Chapter 5: A thundering drum
Ophelia’s stomach grumbled, a low, insistent sound that cut through the quiet of her walk across campus. The scone from earlier was a distant memory, and the afterglow of Caspian’s unnerving intensity in the greenhouse had been replaced by a very mundane hunger. She sat down briefly on a bench, toying with the idea of eating her last scone before going to the library, but deciding instead to get lunch.
“Finally,” a voice murmured from below the bench, as a pool of darkness detached itself from the shadows and coalesced into the form of a large, sleek raven. Briar shook out her wings and hoped around Ophelia’s feet. “I was beginning to think you’d never make a decision.”
“Where have you been all day?” Ophelia asked, standing and stretching. The faint, pleasant ache in her muscles from tending her plants was a good kind of tired.“Around,” Briar said, deliberately vague. Her shadowy form rippled. “Listening. The stone here whispers more than the forests of Oakhaven. It’s… busy. In a good way.”Ophelia smiled, running a hand over her feathers that felt like cool silk. “Come on. Dining hall. I need actual food.”
As they walked the sun-dappled path, her mind replayed the day’s oddities. “Sebastian was… a lot,” she confessed to Briar, who glided silently beside her shoulder. “All winks and clever words. It was flattering, I suppose. Then Caspian.” She shivered, not unpleasantly. “He was just so intense. One minute he’s talking about soil composition, the next he’s… I don’t know. Looking at me like I’m a rare specimen in a jar. A precious one, but still.”
“They’re princes,” Briar stated, as if that explained everything. To her, it probably did.
The dining hall was vast and echoingly quiet between meal rushes. She didn’t see Maren—probably still in her second period Combat Theory class. The emptiness suited her. She grabbed a wrapped bundle containing a sandwich of sharp cheese, sweet honey, crisp apple slices, and peppery arugula on sourdough bread, snagged a bottle of tart lemonade, and turned to go.
The library had been her initial plan, a fortress of quiet where she could dissect the strange new rhythms thrumming under her skin. But the sun streaming through the high windows was a siren call. The air through the open archway to the courtyard was warm and smelled of fresh-cut grass and cherry blossoms from the nearby trees.
“Change of plans,” she murmured to Briar, and stepped out into the light.
She found a soft spot of grass in a secluded corner of the courtyard, away from the main paths. Sitting, she unwrapped her sandwich, the flavors bursting bright and creamy on her tongue. The lemonade was cold and perfect. For a while, she just existed, tilting her face up to the sun, letting its warmth seep into her bones, banishing the last of the greenhouse’s humid chill and Caspian’s penetrating gaze.
She pulled out her cookbook, flipping to the dessert section. Something involving blackberries, perhaps as they were in peak season. A compote. A pie. The familiar ritual of ingredients and measurements was a soothing balm.
The peace shattered with the rumble of approaching footsteps and a cloud of boisterous chatter. A group swaggered into the courtyard, a mobile party orbiting a central figure. Ophelia glanced up.
The man at the center was a mountain. He towered over his companions, his shoulders impossibly broad beneath a simple linen shirt that strained over the muscle of his chest and arms.
The group was a study in contrasts, warriors nodding at the man’s coiled strength with professional respect, while others—young noble ladies—just stared at the sheer physicality of him. He moved with a silent, heavy grace, his expression unreadable, an aura of command clinging to him as naturally as the scent of wood smoke and rosemary. Ophelia’s skin prickled. This had to be Typhon, the dragon prince from the obsidian peaks.
He detached from his retinue with a slight tilt of his head, and they melted back toward the archway, leaving him on a direct path toward her sunny spot. A low, internal thrum started in her veins, a deep percussion that mirrored the strange, sensual notes from her encounter with Sebastian and the whispering intensity from the greenhouse. Not again. She focused on the worn pages of her book, the script blurring as his shadow fell over her, cool and total, blotting out the sun.
It wasn’t Briar’s playful darkness. This shadow had weight.
“That one’s well worn, by the look of it.” His voice was the sound of granite shifting, a low, rough rumble that she felt in her ribs.
Ophelia looked up, her green eyes meeting a gaze of molten gold. His face was all hard lines and solemn angles, but his attention on her book seemed genuine. “It’s a comfort,” she said, her own voice surprisingly steady. “More formulas than spells, really. Recipes.”
He just waited, that silent intensity compelling her to fill the space.
“I bake,” she continued, smoothing a hand over the open page of a spiced maple cake. “It’s… it’s how my magic makes sense. Weighing, blending, transforming base things into something that sustains. It’s an integral part of my magic.” She was babbling, but he didn’t seem bored. He listened with a focus so absolute it was unnerving, his golden eyes tracking the movement of her hands.
In the quiet, his mind painted vivid, possessive images: the delicate line of her throat draped in fine golden chains, the pale contrast of her wrists against dark silk restraints, the soft sound she’d make finding herself tied to the expanse of his bed. He saw it with the crystal clarity of a premonition.
The silence stretched, becoming tangible. He realized she’d stopped talking, was just watching him watch her.
A low, visceral grumble cut the air.His stomach. His expression didn’t change, but he glanced toward the main building. “I was heading to the dining hall. Meeting my… brothers.” He said the last word like a trial, and she immediately thought of Sebastian’s sly smile and Caspian’s piercing stare.
On impulse, Ophelia reached for the small, linen-wrapped parcel beside her. “Here.” She offered him her last scone, studded with blueberries. “It’ll hold you over. It’s got thyme mixed in with the blueberries. Sort of a savory sweet combination.” She finished with a blush. Why was she acting like this?
He stared at her offering, then at her face. A strange, warm pleasure unfolded in her chest at the idea of sharing something she’d made with this quiet, brooding force of nature. He took it, his fingers brushing hers, a shock of startling heat against her skin.
“Thank you,” he said, the words precise and heavy. He didn’t eat it, just held it carefully, as if it were a captured star.
He turned and walked away, each step measured and firm. The urge to turn back, to scoop her up right there and carry her off to the high, secluded reaches of his tower, was a physical ache in his gut. He focused on the weight of the scone in his palm, the lingering scent of her and sugar on the air. The frantic drumbeat in his blood settled into a steady, inevitable rhythm. There would be plenty of time for that. Now that he had found his mate.