18
Jay
“Iwent off campus with the boys while you were gone,” Alarie announced the next morning.
She sat at a smaller round table in the breakfast nook, picking at her fruit. We hadn’t had much time for talking when I’d visited her in her room the night before.
A spike of unchecked jealousy rose in me. There it is, I thought, my original concern about getting involved with Alarie. Luke was one of my senior counselors and a damn good one. He was younger, and despite his father relegating him to the High Court as little more than the social face of House Bellamy, I knew that Luke’s father had misjudged him. I’d seen through Luke’s jovial facade and found pure unadulterated ambition. The way the other lords and ladies enjoyed Luke’s company and failed to see past his smiles and jokes made him a prized asset for House Vitruvian. And it wasn’t just Luke’s skills at gathering information that I valued. Luke had earned his position within my House by showing that he could provide sound advice and could operate without needing his hand held. But I wouldn’t allow Alarie to fall under Luke’s spell the way I’d seen so many others do.
As much as I wanted to, I’d already ruled out any attempt to imprint on her, at least for the moment. And although I may designate Alarie as my consort at some point, making my claim on her known, it was much too soon to consider something like that. Even with my arrangement with the lady, she would likely bristle at the idea, and I would have to make some kind of concession to smooth over our continued arrangement.
But Luke had given me his word that he would not pursue Alarie. And ultimately, I would just have to rely on my tried-and-true methods of marking my territory. I’d made it clear at the Summer Ball that she was mine and mine alone, and I would reinforce that lesson as many times as I needed to.
“Anything new?” I inquired nonchalantly.
Leaning against the bar across from the round table Alarie sat at, I did not look up from the papers in my hands.
“Yes. It’s about Don Davante,” Alarie replied, sounding unsure of where to start.
Sensing that she had something important to tell me, I set the papers down in my hands and walked over to her. Standing over her, I felt the softness I had developed with her harden as my obligations as Contra took over.
“Tell me everything, Alarie,” I ordered.
“He’s a friend of mine from back home, Jay. Promise me you won’t do anything to hurt him?” she entreated.
She knew I liked the sound of my name coming out of her mouth, and she tried to use that against me.
“Alarie, I won’t make a promise I can’t keep,” I responded sternly.
Alarie stared up at me, arms crossed over her chest, resolute in her silence.
And I did soften in my adoration at her loyalty and her willingness to stand up to me; something many fae, many times her age, had failed to do over the years. I pulled up a chair in front of Alarie. I pulled her chair out from under the table and toward me so that they faced each other. I leaned over to her, my hands firmly resting on the tops of her thighs above her knees.
“But I can and will make any number of other promises to you, my dear,” I began, hardly recognizing the tenderness in my own voice.
“I promise that I’ll do everything in my power to hear your friend out and to come to a peaceful and mutually agreeable resolution. I will further promise that, although I may not agree with the methods of your friend”—I allowed some of my disagreement to show—“you know very well that I empathize with the plight of the lesser fae, so I will—as I believe I have done my entire life—work toward a better life for them.” My gray eyes penetrated hers.
I brought her small hand to my mouth, brushing my lips against it with a kiss, and looked up at her through my raised eyebrows with an expectant gaze, waiting for her to continue her story.
A smile of relief slid across her face.
Knowing I’d won her over, I said, “Start at the beginning.”
“Well, you know I never had many friends, just a couple of guy friends back home. But he and I were close. He was my best friend,” Alarie explained.
I quelled the uncontrollable spike of jealousy that began to rise in me at the tender way Alarie said his name. “Cass.” Close? How close? I wondered before reprimanding myself for just how crazy I let myself get over her. Now’s not the time for that, I admonished myself internally.
“Cass got a bad rap as being some kind of dumb brute just because he was freakishly strong and not a big talker, but, really, he isn’t. Dumb or a brute, that is,” she clarified. “He was just selective about who he would share his thoughts with.”
“Well, at least that was the Cass I knew,” she said. “Honestly, I was a little taken aback when he started talking about going to the border to ‘earn a name for himself.’ In school, he had never been particularly motivated—another reason I guess people mistakenly thought he wasn’t that smart,” Alarie reflected.
The insight Alarie had on Don Davante was invaluable. And needed to be relayed to the King.
“I need to go catch up with Grey since I’ve been out of town for a couple of days, anyway. It’s never good to let High Lady Tragon whisper in his ear too long unchecked,” I said. “You can come with me and see what kind of trouble you can kick up in House Heroux.” I rose from my chair, then grabbed her chin between my thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up to me. “But it will just be us, my dear. You’ll have to do without your Lord of Light for an afternoon,” I japed.
“Yes, Jay,” she said, showing me the submissiveness she normally reserved for our private moments.
A growl rose in my chest, and I had to move my hand from her before we found ourselves lost in a distraction.