21
Alarie
“You the Commander’s girl?” the driver asked.
He had a crotchety old man look about him, but I’d already been turned down by three drivers who were waiting on their passengers, and I was told that the rest of the carriages were sold out for the day. It wasn’t normally this difficult to grab a same-day carriage, but I was also told that some of the carriages that were supposed to come back from the High Court were running late for some unknown reason.
“Cass?” I asked unnecessarily.
Harborview was a small town. Unsurprisingly, news had traveled fast about me and Cass.
“Yes, I am,” I said proudly. I wasn’t beyond using whatever goodwill Cass had earned here in our hometown to my advantage.
“And you’re looking for a ride to the High Court?” the driver asked. He eyed me up and down like he expected me to be dressed for Court on the journey. But I wasn’t. I was wearing a clingy casual dress, something similar to what I wore in the days before I’d ever been to Court.
“Yes, I am,” I said again.
“All right, then. Hop on in,” he said, gesturing to the older but well-maintained carriage he stood in front of. “I’ll get your bags for you, m’lady,” he offered.
The ride felt like it was taking longer than was normal. We’d not passed a single carriage going either way, which made the trip feel all the more monotonous. I’d mostly thought about two things on my journey—one, the possibility of Cass out there fighting and, two, why I should try not to think about the possibility of Cass out there fighting. Bouncing between these two fun thoughts, it took me a minute to register what I was hearing outside of the carriage.
“Fucking hell,” my driver cursed.
“What is it?” I asked, deciding to stick my head out of the window of the carriage and see for myself.
“Fucking hell,” the driver cursed again. “Don’t do that!” he barked at the sight of me poking my head out the window.
What I did glimpse coming from the woods to the left of us made me want to repeat my driver’s favorite moniker.
“Fucking hell,” I said.
Soldiers dressed in green leathers charged towards us on fast horses, and they didn’t look particularly friendly. A spear was thrown and just narrowly missed our front, right wheel, confirming my suspicions.
“I tried to do the Commander a favor, and now I’m going to get his girl killed, and then he’s going to kill me…” the driver continued to tailspin.
“They’re going to catch us!” I shouted unhelpfully.
“Just hold on,” the driver yelled and then we were going faster than I’d ever gone in a carriage before.
The trees around us sped by at breakneck speed, and we began to pull away from our pursuers. After a couple of minutes of our fast-paced travel, the soldiers disappeared from view. And then a makeshift base camp with tents and Valencian flags appeared on our horizon.
“Thank the gods,” the driver muttered under his breath.
We resumed something closer to sa normal pace, and after a minute or two of silence, I recovered enough to address the driver.
“You’re a transporter?” I asked.
Most carriage drivers these days were just regular ol’ fae. If they had any powers, they were not related to transporting carriages. But before the magic began to fade, all carriage drivers had been transporters. Transporters could either ride in the carriage and hasten its way or instill the carriage with their magic and send it on its way.
“I still have a little bit left in the barrel,” the cantankerous driver replied, pride and relief visible on his face.
Valencian soldiers appeared from the left and right of us and soon had us surrounded. Our carriage halted to a crawl, whether from something the soldiers did or something my driver did, I didn’t know. Luckily, my driver flew a Valencian flag off the front of his carriage and the soldiers did not attack us on sight.
“What’s your business? Speak fast,” the soldier ordered, his attention directed to my driver.
“I’m hired help here. I was taking this one from Harborview to the High Court when we ran into some trouble,” my driver answered.
“Who are you then?” the soldier asked, now looking at me. A list of possible answers ran through my head—the Commander of the Northern Force’s girlfriend? No, that couldn’t be easily verifiable. The Prince’s secret mentee protégé? No, that was even worse. “I’m senior counselor to House Heroux,” I declared.
“We don’t need any counselors out here,” the soldier replied skeptically.
“Listen, can you just go ask someone? Commander Davante? High Lord Dumont? High Lord Vitruvian?” I added, thinking that Jay must be around.
