Chapter 8
My head was reeling in a dozen different directions.
Jaxlyn held a palm against my lower back, like he was either trying to comfort me or prevent me from running. Either way, it wasn’t working.
We weren’t walking fast, but it felt like the walls were blurred as he escorted me down the hallway to the Tasting Room, where a normal vultus might wait to have a taste of a human before they made a decision.
But a normal vultus wasn’t here waiting. The supreme ruler of these lands was here. The king of Novithia was here, waiting for me.
“He’s cordial,” Jaxlyn was saying as I stared ahead, my expression vacant.
I had no idea how long he’d been talking, but he might as well have been speaking another language.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Jaxlyn continued, “but he’s not nasty.”
My heart was thrashing inside my chest, beginning to claw up my throat as I started to push through the strings of mismatched emerald-colored beads that opened to the waiting area just outside the Tasting Room. Then I froze.
“What?” Jaxlyn whispered, stopping so short he nearly ran into my back. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed, shaking my head, my voice uneven. “He’s gone.”
“Who?”
My breath was shaky as I said, “Landry.”
His hands wrapped around my shoulders. “He left?”
“I have to go,” I said, backing against him like a panicked cat. “I have to find him—”
“No, no, no, no, shit. Listen to me.” He held me in place, leaning into my ear. “That is not your concern right now.”
I jolted against him, but he squeezed me tighter.
“It’s not. You can find him later. Your concern is this. Your concern is the king.”
The king.
“But how am I supposed to concentrate?” I could barely even think. “He-he left—”
“Yes, and he will return, too. And when he does, you will be many coins richer having fucked a king. You don’t need to concentrate. You just need to lie back and let him have you.”
I licked my lips, staring straight ahead at the dangling beads. “What the hell is he doing here? Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I don’t know, but whatever the reason, I have no doubt he’s going to want you. They all do, so pull yourself together.”
I blinked hard at the beads. My nerves were on fire.
“Plus, I’m sorry, kid, but I don’t think you have a choice here.” He parted the curtains. “It is the fucking king.”
I stumbled when he shoved me forward from behind. The decorated vultus soldier stood in the waiting room with his hand on his sword as if in constant surveillance of a threat.
His irises flashed red at the sight of me. He was lean and built with a noble nose and strong cleft chin. I’d never seen one with their hair pulled so tightly into a low twist at the nape of his neck, such that it stretched the skin of his face over his sharp bones, giving him a severe expression.
“This the one he wants?” he asked Jaxlyn like I wasn’t standing there.
“Yes, sir,” Jaxlyn responded with a bow. “This is Feloré. Our most popular concubine, and the one the king has requested.”
“Come forth, human.”
I hesitantly stepped forward.
The soldier gave me a thorough look over, gaze dropping down my body. His nose twitched, but he rubbed it, passing it off as an itch. “What is your age?”
I blinked. It was like someone had scoured the words from my tongue. “Don’t know.”
“Orphan,” Jaxlyn supplied, by way of an explanation. “But he can be whatever age the king prefers. It is no mind to him.”
The commander nodded, like this made sense. “Let me see your tongue.”
My lips were shaky as I parted them to show him my piercing.
He observed it, twitching more. Then he grunted some acknowledgment and gripped the handle of the door to the Tasting Room. “Touch him only if he directs. When you address him, you are to address him as Your Grace or Your Majesty. Understood?”
I was fucking frozen solid.
“He understands,” Jaxlyn answered for me.
“Come.” The soldier pushed open the door and said, “Kneel before your king.”
Most vultae didn’t bother with tastings, so I’d forgotten how distinct it was from the rest of the brothel, with its cherry red walls, a dim chandelier lit with six candles and draped in strings of freshwater pearls. In the middle was an oversized leather ottoman, big enough to fit four people.
Then there was him. The king.
He was studying a still life painting of a cut pear on the wall, which was far too quaint for his brazen presence. He’d freed his long hair from its hat. It wept down his shoulders like so many tears of inky black as he swiveled around. Smiling. Jaxlyn and I both whimpered.
It was like looking at the sun. Radiant but painful and something you knew better than to do. Nevertheless, the temptation won. Neither of us could look away.
“Well, there you are,” he said. “Finally.”
Jaxlyn crumbled to a kneel beside me. I followed, folding to one knee like it was trained into my bones.
“Your Grace,” Jaxlyn said, bowing his head further. “I apologize for the wait. This is Feloré. The one you wanted to see.”
