Serpent's Claim (Serpent's Touch 2)

The king chuckled, shaking his head.

“That kid! He reminds me of myself when I was little. I never shied away from an adventure, either. And if an adventure didn’t find me, I’d search for one myself.” He shifted eagerly in his chair. “So, what happened next? After he and his friends stole the paddle boards from the dock at the tavern?”

“Oh, that is a whole new story. But it’s kind of late now, don’t you think? You should get some sleep.”

I’d been talking for probably close to an hour. My legs had fallen asleep while folded under my butt. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate or drank anything. All I really wanted to do was to lie down and pass out for the rest of the night.

“Nonsense!” The king raised his goblet. “Night is wasted on sleeping. Night is the time when life really happens.”

Maybe it was that time for him, but I felt physically exhausted and emotionally drained.

“I’m afraid I can’t talk much longer without losing my voice completely,” I argued. “And then where would we be? No more stories at all.”

He made a face but conceded, “Fine. I can wait until tomorrow. After all, patience is a royal quality.”

“Okay.” I got up from the floor in front of his chair, clutching the blanket to my chest. Blood rushed back to the muscles in my legs, making them feel like they were pierced with hundreds of needles.

“Okay?”He tilted his head. “What does it mean?”

I shook my legs out, one after the other, chasing away the prickling pain. “Oh. It means ‘sure,’ ‘I’ll do it,’ or ‘I agree.’”

“Or ‘yes, Your Majesty?’” he corrected, giving me a pointed stare.

I blanched, momentarily embarrassed by my lack of manners. I was talking to the king, after all. It came with a set of rules. An etiquette. But with everything that had happened lately, the honorifics had left my mind.

“Right,” I mumbled. “Please forgive me, Your Majesty.” I bowed. But when I straightened to meet his eyes again, he didn’t appear pleased by my apology or by my courteous manner. He looked pacified, but bored again.

I recalled everything anyone in Lorsan had said about humans so far. The fae lords considered us ‘exotic,’ ‘different.’ And that apparently was where our appeal to them lay. My conforming to the norm must make me sound boring and mundane to the king.

Well, if it was ‘different’ that he craved…

I raised my chin, tossing him a look.

“I mean, ‘Okay, Your Majesty.’” I gave a slight nod instead of a bow and a smile that was somewhere in the middle between cheeky and sweet.

It worked. He threw his head back and laughed, looking as pleased as could be. Navigating the court of the King of Lorsan promised to be as easy as balancing on a razor blade. This time, however, it appeared I succeeded. For now, anyway.

“Get me another glass of wine!” the king ordered, thrusting his goblet my way.

I took it, pausing my gaze on his hand. The dark mesh of the snake-skin pattern covered the top of his hand, including his fingers.

“How old are you?” I blurted out.

The king’s eyebrow ridges jerked up in shock once again. Then a spark of amusement flashed in his burnt-orange eyes.

“How old do you think I am?” He smirked.

“I can’t tell.” I shook my head. “Age is difficult to gauge with your kind.”

“My kind?”

“The fae,” I explained. “You mature as quickly as humans do, but your appearance remains unchanged almost until the day you die.”

He dropped his hand back on the armrest, leaving the goblet in my fingers. “You know how long fae live?”

“Five hundred years, I’ve been told.”

“Right.” He heaved a breath so heavy, it appeared to carry a weight of several lifetimes. “I’ll be six hundred next year. That is, if I live for another seven months.”

“Six hundred?” I gaped at him.

He nodded. “Almost a full century of life borrowed. It’s time to repay the debt soon.”

Propping his hands onto the armrests, he rose heavily from his chair. The king was as tall as Kyllen, but broader. Where Kyllen was agile like a leopard and graceful like a serpent, the king was solid and wide like an old oak tree.

The pants that he’d left undone slid down to his knees, tripping him. He swayed, losing his balance.

Dropping the goblet and the blanket, I grabbed his arm to steady him, then led him over to the raised nest piled high with olive-green cushions and sheets.

He groaned, sitting down on the edge of the nest, and stretched his legs in front of him. I swiped my blanket from the floor and wrapped it around me again. He had caught a glance of my naked breasts but with less interest in his expression than before.