10. A Quick Release #2
Aria placed a hand on his temple, headache beginning to pulse behind his eyes. “That's up to him. I'll have to tell him. I must tell him the truth. About everything. About how I’m not your adame. What we did—it wasn’t work. I was not your adame when we did this.”
“Listen,” Noble grabbed Aria's hand, and squeezed it. “You did nothing wrong, Aria. We can make it right. Everyone already believes you’re my adame. We may as well go ahead and do it. Make it official. And see? If you stay, as my adame, you’ll be absolved of any wrongdoing, no?”
A slow, mounting horror grew inside Aria's gut. “Excuse me…?”
“You can be mine completely. I've everything you need anyway.” Noble stroked his thumb over Aria's knuckles. “I don't know much about sex with men, but—you could teach me more than what I did last night, even. I could become proficient under your tutelage.”
Aria couldn't believe the words coming from Noble Yves. He was shocked. He could do nothing more than gape at Noble's nervous smile.
“Don't continue your courtship with Lord Hampenstead. You can—” Noble fumbled over himself for a second. “You can be my adame, to spare you from any embarrassment. Obviously I’d support you doing music when you wanted, but you wouldn’t need to worry about money, or any other nobles, or…"
Aria thought the moment he cast Suggestion on Ellor had been the lowest point he'd ever reach in his life.
But that paled in comparison to the man he thought was his best friend offering to pay him as a full-time, live-in whore.
“Is that what you want from me? To be your adame?” Aria said, the words shaking as they escaped his lips.
Noble's expressive eyebrows pulled tight over his stare. “Why not?"
Aria snatched his hand out of Noble's grasp. “I can't believe you. You’re the same as them all, aren’t you?” The horror of it made him choke.
The idea of Noble paying him for sex while he chased a wife—Aria coughed, stumbling towards his door.
“For this?” He gestured, wildly, over Noble's half-tossed room. “You think you’re special enough that I’d eschew all my own plans?
Elys above. You’re just as bad as Ellor.
” Aria hiccupped, stomach turning. “No, you’re worse.
Because you made me think we were friends.
How long have you wanted me like this, then? The whole time? Since we met again?”
Noble may as well have been made of stone. He remained in the middle of his room, naked, disheveled, unmoving. “Part of me believed you may feel the same way. I thought you too felt something more from this ploy. Hasn’t it worked well? The two of us like this? I didn’t mean…”
“Please, stop talking.” Aria ran a hand down his face, the exhaustion making him feel as if he'd weep again.
Noble finally said, “Okay.”
“I should move out.” Aria coughed, winced at the pain it caused, and pulled his tunic dress over his head. “I'll bag my things and leave today.”
“No,” said Noble. “No, that's not—you needn't do that, Aria.”
“I can't stay here with you like this,” Aria said. “Everyone will still think I’m your adame and I can think of nothing more horrific right now. I can’t do this. I can’t pretend.”
Noble’s eyes were shiny with tears, but he didn’t cry. His face, though, remained stoic. And his voice was calm as he said, “You're right. But you stay—I'll go.”
Aria barked a humorless laugh. “It's your home.”
He approached his bedside table and produced a many-folded missive.
Aria recognized the St. Clair seal broken on the edges.
“I've been invited to my uncle's home for Winterend.
I'll depart tonight and be back after the year begins anew.
You'll have two weeks with which to figure out what you want to do next.”
The Agolde Estate sat just south of New Hieroph—it was no doubt a fine place to stay for the end of the season. “You didn't mention this to me,” Aria said. “What of our Winterend social plan?” They'd been debating between several invitations.
“You aren't mine to invite, as we have discussed,” said Noble, sinking onto the edge of his mattress. “I suppose you will have to strike it out on your own.”
Aria nodded. And then said, voice cracking yet again, “I believe we can call our plan a failure.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” said Noble, attempting poorly to sound lighthearted. “The Bard Bride is a pretty good book, is it not?”
NOBLE
A week later, Noble and Morgan had settled into a decent temporary routine at The Agolde Estate. Morgan would come in every other day for training—Prince Regent had good combat facilities at every place he visited regularly—and Noble would whine about the love he lost.
“But Aria doesn't want me.” Noble ducked beneath Morgan's fist. Morgan shook his head and gestured for him to return to their starting position. “He was utterly horrified by the suggestion.”
Morgan swung his fist again, and Noble caught it as he was meant to.
“Aria came to you—you—first, when he was hurt.” Noble dodged a kick and used the momentum to push Morgan away.