The soldier looked more and more skeptical as my list continued with each person higher in rank. There had to be someone here who knew me.
“Perhaps I should just go ask the King himself,” the flippant soldier joked with his companions.
I thought for a moment that the King would remember me before I realized the soldier was messing with me. Just then, a retinue of Valencian soldiers arrived at the base camp entrance ahead of us. And then I saw him atop a brown gelding, his golden spun hair shining like a beckon.
“Oh, thank the fucking gods,” I said under my breath, ignoring the soldier that was showing signs of wanting to search our carriage. “Rhett,” I called out. “RHETT!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The handsome bastard trotted over to me.
“Al, what in the fuck are you doing here?” Rhett asked. “Leave it to you to ride right into the middle of a damn battle.”
We were granted entry into the base camp, and Rhett helped me out of my carriage. My driver was more than happy for me to be someone else’s problem now.
“Come on, Al baby. Let’s get you somewhere where you can relax and tell me how it is that you are here,” Rhett offered, seemingly cool as a cucumber, but there was tightness around his blue eyes.
“Rhett, what’s going on?” I asked, showing the opposite of the composure he exhibited. “First, Cass had to leave me in Harborview in a hurry. And now, this,” I said, gesturing toward the camp full of soldiers around us.
Rhett casually threw an arm around my shoulders, and I felt myself calm just a fraction. He began to walk with me toward what appeared to be the largest tent in the entire encampment. We walked into a tent that was much larger and nicer on the inside than it appeared on the outside.
The King sat slightly slumped in a chair on the far side of the tent. He looked regal but exhausted. High Lord Rein was next to him, and they were whispering intently. If they thought my presence at the camp was odd, they didn’t say anything. I didn’t even think my existence really registered with them.
Rhett plopped down into a wooden chair, gesturing for me to sit next to him in a dark green, velvet-lined seat that seemed very out of place in a temporary tent.
“It’s okay, Al. The battle is over. At least for now,” he said wearily.
I scanned around the tent again. There were shelves of books and a long, large table and many other items I would not have expected to be in such a makeshift operation. Perhaps I was wrong to assume the tent was here for purposes of this one engagement. Maybe we had these kinds of set ups all over Valencia and I just didn’t realize it. I made a mental note to ask Cass about it.
I looked around the tent again and finally realized what, or actually who, I was looking for.
“Where’s Luke, Rhett?” I asked, failing to keep the panic from my voice.
If Rhett was here, that meant Luke probably was, too. My heartbeat spiked. Rhett gave me a smirk that was meant to be reassuring.
“He’ll be here shortly, Al. I came back with the King. He’s helping some of the others round up some of the last few Alancians who were unlucky enough to get left behind,” Rhett explained.
Cass, Rhett, Luke, I tallied in my head. The Prince and Jay had to be around as well. It felt like someone was trying to squeeze my heart until it popped.
“Has the wall failed, then?” I asked after the one thing we all worried over.
“No,” Rhett answered. “The wall is still intact, though they are still managing to get some Alancians through somehow. If the wall wasn’t functioning, they would have had an entire army here. Instead, only those who could be magically traveled were present,” he explained.
He was not conveying information to me fast enough. I needed to know what was happening. I couldn’t just sit here. I went to rise from my chair. Then I heard what sounded like a group of people arriving all at once, followed by the sound of several pairs of heavy footsteps walking up to the tent. Rhett stood, moving between me and the entrance.
One by one, they came through the tent entryway. First in was Jay. He was wearing his normal stoic facade and simple clothing similar to what I’d seen him wear before when he practiced with his sword. His gray eyes darted to me, but he quickly directed his attention to the King. My eyes stayed glued to the tent flap, waiting for the next person to walk through.
“Luke,” I cried out, nearly running to his side the moment he ducked under the tent flap. He wore the same tight forest green clothing as Rhett and big, heavy-looking dark boots. It was so unlike the clean-cut suits he normally donned at Court.
