The Veil of Darkness
Chapter 261: Son of the Winter King

Chapter 261: Son of the Winter King

Annalise loved the sweet moment that she was having with Valerius. They were supposed to rest for only an hour or so but it had already been more than three hours since the two of them had locked themselves in Valerius’ bed-chamber in his Royal Palace.

There was only an hour or so left before dawn and neither of two of them had been able to fall asleep. They just lay there in the bed in silence while wrapped in each other’s arms, and somehow, it was way more intimate and satisfactory than sex.

"You should get some sleep," Valerius told her as he massaged her scalp with the tips of his fingers.

"Don’t feel like sleeping at all." She murmured while she scooted her face closer into the crook of his neck.

Valerius chuckled softly as he tightened his arms around her and pulled her closer. "There’s going to be a long day ahead. You should still get some sleep..." He didn’t get to finish as his wife sealed her lips against his and pulled him into a deep kiss.

It was slow, sweet, sensual, and full of the deep feeling of love, trust, warmth, and adoration that they felt for each other.

When Annalise finally pulled away, she was already out of breath. Her cheeks were flushed as she stared at him with sparkling eyes that were filled with mischief.

"Why do I have a feeling that your mind is cooking up something really worrisome?" He didn’t sound worried, instead, he appeared really interested to know what was going on in her mind.

Annalise shifted to straddle him as she placed her palms on either side of his head to find support for her upper body that she had lowered to bring their faces closer.

"Shouldn’t you listen to me to make up for your guilt?" She asked while tilting her head to the side to look at him, waiting for his response.

"Annalise... what are you thinking?" He asked instead of answering her question but it was enough to tell her that he had given his green flag.

She also didn’t answer him, instead, she surprised him as she jumped out of the bed and climbed down before clicking her fingers to dress herself, the spell and magic coming way too smoothly to her, accompanied by the powers of her mates’ elements that seemed to be in no mood of leaving her anytime soon.

Within no time, she was dressed in a simple light blue dress with shoes one. Her long hair was tied in a braid and the only jewelry she carried on herself was a pair of pearl earrings and her moon thread that looked like the blue thread that she received months ago on her wedding night.

Valerius was following right behind her as he too got dressed in his usual white robes. "It’s going to be cold outside. Let me put this on for you." He offered while moving closer to her as he draped a warm fur cloak over her shoulders and tied it to keep it in place.

"Where should we go?" She asked while looking at him with excitement-filled eyes.

Valerius arched his eyebrows as he looked at her in question. "I thought you already have a plan. Isn’t that why you dressed up so quickly?" He was undoubtedly teasing her now.

"I’m not familiar with this place at all. How can I be bold enough to roam around then? As for the reason behind my dress-up, I knew that you will help me." She left no room for negotiations by using such a tone and words. And one look at Valerius and it was already pretty clear that he was in no mood of refusing to her request.

He took hold of her hand before threading their fingers together as he pulled her toward the direction of the doors that would lead them out of the dimly lit chamber. "Then let me give you some suggestions - I can show you around the palace, or we can head to the city but considering the time, I don’t think there would be anything for you to enjoy there right now... or I can take you to my favorite place in this realm."

"Your favorite place?" Annalise asked excitedly as she looked at him with excitement, waiting for him to tell her something more about this particular place. Unfortunately...

"Yep, I have one but I won’t share anything about it with you unless you come with me there." It was a clear message to her which made Annalise look at her husband with a very unimpressed look on her face.

She would have loved to choose a different option just to get revenge on him but she was too curious to know about his favorite spot to work on her evil plan. "Then your favorite place it is." She told him as she pulled him out of the chamber and into the long hallway that was lit by dozens and dozens of lanterns.

Just like Shadow’s place was a replica of his element, Valerius’ palace was also a replica of his ice and air. Everywhere she looked, she found the perfect shades of dark and light blue along with white. She even remembered noticing a huge ice sculpture in the front garden when she first arrived at the place hours ago once they finished their wedding ceremony.

"Is no one here other than us? This place looks so empty?" She asked as her gaze wandered around to spot at least one more person other than the two of them but it didn’t prove to be of any help.

"Damien and Kenric are at their places and mother live in the Midnight Palace. As for the servants, they are trying to stay in the shadows so they won’t disturb us." Valerius informed her as he led her toward a set of stairs that were leading downstairs.

Annalise nodded her head in understanding as she followed him. It had been only a couple of minutes since they left the warmth of the bed-chamber but she was already feeling the drop in the temperature. As it was already nearing the end of autumn, winter was approaching speedily and very soon, snow and cold would take over the realms and empires.

"Have you three always stayed separately?" She found herself asking as the question suddenly popped into her mind.

Valerius chuckled softly as he shook his head before answering, "The three of us have always been close, and despite us being given different places to live since our birth, we always sneaked out to stay at one of our places. Almost everyone knew about it but they pretended as if they knew nothing."

Annalise was both intrigued and sad after hearing his answer.

Hearing about them being mischievous as kids was definitely intriguing but the realization of all the strict rules and regulations that they must have to follow as the Princes of the realm just made her feel sad for them.

The two of them finally found their way out of the palace and to her surprise, they were in the backyard of the palace and not the front garden where she was expecting to finally examine the ice sculpture that she had missed seeing properly before. Looking at the situation, it seemed like she would need to wait a little bit more to fulfill her curiosity about the sculpture.

She didn’t ask any further questions even though she was really curious to know where they were heading but knowing that she would possibly get no perfect, or actual, answer to her question, she decided to bury her curiosity and focus on walking.

She was really thankful for the fur cloak as the air outside the palace was even more chilled and she almost felt like she would have experienced a tough journey if not for the cloak and the elements that were keeping her safe from the cold.

"Do you have anything to do with the weather?" She suddenly asked as she sneaked a glance at Valerius and found the corners of his lips twitching as if he was both quite impressed and amused by her.

"Took you long enough..."

She didn’t need him to say anything more to know that her guess was correct. She remembered once reading about how the winter and autumn seasons had always been under Midnight Realm’s charge just like Summer and spring used to be under Seelie Realm’s charge.

Considering Valerius was undoubtedly the son of the Winter King and the new heir of ice, it was kind of obvious that he was the one with control over the season of cold and snow.

One more thing that she recalled reading about was how winter first arrived in the Midnight Realm before spreading across the other realms and empires within a month or so.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when they arrived at the end of the backyard and she found a huge wall of hard and big rocks standing in front of them. It almost appeared like a part of some mountain.