven lifted his darkened eyes to her. “Is there a reason you’re here?”

There were a thousand excuses she could have made for him, all of which were valid, but they didn’t excuse his dismissal of how she may have felt about his current state. Eden had endured a lifetime of being dismissed, and it had taken moving to Andhera to realize she had a voice and that it was valid. So for Draven to now make her feel as though she didn’t, it grated on her, and it hurt too.

Eden struggled to keep her eyes from narrowing on him. “I wanted to see you. I heard you had returned and weren’t well.”

“I’m fine. You’ve seen me, now you can leave.” Draven slurred his words, but even that didn’t take the edge from them.

“By the sun,” she huffed in annoyance. “Let me see your wound.” When he didn’t move the rag, she took it upon herself to tug it out of his grasp. Eden’s gaze met his stony blues, and she glowered right back. “It looks as if your entrails are still where they ought to be.” A new trail of blood formed once the cloth was gone, and Eden carefully dabbed at it.

Draven grunted his response.

The fact that he was bleeding was the only thing keeping her temper in check.

Eden discovered she was not only annoyed with him but angry at whatever had done this to him. In the end, the two melding together lent her a boldness she didn’t typically possess.

“I’m sorry,” Eden murmured.

“For what?”

Without another word, Eden lowered herself to kneel before him and gently pinched the torn flesh together as best as she could. Magic pulsed from her fingers, surging into him, weaving his skin and muscles back together. She was rewarded with a colorful array of curses, including some words she didn’t even know.

Draven’s blood coated her fingers, which she ignored as she continued to heal the wound beneath the newly formed flesh.

His breath came in ragged draws, and when Eden chanced looking up at him, she spied his jaw muscles leaping violently. “You could have warned me.”

“I could have.” She drew her fingers away from his abdomen and stood to inspect the mark on his shoulder. It was less severe than his other injury but still looked angry. “And you could have been kinder before, but here we are.”

His eyes shifted to watch her, but Eden didn’t return the glance. She focused on the wound, pouring a warmth over his skin, which in turn started to heal it. Soon, the holes and redness faded, and all that remained was a deep bruising.

When Eden pulled away, Draven’s eyes darted to the discarded article of clothing. From what she could see, it was splattered in blood and shredded.

“Will you tell me what happened?” Eden hoped that he would respond more kindly, but judging by his pinched expression, that wasn’t going to happen.

“That was my favorite waistcoat.” He evaded the question, which didn’t surprise Eden in the least.

She slowly turned to take in the waistcoat. His blood still coated her fingers, and the rag was growing stiff from the blood drying on it. Yet, Draven was fussing over a piece of clothing?

“You can get another one.”

“I don’t want another one. I want that one.”

Was he pouting? Eden bit her bottom lip and shifted so that she blocked his view of the clothing. “You should rest. I know you can’t sleep, but you can at least lay down in my bed. I’m writing, so you won’t be keeping me awake.”

“No.”

It was a simple answer but one that colored Eden’s cheeks with annoyance.

“Draven, I won’t press you to talk, but I’d rather not leave you alone right now—”

He arched a brow. “Why do you even care?”

In her time in Andhera, Eden had learned that Draven spoke very little, but the words he chose to use were impactful. It was no less true now, and he was clearly unaware of how they stung. Wasn’t it obvious that she’d grown to care for him?

“I find myself wondering the same thing,” Eden bit out.

The barbed comment seemed to rouse him, because Draven stood from his chair and leaned heavily on the desk. Eden idly wondered how much he’d actually had to drink, or what it was exactly that had such an effect on him.

A mixture of dwindling patience and something else, some softer emotion, melded into one expression before he turned on her.

“Leave, now.”

“Draven, please.” Eden stood her ground until he took one step in her direction. His lips pressed into a firm, thin line as he grabbed her by the elbow. It was rough enough that she couldn’t pull away.

“No, I wish to be left alone.”

Then why did his voice betray him? Why did the raw quality of it, even with his slurred speech, claw at her heart? Every quick step Draven took toward the door, Eden fought to slow.

The goblins, smartly, had vanished into the darkest part of the shadows as Draven pulled her into the hallway, and she only assumed they were watching, shaking their heads or trembling in fear.

“I am not a child!” Eden finally ground out only a few doors away from her own.

Draven relinquished his grip on her and motioned toward her door. He laughed darkly as he sauntered forward. “Then I suggest you stop acting like one.”

“Me? Says the one who was mourning for his waistcoat while his entrails fought to break free.”

“I told you it was my favorite one!”

Eden slowly continued toward her room, folding her arms across her chest as he stalked after her. “I don’t think for one moment that me showing you that I care, or not wanting you to be alone when you’re clearly not well, is me being childish in any form.”

Draven lifted a brow as he drew closer, his body trapping her against her door. Eden had seen many expressions on his face during her stay, but none like this, and all she knew was that she wasn’t keen on it. If she could read his mind, if she could feel what he felt, perhaps she’d better understand what he was going through. But when he spoke so few words on a good day, trying to pull anything from him when he was having a foul one was nigh impossible.

Draven shifted his arm behind her, then twisted the doorknob to push the door open.

Eden stumbled back, but he didn’t attempt to catch her. Draven only watched her with his cool blue eyes. It was maddening to think that just that morning they’d been tangled with one another and on the verge of so much more. Confusion bled into hurt, and Eden shook her head as she frowned at him.

