Page 29 of Crowned By the Fae King

The dinner dragged on for twelve courses and probably four hours. Even to my broad palate, used to a melting pot of ethnic cuisine that included traditional Asian, African, and Middle Eastern foods, some of the dishes came out of left field. I struggled through a salad made of small, roe-like spheres of gelatinous algae mixed with some sort of spicy sprouted grain and lots of fresh herbs; steaks from an anaconda-sized snake served in a sour berry sauce with tiny, sweet-tasting flowers were unusual but delicious.

The strangest of them, to my eye, was a vase full of saltwater with a full water-lily blooming in it, roots and all, and a pair of slender eels swimming in it. Cass gave me a wary, sidelong look, forked an eel onto his plate, and cleanly butchered it.

I put on my game face and followed suit.

Vaduin, I noted, consumed almost nothing but meat and cooked grains. To my relief, Cass was rather less carnivorous, though he did put away an astonishing quantity of food. He ate the beetles and honeycomb, too, once I'd gone first. He'd probably been holding back to keep from grossing me out.

That seemed to be a theme with him: holding back. It left me curious as to what lay behind that restraint. I understood why he was being careful, if that little display in the staging room was only a taste of what could happen when he slipped the leash, but applying the same level of control to everything seemed like treating everything like a nail because you had a proverbial hammer—and it seemed like a recipe for disaster. Nobody, not even Cass, could maintain perfect control with everything forever.

Sometimes you even needed to let go. People went to destruction rooms and demolition derbies for a reason. We'd replaced gladiators with linebackers, but we still needed an outlet for our aggression so we could keep our cool when it really mattered. I ran. Cadeo skateboarded. Auntie scoured pots while watching soap operas.

As for Cass…

I glanced sidelong at him, skimming my gaze up along his imposing physique. There was no reason for him to make himself small for the world. He was the King, after all.

And life is so much more fun when the tiger's off the leash.

Let's Try That Again

Iwas definitely fading by the time the final plates were swept away. Nothing sounded as good as going back to that enormous bed and crashing. Staying in bed for the next week or so seemed ideal.

Panic sparked when Cass stood and doors along the side of the banquet hall were opened to a ballroom full of light and music. Apparently that was just for the guests, though, because we got to exit through the back of the room, into another one of those velvet-lined boxes intended for storing important people until it was time for them to show face. We even got to travel directly back to the monarchal suite via another magic portal door, courtesy of Cass.

Danica smooched her soulmate and swanned off, but Vad came with us like he belonged in the monarchal suite. Two of my three body-servant hopefuls were waiting for me—the hawkish fae woman and the aging mortal, the pretty redhead having apparently decided that serving an ignorant mortal wasn't for her. Cass gave them a deep nod when they bowed, and plodded over to the ensuite with Vad trailing behind.

He didn't have any servants. That had to be by choice. Even if people found him scary, there were always social climbers willing to look death in the face for a chance at power.

I was too exhausted to dwell on it, though. I committed myself into the hands of my remaining two assistants and let them divest me of the fancy clothing they'd put me into four hours prior, then sent them off and waited for my turn in the bathroom.

Cass and Vad monopolized the bathroom for a solid hour, after which Cass came out with damp hair, a towel over his shoulders, and navy blue pajama pants hanging off his hips.

I froze with a glass of water halfway to my mouth.

It's not like I didn't know Cass was hot. I'd seen him decked out for the coronation and for the feast. The man looked better than most movie stars. But now? With his black hair tangled around his ears and clinging to his throat and shoulders? With those pants slung sinfully low, the vee of his hips visible, and with his arms and chest and abs fully naked?

Cass looked like a god. Like one of those illustrations of Viking warriors, except instead of pale skin and straw-blond hair he was dark, all sleek brown skin, kissed by the sun and with faint darker lines marking old injuries. The backdrop of his blackened-bronze wings gave him the look of a fallen angel, cast out of heaven for the sin of carnal lust.

Not that I believed in heaven, but still.

One corner of his mouth tilted up in a weary smile. He turned towards Vad as the other man passed and murmured something I couldn't catch.

Vaduin shrugged. "Sure, I don't mind," he said. "Your hair's easier to do than Dani's."

Cass nodded and walked towards a dark wooden door. I made myself not stare, returning Vad's friendly farewell as he left out the front door. Even though I wasn't looking, I knew when Cass paused by the door, and I knew when he didn't stop to say goodnight.

Hearing the door close behind him stung. I set my water down on the bedside table and flopped backwards onto the bed, trying to hold back the hurt. If I was overwhelmed, how much more so was he? I'd had weeks to get used to the idea of being bound to him and his Court. He'd learned about me maybe thirty minutes before his coronation – our coronation – and it had been a brutal day, for him and for me.

And it's not like you've exactly been nice to him, I thought miserably, replaying the day. All things told, I'd kind of been a bitch, to him and about him. At the very least, I hadn't been particularly understanding or compassionate. Being prickly was a great defense mechanism up until you were fucking yourself over by making people you wanted to like you think that you wanted the door to hit them on their way out of your life.

I got off the bed and did my bathroom tasks in silence. I couldn't even really enjoy having a literally palatial bathroom to brush my teeth in, because I couldn't pull my awareness away from the man lying one room over. Sprawled facedown in a bed that wasn't big enough for him, breathing with measured care, his brow creased because he was closing his eyes too hard…

Without really meaning to, I ended up at his door once I'd finished getting ready for bed and shielded all the lamps but the little one glowing on the bedside table. I hesitated, but I knew Cass had to be able to tell where I was with the same fidelity I could sense him. At this point, it would be weirder not to knock.

He got up before my knuckles even hit the door. I felt it when his bare foot touched the stone floor, like the palace itself was a part of my body—one with less sensitivity than the rest of me, but still me.

Cass had called the Court of Mercy part of him. It was part of me, too. We were more than just soulmates, I thought. We were physically connected. Through his Court, we shared a body.

The doorknob turned. A moment later, the door cracked open, and I looked up the shadow of Cass' torso to his dark eyes.

---