2
Alarie
Despite the warmth of the spring evening, he was wearing a fitted, midnight blue tux with a black satin bow tie around his neck. He was a taller man who could not have more perfectly embodied the archetype of an omnipotent high fae lord if he had stepped right out of one of my textbooks. His dark brown hair brushed the tops of his ears; a five o’clock shadow occasioned his handsome face, accentuating his chiseled jawline; and dark, penetrating gray eyes complimented his muscled body, likely honed by hundreds of years of training. A fine, white marble powder sprinkled his sleeves, the only evidence of the chaos that ensued around us in the wake of the explosion.
A host from House Halair appeared in the courtyard looking for Elenor. House Kane did not have a place of its own at the High Court, so Elenor’s father had arranged for her to stay at House Halair for a time. Elenor had told me all about it on our way to the Court. The more Elenor shared with me, the less optimistic I became regarding the possibility of showing up to the High Court with a new friend in tow.
She had talked about herself throughout the entirety of the trip, never taking the time to ask me about myself. She’d told me how she was going to the High Court to find some high fae lord and then marry him, like she was the main character in a fairy tale. It quickly became clear to me that we were coming to the High Court for very different reasons, and I wasn’t sure we had much else in common.
I decided to dodge introductions with House Halair altogether, instead wandering over to the partially deconstructed statue. High Lord Vitruvian dutifully fielded questions from the House Halair host and others who had gathered in the courtyard looking for answers regarding the explosion. It was quite the sight to be greeted with, even if it was just a statue—a decapitated high fae lord, his head carelessly discarded feet away from his body.
I had immediately been taken in by High Lord Vitruvian’s command mere moments after he’d caught the marble head in his hands. I’d witnessed the entire incident through the window of my carriage. But, as Contra, I guess it would take more than an explosion and a flying head to make him off-kilter.
My eyes roved over the surrounding greenery that shot out from where I stood in the center of the courtyard like the spokes of a bicycle tire. It was pretty, but already I was comparing it to the beaches back home and finding it lacking.
Arms corded in muscle enclosed around me. Startled, I tensed against the unexpected embrace, but he easily overcame my resistance, pulling me against his tall, hard body. His hand wrapped around the back of my head, gently but protectively, holding my face pressed against his muscled chest.
Buried in the strength of his arms, and perhaps with thoughts of the beaches back home still on my mind, I thought he smelled like something that reminded me of home. A memory of digging my toes into the white sand of the beach on a sunny day flashed into my mind, and despite my initial instinct to resist, I found myself taking in a deep breath, my chest expanding as I melted into the man’s muscled frame.
I wrapped my arms around the narrow part of his large torso and tried to look up at the man holding me, but his grip on me just tightened. I felt him tense around me, and I reacted with him, my muscles going taut in his arms.
A loud, crashing noise pierced the raucous of the thoroughfare for the second time since I had arrived at the High Court.
The remainder of the marble statue exploded, collapsing where it stood. Its remnants scattered with force as a plume of fine white dust and debris expanded from its perimeter.
When the loudest of the noise subsided, the hand holding my head eased its tension, moving to my lower back and allowing me to move my head once more. I opened my eyes and looked up into a smile so bright that I momentarily forgot how to form words.
His crystal blue eyes had a playful sparkle, and his caramel brown hair had a slight wave to it. A white, powdery haze hung in the air around us. But the debris fell around us, instead of on us, like we were standing inside an invisible bubble. For a second that seemed to drag on for hours, the turbulent world around me faded away into a low buzz hidden behind the white haze, and all I could see was his glowing face.
“I’m Luke,” the man with the blinding smile said.
“Alarie,” I breathed out, my face inches from his.
We stood facing each other, my heart beating out of my chest. I ran the flat of my tongue across my lower lip before pulling it between my teeth.
“Luke,” High Lord Vitruvian’s voice rang out, penetrating through the shield surrounding us.
We both snapped our heads toward the approaching high lord. It was obvious that he had not been protected by the same magical shield as Luke and me because, although the high lord still looked impeccable, the marble dusting now covered more than just his sleeves.
“I see you’ve met my newest House liaison,” Lord Vitruvian said, his eyebrows slightly raised.
At Lord Vitruvian’s words, I realized that Luke was still holding me. His arms were wrapped around me, his hands resting on my hips, and parts of my smaller, softer body were pressed to the front of his tall, hard body.