“Stop this!” Eden took a step forward and froze as Draven’s hand caught her chin. His thumb brushed along her jawline, which ignited another feeling she didn’t want.

“Why?” he murmured as he moved his fingers into her hair, winding them in the thick strands. “Why now of all times?” Again, his voice sounded hollow, broken, and it twisted Eden’s heart.

Whatever it was that festered within, she wanted to heal it as she had healed his other wounds. Eden leaned forward, her lips touching the bare skin of his chest in a featherlight kiss. He sucked in a breath but didn’t pull away, his fingers combing through her hair as she continued to kiss along his neck.

She didn’t have an answer to his question, but Eden hoped that in some form, her actions were one.

“Eden,” he murmured as he leaned in to drag his nose along her ear. His breath grazed her skin, and rather than cool her flesh, it heated it.

Draven moved farther into the room, using his foot to close the door behind them. As he did, his fingers slid the velvet robe from her figure, and it pooled around her feet in an inky heap.

“By the moon.” His gaze raked along her form, and Eden felt it linger. “I didn’t mean . . . ”

She turned her head and caught his lips before he could finish. Then his hands slid down her backside and toward her thighs. With ease, he hoisted her onto his slender hips. Not entirely lost to her desire, she recalled his wounds.

“Draven, your injuries,” she murmured in between kisses.

“I don’t bloody care.” Draven crossed the room and carefully laid Eden down on the bed, his hands slipping up her bare legs to her bottom. A hunger filled his gaze, one that she’d seen in the hall and in the lake. One that she felt deep within her being too.

At the lake, Eden hadn’t thought anything of her bare skin before him, thought nothing of how he watched her come undone before him. But now, as his eyes drank her in, she felt far more bare than she had then. More vulnerable.

Draven leaned down, his lips covering hers in a slow, heated kiss that drew out Eden’s mounting desire. She groaned, shifting her legs so he could settle between them, and when he did, he slid his hand up her thigh, his thumb grazing over her heated mound.

Every nerve came alive the moment his fingers touched her, and she wanted more. She wanted to feel him everywhere.

Eden looped her arms around his neck, drawing him closer toward her as she deepened the kiss. His fangs protruded, which she discovered when her tongue slid along the tip of one.

Draven moaned as the kiss intensified. He lifted a hand to her breast, using the sheer gown to his advantage. His thumb and forefinger rolled the stiffened peak until she squirmed beneath him.

Eden could barely stand it. She pressed her head against the bunched-up blankets and arched her hips up into his. She felt him there, stiff against her core. Her breath hitched as her skin ground against his restrained length.

“Draven, I want you.” She wanted him inside of her, against her, until they were a mess of tangled limbs, gasping and writhing against one another.

Her plea fell on deafened ears. Draven dipped his head to take her other nipple in his mouth, flicking his tongue over the hardened nub until she cried out again.

He pulled back, but Eden was through being timid. She followed him with her lips even as he sat back. She took the cue to crawl onto his lap, her hands peeling the straps of her gown down so that her breasts could press against his chest.

Draven’s fingers pulled at her hair, twisting her neck so that he could kiss a trail along her pulse and down to the valley between her breasts. His tongue followed the path back upward, then his mouth hovered as she ground into him.

“Eden.” His voice was hoarse with desire. “Eden,” he repeated her name, then gripped her by the shoulders. Draven lifted his head; his eyes had blackened considerably with desire. “Not like this,” he mumbled against her lips.

Eden leaned forward to capture his lips again, but he halted her. Inwardly, she whined, but it gave her a chance to clear her head and to respect his wishes.

“I’m not myself still. You deserve more than a rushed moment, and believe me, when I’m of the right mind again, I’ll make sure I fulfill every one of your wishes.” Draven’s hand cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing beneath her eye tenderly. He then brushed a warm kiss against her brow and lifted the straps of her gown back into place.

Eden’s entire body was still flushed, but she didn’t retract in embarrassment. Her body still hummed with a deep need. She couldn’t help but sigh in disappointment as she withdrew from him. Physically, she needed him. But emotionally, Draven needed her more. Patting the spot beside her on the bed, she tilted her head. This had been what she wanted in the first place. It wasn’t the shared heated moment but something more intimate than that. She wanted to share his space, absorb his company, and just lay next to him.

She glanced down at her hands and realized his blood still stained them. She slid from the bed and to the water basin, washing herself and using the moment to calm herself. Every nerve ending was alive, waiting and yearning for release. But it would have to wait.

Draven crawled up the bed and laid on his side, head propped up with his hand. He watched Eden as she slid back into bed.

“Come here.” Eden pulled the blankets down and slid her feet beneath them. “Just stay until you’re feeling well again. We don’t have to talk. I just don’t want you to be alone right now.”

She half expected Draven to decline the offer, but he surprised her by resting his head against her chest, and she felt a pang of empathy for him. Eden’s heart still galloped steadily, and there his head rested, listening to it.

Draven tugged at her free hand, then drew her knuckles to his mouth where he kissed them tenderly.

Eden pushed down her desire and lifted her hand, stroking her fingers through his hair lazily.

In a thousand years, she’d never have expected to find herself in this situation, much less feeling as she did. It wasn’t the heat of the moment but something far more powerful and terrifying.

It couldn’t be. But it was, wasn’t it? She loved him.

It took her far too long to unwind, but Draven kept her hand within his, and the steady back and forth of his thumb along her skin soon lulled her into a deep slumber.