Chapter 12 Never Skip Dinner
(or Your Villain Will Get Hangry)
Kazimir
My stomach growled with such violence that Arabella lifted her head from my chest to stare at me.
“Was that you or an earthquake?” she asked.
“When did you last eat?” I countered, running my fingers through her hair. The shimmer of the Heirloom caught the firelight for a moment before disappearing beneath the strands.
She frowned, considering. “This morning? No, wait. Last night?”
“Exactly.” I sat up, pulling her with me. “We need food before I start considering which of my minions looks most appetizing.”
“Griffin’s probably stringy.” She stretched against me, all languid satisfaction and bare skin, and my body stirred with interest despite my exhaustion. “All that nervous energy.”
“Thorne would be tough as leather.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed, hunting for clothing. “Vex would probably poison me out of spite.”
“Sebastian would taste like cinnamon rolls.”
I shot her a dark look. “Arabella.”
She grinned wickedly.
We dressed reluctantly. Arabella’s hair was a wild tangle down her back, and she kept fidgeting with it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Trying to figure out how to hide this.” She gestured vaguely at her head, where the Heirloom had merged with her. “The shimmer shows through if the light hits it right.”
She finally settled on a deep side part, letting her hair fall forward to shadow that side of her face. “I might have to cut bangs if this is permanent.”
“Don’t you dare.” I liked her hair exactly as it was—long enough to wrap around my fist, golden enough to catch the firelight when she rode me.
“Possessive about my hair now too?” she teased.
I pulled her against me for another kiss. “About everything concerning you.”
We finally made it out of our tower, heading down toward the small kitchen in the Inner Sanctum. The sun had long since set, and the corridors of Skyspire were lit by the orblights. Maybe we could still avoid everyone at least until morning.
“Finally emerged, have you?” Vex’s voice came from directly behind us.
I didn’t jump. I absolutely did not jump. But Arabella’s hand tightened on mine, which meant she’d been startled too.
“How’d you do that?” Arabella asked, turning to face my steward.
Vex’s purple hair caught the orblight as she smiled.
“Practice.” She looked us up and down with an expression that suggested she knew exactly what we’d been doing.
“Late dinner is being served in the private dining room, if you’re interested in actual food rather than whatever you’ve been sustaining yourselves on. ”
“Vex—” I started, irritation flaring.
“Thorne’s back,” Vex interrupted smoothly. “With Griffin. And your guest.” Her eyes narrowed at me. “The one no one thought to inform me about.”
“It was sudden,” I said, not bothering to sound apologetic. “Lord Sebastian is under our protection for the time being.”
“Wait. Lord?” Vex scowled.
“Yes, why?”
She huffed irritably. “I didn’t prepare the right rooms for him, then.”
I scowled right back at her. “It doesn’t matter where he sleeps, does it? He’s lucky to get anything that’s not in the dungeon. Just give him a cot and access to a bath. I’m sure he’ll—”
Arabella and Vex pinned me with the same look.
A look that said Sebastian’s accommodations absolutely did matter, and obviously I was a brutish warlord with no regard for decorum or the respect owed to a minor lord.
Never mind that he was an enemy who was likely plotting my demise and was lucky his accommodations weren’t six feet underground.
I was about to remind them that the warlord in question was paying the bills and feeding them exotic food when Vex spoke first.
“I’ll get the servants to prepare new chambers while we eat.”
“You invited him to dinner? Send up a tray of bread and water—”
Another glare.
I glared back.
Somehow in the last few weeks, Arabella and Vex had reached a point in their relationship where they agreed with each other over me. I didn’t know when or how it happened. I didn’t even know Arabella had a relationship with Vex, and this new development suggested a burgeoning friendship.
Before I could unleash my bubbling fury, Vex abruptly excused herself and vanished back into the shadows.
“She’s good at that,” Arabella observed. “I could learn a thing or two from her.”
I huffed. “Since when did you become friends?”
Arabella looked at me like I’d sprouted horns out of my ears. “Is it a problem?”