The king’s steps barely made a sound, but the warmth of his body as he suddenly stood near me was undeniable. He was hot. Hot enough to make my throat go dry.
“I know it is.” He crouched onto the floor. His whisper was a low timbre as he said, “I’ve been repeating your name to myself for what feels like an hour. Feloré. The one who is not interested.”
The heat from his body slithered down my spine inch by inch.
“Look at me, human.” He curled his fingers beneath my chin. “Let me see your face.”
My heartbeat was drumming in my ears as he held my jaw, tilting it upward.
His eyes were penetrating, like an ice pick through the heart. They were an impossible color to distinguish. Perhaps because they were ever-changing: a brown so rich it was nearly red or a red so deep it was almost brown with these swirls of gold marbled throughout.
I held his gaze as he gently twisted my face to one side, then the other.
“Exquisite,” he whispered, a slow grin stretching his lips. “How utterly exquisite you are.”
He released me, rising to a stand. I’d never seen a creature move so smoothly. It was wholly unnatural as if he was ushered by the air itself, gliding on an invisible force, so graceful that Jaxyln and I couldn’t help but stare starry-eyed. Mesmerized.
The king began shrugging the heavy wool coat from his shoulders. I’d never experienced the temperature in a room fluctuate so extremely because of one of them, but it did, and it was due to his proximity. It’d cooled a degree when he stepped further and now it was getting hotter as he uncloaked.
He shucked his coat off and draped it over a chair. “Leave us.”
Jaxlyn glanced once at me. His voice was a timid mess as he said, “Me leave, Your Grace?”
“Well, I do not wish him to leave.”
“Right. It’s just that I am the brothel keeper. It’s customary for me to remain in the room for the duration of a tasting to answer any questions that might arise—”
The king twisted around. He didn’t even need to speak. His expression was loud.
“Y-yes, Your Grace,” Jaxlyn stammered, bowing as he rose on his way out. “Take your time. I will be right outside should you need me.”
The door sealed shut, and then I was alone with him. The most formidable creature in Novithia stood before me. And he was…smiling.
“Tell me, human,” he said. “Is your interest piqued now?”
I slowly wet my lips. Address him as Your Grace or Your Majesty. “Certainly, Your Grace.”
I’d never spoken to someone of royal blood before, and it tasted strange on my tongue to say, like I was doing it wrong, but he didn’t flinch.
“Stand, human.”
I pushed myself up, brushing off my robe as I stood. I always pictured him taller in my imagination, like he was larger than life. But here and now, we were of similar height.
“Are you thirsty, my sweet?” he asked, unfastening the silver button on one of his cuffs.
I blinked.
He tipped his chin toward the little round table in the corner where a glass decanter of red wine sat. Oh.
Drinking alcohol was strictly prohibited for a concubine, and everyone knew how swift the crown was in delivering their punishments to humans who broke the rules. Just ask fucking Lennox.
“I’m not permitted to drink wine, Your Grace,” I said. “It’s against the rules.”
“I didn’t ask if you were permitted.” His voice was as smooth as it was direct. “I asked if you were thirsty.”
Indeed, he had. For once, I was grateful for the restrictions as I did not need the effects of alcohol muddling my mind further, but if anyone could disregard the rules, it was the monarch who sanctioned them.
“Pour us one glass,” he said, grinning as he unfastened the button on his other cuff. “We’ll share.”
Oh, we’d just share, would we? Orphan Feloré with no surname and no age would simply share a glass of wine with him. The king of Novithia.
I started toward the wine table, but I couldn’t shake the question of why?
Why was he here? In all my years, I’d never even heard of such a thing.
They had whole systems of clergy and runners to select royal concubines.
The king himself did not visit tiny brothels, would surely find such tasks beneath him.
I filled the metal goblet with a rich pour of burgundy red wine as he settled into a seat in the formal wooden dinner chair Jaxlyn kept in here for himself. His every movement was so quiet that it was nearly undetectable, like a desert cat.
I carefully approached, trying to keep my hand steady as I extended the goblet forward. He didn’t move to take it, his attention glued to my body instead.
There was something so intimate about stepping even closer into his space, positioning the goblet into his perched fingers while he barely acknowledged it, like this was our evening routine.
He twisted it around in his fingers, giving it a sniff, crinkling his nose a little. “Your keeper says you are a favorite among the vultae that frequent this brothel. Is that true?”
I had the unsettling awareness of my Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yes, Your Grace. That is correct.”