Luke looked down at me, standing well over a head taller than me, and gave me an impish grin. Then he released his shield around us at the same time as he released my body from his. Without Luke shielding me, some of the white marble dust that still hung in the air began to settle onto my shoulders. His fingers trailed over my narrow shoulders and down my arms, wiping off the powder before it could collect there. A light shiver skittered down my spine, despite the remaining warmth of the spring evening.
Luke’s light-blue eyes locked with mine as he flashed me his perfect white teeth. Even standing next to the high lord, who in himself was a masterpiece of a man, Luke demanded my attention. He was a high fae lord, standing at least 6’ 4”, with bulging biceps and impeccable style. Where Lord Vitruvian’s attire was elegant and timeless, Luke’s was the picture of the current Court style, from his camel-brown leather shoes to his skinny, dark blue tie.
“Well,” Luke said with a chuckle, holding his hand out to me, “welcome to the High Court, Alarie.”
It seemed silly to shake the hand of the man who had held me in his arms moments before. But I matched his chuckle with a nervous laugh of my own and took his hand, anyway. I noticed Luke’s dark coat was beginning to collect the dust that fell around us.
“Um, I think you have a little something,” I said to Luke, running a finger across the top of his suit coat and pulling it away coated in the white, powdery dust.
“Damn,” he barked. “Damn, damn, damn. I’m going to have to go back by the house and change before tonight,” he lamented, stripping off his fitted jacket and giving me a view of the suspenders he wore. They strained over his bulky shoulders.
Seeing Luke’s muscular arms and shoulders bulging underneath his white button-down, I wondered how he had fit into the suit coat to begin with. It was difficult to believe something as ordinary as a coat could conceal something as extraordinary as Luke’s physique. He casually popped out his cufflinks, holding the little silver pieces between lips, and began to roll up the sleeves of his white button-down.
“Looks like my dinner will have to wait,” the high lord announced.
My attention snapped from Luke to High Lord Vitruvian.
“Grey’s going to want to hear about this,” the high lord continued.
Grey. King Greyson Heroux—the King of Valencia—I thought, awestruck.
“You two should head to the manor and get started on the dinner Jena prepared for us,” Lord Vitruvian suggested.
Without waiting for a response from Luke, the high lord turned to me.
“My lady,” he offered with a polite, small nod of his head.
And then he was gone.
I stared at what should have been the back of High Lord Vitruvian. But he was so quick that all I saw when I looked in the direction he disappeared was an empty stone-paved path.
High fae tended to be tall, quick, and agile, where lesser fae tended to fall on the spectrum of stocky with brute force and strength, but I was, nonetheless, surprised by the high lord’s speed. And by the looks of Lord Vitruvian and Luke’s muscular figures, I wasn’t so sure there would be much of a difference between the high fae lords and their lesser fae counterparts when it came to strength either.
An image of Cass, my best friend from back home, sprung to the forefront of my mind, sparking an immediate comparison of Cass’s lesser fae hulking mass to that of Lord Vitruvian’s lean body. Luke was somewhere in the middle, bulkier than the high lord but still lean in comparison to Cass. Then again, everyone was lean when compared to Cass. I inwardly admitted thatCass was undoubtedly stronger than either of the high fae lords but reasoned that he was stronger than pretty much everyone.
“My lady,” Luke said, offering me his arm, matching Lord Vitruvian’s formal tone, a charming smile splayed across his face.
“Alarie’s fine,” I countered, placing my hand in the crook of his arm.
I was going to have to get used to being called a lady now that I was at the High Court, but it felt like Luke and I were already past that bit of formality.
“I don’t know about you, but I could eat,” Luke said enthusiastically.
I eyed his hulking mass once more. I imagined that it would take quite a lot of food to keep that amount of muscle fed. He began to lead me down a path through the first of many gardens at the center of the High Court.
“I wouldn’t mind a walk around first,” I suggested, noticing the many paths that broke off from the center garden we stood in.
I was hungry, but it was also my first time at the High Court. I was interested to see what else, other than explosions and dashingly handsome lords, the High Court had to offer.
Luke looked down pointedly at the four-inch nude pumps I wore on my small feet.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Really,” I assured him, in response to the skeptical look on his handsome face.
I almost always wore heels instead of flats due to my shorter stature, which I came by naturally because lesser fae were almost always shorter than high fae. Luke acquiesced, beginning his tour along the route to the Vitruvian manor. We walked along the path surrounded by tall, green, well-groomed hedges interspersed with statues, fountains, and steel gates covered in ivy.