A flash of possessiveness, hot and violent, surged through me. Mine. She was mine. No one else’s. Ever.
I swallowed hard. “It’s a problem when my steward and my wife present a united front against me.”
Arabella’s chin lifted, her gaze as steady as my own.
“I’ll form friendships with whomever I please, Kazimir.
Or do you intend to approve my companions like you do your military appointments?
” The challenge in her voice was unmistakable, a sharp edge honed by a lifetime of fighting for every scrap of autonomy.
“I’m not the type to share,” I growled.
“So you’ve mentioned on multiple occasions.” She stopped walking, forcing me to halt as well. “My having friends doesn’t diminish what we have, Kazimir. Unless you’re truly that insecure.”
I stepped closer, shadows curling at my fingertips. “Insecure? I’ve conquered kingdoms.”
“And yet one friendship threatens you.” Her magic flared, golden light crackling against my darkness until the nearest orblight shattered in a shower of sparks.
Before I could retort, she shrugged. “Besides, I’m surprised you don’t see it—Vex is a badass exactly like you.”
I frowned, thrown off balance by the unexpected turn. I was a badass. Arabella was a badass. Vex was too, certainly, but she didn’t look it with her slight frame and color-shifting hair. Though I supposed that was part of what made her dangerous.
“Explain.”
“She’s ruthlessly practical,” Arabella said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“She anticipates needs before they’re spoken, she doesn’t suffer fools, and she moves through this citadel like a shadow with a purpose.
Her loyalty isn’t blind obedience; it’s to the stability and power of your rule.
” She paused, her eyes locking onto mine.
“The only difference is that her domain is logistics and secrets, and yours is conquest and chaos.”
I blinked. The comparison was accurate, irritatingly so. On seeing my expression, Arabella smirked.
But what really coiled in my gut wasn’t insecurity—it was raw possessiveness. I commanded armies, orchestrated alliances, moved people like chess pieces. Arabella was the queen on my board, and now she was forging connections in my fortress with my steward.
The idea that Vex could earn Arabella’s trust so easily, without my orchestration, grated against every instinct I had. It wasn’t a threat to my power. It was a crack in my absolute dominion, a reminder that my wife didn’t revolve entirely around my will.
I found I very much disliked it.
Arabella was looking down the corridor reluctantly. “I suppose we can’t avoid them forever.”
I was in a mood to try, but we had things to accomplish.
The short walk to the dining room took us through a section still bearing scars from the Hero’s Guild attack.
Piles of stone waited to be cleared, and scaffolding covered one wall where the stone had been blasted away.
The sight of it made my blood simmer—not just at the damage, but at my own failure to prevent it.
Construction sounds echoed even at this late hour—Vex had the repairs running continuously.
“Part of the new wards,” I said as we approached a team of rune carvers inscribing glyphs into a freshly repaired wall.
The defensive wards had been temperamental since the attack, refusing to stabilize properly after whatever the Hero’s Guild’s magic had done to them. So I was starting from scratch.
Arabella asked questions about them, and for a moment, I forgot about our other problems and enjoyed her curiosity. Her insatiable appetite for knowledge rivaled my own.
“… layers upon layers of protection that will make even the gods think twice,” I said as we moved on. No one would ever breach my citadel again.
Through one of the damaged outer walls, another keep was visible across the chasm—a half-ruined structure on its own isolated island. I’d warded it so heavily that even looking at it too long made most people’s eyes water.
Arabella’s gaze followed mine to the crumbling keep. Her eyes narrowed, then widened as if seeing through a veil for the first time. “How have I never noticed—”
“The Old Keep.” My voice dropped low enough that the workers couldn’t overhear.
“When I first took Skyspire, that whole area resisted renovation. Workers had accidents. Tools shattered. The building itself seemed to reject any attempt to alter it.” I shrugged.
“I gave up trying to change it, but it turned out to be exceptional at containing dangerous items. It’s a magical vault, of sorts, and why I keep it heavily warded. ”
Her lips parted, no doubt to ask what kinds of things, but my stomach chose that moment to voice another complaint with a sound that could have woken the dead.