Page 109 of Crowned By the Fae King

"No need to stand. I prefer informality," Cass said as people made to do exactly that. He took a careful seat on a backless couch and tugged me down onto his lap in an ostentatious display of affection.

My eyebrows shot up, but I didn't challenge him on his choice of my seating locale. Presenting a united front was worth the indignity of being perched on his heavy thigh like a doll.

Still okay? Cass asked in our bond, with a touch of worry. He had to be feeling my discomfort. I didn't think to ask, or about how it would look. I just wanted to keep touching you.

I'd prefer a chair, I admitted.

It wasn't him. It wasn't even the other people in the room. But I'd bartended at the strip club for too long to feel comfortable with getting tugged onto someone's lap. The men who frequented those places tended to see the girls, me included, as objects first. Even though I knew Cass was nothing like that, the similarity of the situation was enough to make dislike the position.

Kiss me first? he asked the same way, sounding hesitant.

I looked up as the servers came out with desserts to see Cass watching me with a hopeful smile. I smiled back and kissed him softly on the mouth, touching the underside of his jaw with my fingertips.

Cass melted into the contact. He nuzzled me when our lips parted, his breathing heavier than it had been before I'd touched him.

"I'm going to sit at an actual table for dessert," I told him, finding a better excuse than discomfort with getting perched on a man's lap for our observers. "I like this dress too much to get crumbs on it."

"Of course, lioness," he said, one of his ears turning to monitor our guests and the servers.

Pelleas flashed me a winning smile when I stood. He closed his hands over the cloth-of-gold, which broke apart into glittering shards that rained down to the floor and vanished, like sparks off a Fourth-of-July sparkler. "A lovely idea," he said, getting up and sauntering over to take a seat across from me at the small table I'd selected. "Tables are rather more convenient for plates than laps, wouldn't you say, your majesty?"

A server set down two desserts in front of us, fancy spun-sugar sculptures of crowns with candied fruit for gemstones.

I picked up my fork and gave him my best smile. "Especially mine, your highness. There's not much room for anything, plates or otherwise."

"You could try spreading your legs," Pelleas said with a sharp smile.

Cass' feathers slicked down in ire so fast they clanged. I raised a brow at the Raven Prince. "Evening the score?"

"Well, I am fae," he said, as if demurring a compliment. His fork crunched through the sugar. "I do appreciate the hospitality that lets me say such things with impunity, even if I also have to deal with Ithronel eyeing me up like a piece of meat."

Both my brows shot up this time. "You're definitely handsome enough to catch the eye of a goddess, but I didn't pin Ithronel for a flirt."

Are you baiting me? Cass sent me, his growl darkening the air. If so, it's fucking working.

I traced a heart on my thigh.

Pelleas' lips twitched into a smirk. "Evening the score?" he asked, taking a bite of the sugar crown.

"I pay my debts," I said, smirking right back. I liked him.

"Brother," Tarra said in a wheedling voice. I glanced over to see her pouting at him, her sapphire eyes limpid and pleading. "Kitty was telling me about his best duels. When are we going to get to see you duel?" Her gaze flicked over to Pelleas. "Maybe Pelly-boo—"

"I think not," he said smoothly. "Star-iron cuts through glamor, and I'm not fond of the dueling ring. You'll have to convince someone else."

She pouted harder, a storm settling over her lovely face. "Kitty already said no, too. You men are ruining my fun."

"Even if they agreed, I wouldn't," Cass said in a low rumble. When I looked over my shoulder at him, he flicked an ear at me. "My wings and healing have no place in an exhibition duel. I'm not interested in killing for sport."

"I could help with that," Pelleas said, sounding intrigued. "I've read some of the reports on your capabilities. It would be interesting to see in action."

Tarra cooed. "Ooh, would we get to see more glamor?"

Pelleas breathed a laugh. "What else, darling?" he said. He took a moment to focus, and then there was a copy of him sitting in an identical chair in the center of the room. "Duplication is a far simpler skill than creation, after all," he said in synchrony with the other Pelleas, moving his hands through a complicated pattern that the glamor-copy of him followed without any visible delay. "I could hold something like this on an army, I think, as long as you don't expect perfect physical fidelity. All we'd need would be someone to do the same for the King."

I stared at the duplicate, trying to find any roughness or simplification. There wasn't any to find. Through the Clement Palace, I could tell exactly where the real Pelleas sat, but my eyes and ears were completely fooled. It was an identical copy, down to the curl of his eyelashes and the way his cloak pooled on the floor.

The prince flicked his fingers, dismissing the glamor, and it vanished. He smiled, an expression of heavy-lidded challenge.

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