The Heroux estate, the King’s grounds, was nearest to the garden we departed. Lord Vitruvian was probably in there updating the King on the events of the evening as we strolled by. We continued down the path to Luke’s house. A cobblestone path led up to a beautiful garden, its greenery continuing onto the ivy-clad brick walls of the manor.
“Wait, House Bellamy?” I exclaimed. “You’re Lucas Bellamy?”
House Bellamy’s seat in Port City was home to the Silver Court. That meant that High Lord Bellamy, one of the four high lords in Valencia, was Luke’s father. Luke chuckled at my evident shock.
“In the flesh,” he said, spreading his arms out as if showing himself off, dislodging my hand from his forearm in the process.
“And it’s just you in there?” I asked.
A little embarrassed by my prior outburst, I toned down my shock into simple disbelief.
“Just me,” he reassured me. “Most of the time, anyway. There are the house attendants too. And my parents sometimes. And whoever else my parents allow to stay there,” Luke replied, sounding a little more exasperated as his list went on.
I wondered why Luke served at the High Court on behalf of House Vitruvian instead of his own House. Both House Vitruvian and House Bellamy were on the High Council, after all.
But not quite sure how to address this glaring fact, I asked instead, “Do your parents come to Court often then?”
“Not so much,” Luke answered, tugging me away from his manor and farther down the path toward our final destination, Lord Vitruvian’s house.
“My brother and father prefer to focus their efforts on the port back home. And my mother… Well, she’s too busy lamenting the fact that her baby boy—that’s me, just to be clear—won’t settle down with any of the many ill-fated matches she takes it upon herself to make.”
He tried to appear amused by this last comment, but it came off less lighthearted than his other banter.
Remembering his cursing from earlier, I said, “If you need to get going with your plans for the evening, I’m sure I could find my way to House Vitruvian.”
“You’re not ditching me that easily,” he teased, entwining my hand with his arm again.
Probably for the best. I didn’t want to turn my ankle on my first day at Court. I didn’t think of myself as clumsy, but stilettos and the rounded cobblestones on some of these paths didn’t go well together.
We found ourselves at the stoop of the Vitruvian manor. We stood under its magnificent arched entryway framed by sturdy marble pillars. The sun had set, and despite my earlier hunger, dinner time had passed unnoticed.
“Soooo… what was that whole exploding statue thing all about?” I asked, leaning my back against one of the columns.
I didn’t bring it up before, afraid that I would be prying into something that I had no business in. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I felt that if I was going to ask anyone, I could ask Luke.
Luke pressed his hand to the marble to the side of my head, towering over me. I tilted my head up, looking into his golden tanned face.
“Oh, that? That was your welcome to the High Court present. You know, I thought about doing something a little more traditional, like a bouquet of flowers. But then I thought what every woman really wants is to be greeted with pure chaos, with maybe even a touch of fear,” he joked.
When Lord Vitruvian approached, I was still laughing.
“You two already finish up dinner?” he asked.
“No, we, uh, we actually haven’t made it in for dinner yet,” Luke replied, taking a small step away from me.
The high lord’s right eyebrow arched slightly, a monumental showing of emotion for him based on the aloofness I’d seen so far. It had been hours since he had left Luke and me in the courtyard.
“Well, in that case, would you like to come in, Luke?” the high lord asked.
“No. Thanks though, Jay,” Luke replied. “Can’t. I have to go meet Rhett.”
Lord Vitruvian nodded, almost as if he’d been expecting Luke’s answer.
“‘Night, Alarie,” Luke said, squeezing my arm and flashing me one of what I was already coming to think of as his signature smiles.
“‘Night, Luke,” I said, feeling slightly nervous about not having Luke at dinner as a buffer with the high lord.
Lord Vitruvian pushed open the ornately carved oak front door, stepped through, and held it open for me. I entered the home, facing a tall staircase that narrowed to the entrance to the second floor. Unable to resist the urge, my gaze continued to sweep up, seeing more stairs and more wings of the manor. Hallways interspersed with doors led to more stairs that led to more hallways and doors. I’d get lost if I wasn’t careful.
“I originally intended for a few others to dine with us tonight. But since I was running behind due to unforeseeable events,” he noted wryly, “I asked Jena to leave a couple of plates of food out for us instead. She has us set up in the parlor,” he explained, beginning to walk through a hallway to the right of us.
Realizing I’d been standing in the foyer of the manor, gawking, I quickly gathered myself and scurried after him.
“Jena?” I asked, trailing behind him, trying to appear as though I was not astounded by the sheer size and fine finishings of the manor.
I assumed Jena was one of the house attendants but asked the question anyway to have something to keep the conversation going.