I took two steps toward him, and he met me the rest of the way. He gave me a smile that felt like salve on a wound I didn’t even know I had. Relief rolled through my entire body.
“I heard we had a little surprise visitor,” he said, still smiling.
He ran his thumb lightly across the line of my jaw before grabbing my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my gaze to his. I knew he could feel my body shaking.
“Hey, I’m okay,” he whispered.
I glanced back at the tent flap, waiting for the next person to come through.
“We all are,” he added.
I grabbed his hand from my face and held on to it, pulling it to my side and squeezed it to remind myself he was there. He squeezed back but said nothing.
The Prince was the next one through the entrance. His hands weren’t in his pockets for once, probably because his battle leathers were too tight and didn’t even have pockets. Not that he needed them with the way he used the air around him like his own personal storage. The black leathers clung to his defined thighs just as much as his dark shirt clung to his sculpted chest.
For just a moment, he looked relieved, probably to see that his father was tired but well. But then his gaze dropped to my hand in Luke’s, and that spark of perpetual amusement settled into his hunter green eyes. I tried my best not to scowl, but I reluctantly dropped Luke’s hand, conscious of the scene we had made.
And then Cass entered the tent. Even with his wings hidden, his shoulders were so broad that he had to push both sides of the tent flap open to make room for his entry. My eyes roved over his body from head to toe looking for injuries, but it was impossible to tell because he wore the same tight leathers that the Prince did.
In the King’s war tent, surrounded by other men who had also just been on the battlefield, Cass still managed to look like something that had wandered in from the wild. His green hair was a stark contrast to the high fae blonds and brunettes in the room.
His beautiful brown eyes seared into me with a look so intimate, so hungry for me, that it felt like everyone in the tent had joined us in the bedroom where we had left off in Harborview. His gaze locked onto mine, and he did not look away as he purposefully strode towards me. I ran my tongue across my bottom lip, dragging my lip between my teeth and biting down.
“Alarie, dear, I thought I taught you your lesson about taking that lip of yours between your teeth,” Jay chastised, appearing at my side.
It was the first time Jay had spoken to me since the Spring Ball. We had only seen each other in passing at the High Court over the last several months. I avoided House Heroux if at all possible because I knew if Jay was in town, then, more likely than not, he would be there. But true to what he had told me before, it appeared that he was spending a lot of time up north and away from the High Court.
The tone of Jay’s voice was not cruel. He had said the statement like he was talking about one of the many other lessons he had given me, like a lesson on Court history. Most would not even know what he was talking about. But Luke knew. I had taken my lip between my teeth many times when I was with him, under him, just before I began to hold my breath and…
I only had eyes for Cass and how he would react to the revelation that he wasn’t the only one in the tent, which now felt very small, who was familiar with my tell. Cass was a good soldier, the best, and Jay was Contra and answered to the King alone. A moment of recognition passed between Jay and Cass. It felt like Cass’s presence in the room, already so palpable, began to expand. Too big for delicate things like velvet-lined chairs, he grew even broader as charcoal and onyx feathered wings appeared on his muscled back. Everyone around him, even Jay, took a step back.
Surprisingly, it was the Prince who spoke first, breaking the tension. He approached us right after Jay.
“Jay, you’re an old man now. Maybe your lessons aren’t quite as good as you think they are,” the Prince teased.
Luke chuckled. Cass’s wings, which before the Prince had spoken, had felt like they were ready to overtake the entire space, knocking anything and anyone out of his way, relaxed, his shoulders rolling back. But Cass still remained squared up to where Jay stood.
“Speaking of lessons,” the Prince said, grabbing my arm. “It’s time for yours, princess,” he concluded, pulling my body toward his.
We disappeared before I could say anything to Cass. The last view I saw was of him standing next to Rhett, Jay, and Luke, a very, very wild thing among the civilized lords of the High Court.