“You were his first thought. And then he slept with you.” Morgan hooked a foot behind Noble's heel and sent him sprawling across the mat. “Aria doesn't just sleep with people.”
Breathing heavily, Noble said, “That's partially why he did it.
He hadn't had sex in far too long. He would have fucked a convincingly masculine scarecrow.” Morgan stepped into his field of vision and raised an eyebrow.
He offered Noble a hand up, which Noble took.
“Maybe we'd been friends for too long. Maybe it was like fucking family.” He groaned and massaged his temples with both hands.
“I shouldn't've done it. By Elys, I want to do it again.
I don't know that I could ever look at him again without wanting to throw myself into the damn river.
I'm going to need to sell the house for my own safety.”
Morgan sighed, wrapping gauzy fabric around his arm, tying it off with his spare hand and teeth. He spoke around the cloth as he said, “I'm telling you, you've got a shot.”
Noble stepped closer, and helped him finish the knot. He asked, quiet and perhaps too hopeful, “Is that what Romy said? Has Aria said anything to her?”
Morgan gave him an unimpressed look, folding his arms across himself. “My fiancee and I aren't going to be middlemen in whatever weird breakup you've got going on. It was weird before now. It's gonna be even weirder going forward.”
Noble knew he was pleading, but he couldn't stop. “Romy is Aria's best friend. She knows things neither you nor I would.” He hesitated. “She doesn't think Aria hates me?”
Morgan shrugged. “That's what she said to me a few days ago.”
That could mean something. Noble's heart picked up a beat, and for the first time in days, his mind wasn't wracked with terror, but with something nearly like hope. “Look, if Aria talks to her—"
Morgan held up a hand to stop him short. “The minute I know anything, I'll tell you, Noble. I promise.”
“Okay.”
Morgan gathered their towels and the dumbbells they used to warm-up. “In the meantime, you need to start lifting heavier weights. What’s with you?” Morgan examined the dumbbells with one eyebrow raised. “You can usually do twice this for twice as long.”
Noble shrugged. “I’m getting older. What does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s strange. You’re strong.”
Noble rolled his eyes. “It’s just the Sun God gift.”
Morgan shoved one dumbbell into Noble’s arms and watched him stumble back. “No. You’re a freak. You’ve been stronger than your kin for a decade now. And where’s your heat? You’d have stung my hands with how warm you’d get while we spar.”
“I know not,” Noble mumbled, lifting the weight curiously. It was heavier than he was used to. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Because we live in a time of peace, and you’re in the secondary tier of royals, your abilities have not been exploited. But believe me, Noble. If you’d displayed a fraction of your power at any other time in our history, you would be leading an army.”
Noble smirked. “That’s dangerously close to a compliment.”
Morgan leveled him with a flat glare. “It’s a fact that I am mentioning now, you freak, because that power seems to be slipping.
Be it your age, or whatever it is, you need to keep watch on yourself.
Lift more frequently. Box often. Keep up with your swimming.
This is about your health. If you’ve not got an adame, or an elven lover, your vitality is your responsibility. ”
Noble huffed as he grabbed his athletic bag, dumping the weight inside. “Aye, sir. I'll keep hard at work.”
Morgan gave him an encouraging grin and said, “Good. Let's go get some drinks. You can forget about Aria, and your bad sex, and—"
“It was very, very good sex,” Noble interrupted, stopping their trek out of the sparring quarter.
“Elysium’s white clouds, it was amazing.
” He closed his eyes as the memories poured through him.
Aria's mouth. His hands. The sounds he made.
“The sounds he made,” Noble decided to say aloud. He was bragging, but only a little.
Morgan exhaled long and slow, as if centering himself in meditation, and he continued, “And I can drink to forget about how poorly you handled yourself on the mats.”
Noble frowned, and walked in-step with Morgan again. “I wasn't that bad.”
“Yeah, but you weren't amazing.” Morgan laughed at his own joke, and Noble grinned in reply.
“I can't possibly be good at everything, can I?”
Morgan pushed through the large, wooden double doors, leading them onto the autumn-damp street. “You're the demi-god. You tell me.”
Noble had done well in bed. He was certain of it. Aria came twice—something Aria, himself, had insisted he could not do. But that hadn't been enough. “I'm not good at love.”
“I don't know that anyone can be good at that. It’s either there, or it’s not, and that’s all.”
“It’s there for me. But not for him.”
“What did he say?”
“I spilled my heart to him—told him I wanted him.”