“She’s one of the few staff I have kept here full time to help me out. After today, she is actually one of the few lesser fae left at Court,” he noted.
“What happened today?” I asked curiously.
“Well, you may have noticed that when you showed up to Court things were… in a bit of a disarray. The purpose of the theatrics with the exploding statute was apparently to set the stage for a large-scale lesser fae walk out. Many of the lesser fae members of several prominent Houses left the High Court today.”
“Where are they going?” I asked, intrigued.
The high lord raised his eyebrows in a small showing of exasperation. “Most will probably go to Lord Dumont’s lands to the north. Some may go back to whatever was considered home before they came to Court.”
The high lord paused. I wanted to ask why the lesser fae were leaving the Court en masse, but it was clear from Lord Vitruvian’s demeanor that the subject was one he did not wish to dwell upon at the moment. I remained silent.
“Jena’s quarters are next door,” he indicated with a wave of his arm somewhere behind us, transitioning back to our original topic.
“She’s around any time you need her,” he offered.
Yet another thing I was not used to—people waiting on me instead of the other way around.
After passing by several doors in the long hallway, we arrived at the parlor. There were plates of food, still hot, on the long, embellished table, a bottle of red wine, and long-stemmed glasses. Lord Vitruvian approached the table, picking up the wine bottle and examining it.
“She picked a good pairing,” he noted, unsurprised.
“Would you like a glass?” he asked, offering up the bottle.
“Please,” I replied, already eyeing the lamb lollipops on the table with interest.
I discreetly laid a hand over my stomach, trying to muffle the growl emanating from it. While I had been with Luke, I’d completely forgotten my hunger, but the exquisite smell of the food reminded me that I had not eaten since I left home much earlier that day. I could tell from the steam coming off a platter of roasted potatoes that the food was still hot, even though it must have been prepared hours before. I noted the slight blue glow coming from the platters the warm food sat on with admiration.
I curiously reached out to the platter closest to me, running a fingertip along the side of it. It felt warm to the touch.
“Azurinium-laced,” the high lord explained in response to my unspoken question.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” I admitted, impressed.
“One of the perks of being high lord of the Azure Court,” he explained, handing me a glass filled with a dark cherry-colored wine.
The Azure Court was located in Breakpoint and was home to all of the Azurinium caves in Valencia. Even before the high lord said something, I had figured that Azurinium was responsible for the blue aura coming from the plates.
“People back home are always experimenting with Azurinium and derivatives from mining it and coming up with unique uses. These Azurinium plates are one of the more recent and popular items out of my Court.”
The high lord sounded proud rather than boastful.
I took a sip of wine trying not to show my true thoughts, which were on the cost of the unique platters and how my mother and I never could have afforded something like that. Some days, we had barely been able to afford enough Azurinium to keep our oven working.
I brushed off thoughts of home. “Thank you, Lord Vitruvian,” I said, indicating my glass of wine.
“Call me Jay,” he offered.
I suppressed the urge to quirk my eyebrow in disbelief. I couldn’t believe I was having dinner with High Lord Vitruvian—the Contra to the King himself! When I’d been assigned as liaison to House Vitruvian, I’d never imagined I’d get to spend any time with Lord Vitruvian, much less find myself, alone, across from him at dinner and calling him by his first name.
He was not at all what I’d expected. Jay exuded a kind of innate power that commanded everything and everyone within his sight. But that wasn’t what was surprising. What was surprising was that I’d expected the King’s Contra to be older or fatter or something less lip-biting than the man who stood next to me.
“Jay, then,” I obliged, with a small smile.
“It stays pretty quiet around here,” he said, pulling out a chair to his right and gesturing for me to take a seat.
Once I was seated, he pushed my chair in and then took his own seat at the head of the table.
“There’s Jena and a couple of others who help us around the house, but most of my staff are either traveling with Lady Vitruvian right now or are back home in Breakpoint. Except Creede. You’ll see us out practicing with the sword most days. Otherwise, I spend a lot of time at Grey’s or out of town,” Jay continued. “The King’s place,” he clarified, probably realizing everyone didn’t call the King by his first name.
That was the first I’d heard about the lady of the House.
“Will Lady Vitruvian be returning soon then?” I asked, cutting into my lamb.
“No,” he answered curtly.
“She’s visiting with her sister for a spell. The lady often visits her family’s estate,” he responded disinterestedly, prematurely ending a topic of conversation I’d hoped to latch onto.
“Oh” was all I managed to say in reply.
Our conversation dropped for a minute. The noise of our knives and forks on plates filled the void.
“We’ll start in the morning with your lessons,” Jay said, picking back up our conversation. “I should be around most mornings for those, at least until you pass your liaison exam. And I’ll make arrangements for when I cannot be.”
My heart palpitated. I quickly chewed and swallowed the food in my mouth.
“Lessons?” I asked, surprised.
I’d not been expecting any lessons, especially not ones with the high lord himself.
“Lessons,” Jay replied. “Although based on your good marks, I will need to limit our lessons to only those that are not well covered at university.”
I saw no reason to fake modesty, nodding my head in agreement. As part of the liaison program, there was a written test I had to pass. I wasn’t particularly concerned about passing the test. I’d always done well with school and tests before. But I agreed with Jay that there were areas I needed to study up on that had not been sufficiently covered at university.
“I’ll need to brush up on magical theory,” I admitted.
Jay nodded in agreement, running a thumb across the stumble under his chin.
“That’s an area that is never sufficiently covered at university, if at all. You’ll need to do a deep dive into the history and lineage of all the players at the High Court as well,” he added. “Although that is more for surviving your first year here at Court than for your written exam, I suppose.”
I would serve as House Vitruvian’s liaison for one year. That gave me one year to secure a job with House Vitruvian or one of the other Houses at the High Court. If I failed either the written test or to land a permanent position at the High Court, I’d have to head back to my small hometown, Harborview. But I wasn’t going to fail. Because I wasn’t going back to Harborview.
I wasn’t shy. But I wasn’t someone who talked endlessly either. We settled into a comfortable silence between bites and sips of wine, filling the gaps in conversation with small talk. Despite his forceful presence, over dinner, I found myself growing more at ease with him as I started to think of him less as High Lord Vitruvian and more as Jay.
We’d fallen into another lull of silence. I was thinking of Luke’s suspenders and how they had strained over the boulders of his muscled shoulders. I was wondering if Jay hid similarly bulging muscles under his finely tailored blue coat. Jay had unbuttoned the front of his coat but left it on during our meal. I subconsciously looked up from my plate and was startled to meet Jay’s smoldering gray eyes.
“I think we should probably head to bed,” he proclaimed.
“What?” I yelped guiltily, drawing my mind back from the path of what was hiding underneath Jay’s jacket.
Jay looked pointedly at the hand I had just used to cover yet another yawn.
“Your room is upstairs in the west wing,” he clarified, throwing his heather gray napkin onto the tabletop and standing.
We made our way from the parlor to the second floor of the manor. As we walked up the ascending staircase, the high lord wrapped his sizable hand around the knot at his neck. He shimmied it down, loosening his tie until he could reach the buttons underneath. Casually, as if he had done that very act hundreds, or perhaps thousands of times, he unbuttoned the first two buttons of his crisp white shirt, allowing the top of his tan, muscular chest to peek through.
I missed a step on the stairs, stumbling in my heels. I managed to catch myself on the handrail in time to prevent myself from falling forward, but I over-corrected and began to fall backward. I felt the high lord behind me, his hands firmly grasping my elbows as he supported my weight against the front of his body.
“I have you,” he reassured me.
I looked up and over my shoulder at his chiseled jawline and nodded, embarrassed. Normally, I felt much more confident, both of myself and on my feet. But I found myself at a loss on both counts after finding myself in the protective arms of yet another man for the second time that day.
He righted me, his touch dropping to the curve of my lower back until I proved myself steady. I proceeded walking up the stairs with as much dignity as I could muster.
When we arrived at my room, Jay opened the heavy wooden door for me, holding his arm out for me to lead the way in. As I passed close by him, through the doorway, I thought his look lingered on my legs peeking out of my black, fitted skirt that hit just above the knees. Self-consciously, I reasoned that the high lord probably was just noticing the heels I wore because, as I looked around the room, I noted that my heels must be the most worn thing to have ever set foot in the bedroom.
That evening, I climbed into my gloriously overlarge, soft bed, having changed into my usual nighttime attire consisting of an overly large, comfy t-shirt and cheeky panties. Like most nights, I closed my eyes and the events of my day replayed in my mind.
The headless high fae lord statue… Luke’s smile… The way the high lord’s large hand wrapped around the knot at his neck…
I heard something like heels clicking on the marble floor and a woman’s giggling coming from the top of the staircase between the east and west wings of the house. I think the noise faded toward Jay’s wing. I drifted off to sleep thinking that there were definitely less-handsome lords I could have been assigned to as a liaison.