Page 14 of Blood On His Lips

He continued to eye my family, menace in the curl of his lip. His dragon opened a single eye. Despite his power and self-assurance, Renaud’s avatar, on another plane, was roaring.

“Damn it, where’s Baba?” I growled. “Renaud,please.Calm down. No one disputes your claim.” Gods save me from a Fae male going into a possessive rut.

My avatar uncurled and leaped, purring at the dragon, nuzzling the beast’s flared nostril with a tiny head. As usual, no other Fae saw how the avatars played with each other.

Renaud set me on my feet after he swept my family with another death glare. He slid an arm around my body, trapping my back against his chest.

I rolled my eyes. This was over the top. “The point is to let me go, not just let me stand on my feet.”

Lips brushed my temple, his arms tightening further, as if he were trying to curl his body around me. My family was quiet now, watching. Not even drunk could any Fae fail to note the signals. I resigned myself to rumor being lauded as fact come morning. At least our city didn’t have paparazzi.

My father burst from the house, his suit jacket open and trousers slightly rumpled, proving he’d been waiting up for me. The door banged open with the percussion of an explosive. I jumped and Renaud jerked me backward so quickly I didn’t realize we’d moved.

“Fuck!” I grit my teeth and reined in my leaping heart, pushing aside the blackened edges of my vision.

Juliette shifted her body slightly to glance at me. “You good, babe?”

“I’m fine.” My heart slowed to a normal pace. My father walked forward slowly, looking at me, at the Prince.

“Lord Étienne,” Renaud said, voice too deep, too gravelly, its usual silken edge jagged.

Realms. “Stay back, Baba. We all need some space.”

A Fae male going into rut was bad enough, an Old One disastrous. What I hadn’t fully considered, was that if I suffered from enough mental trauma that a banging door could trigger me—how deep did the suffering run in a male Renaud’s age? I’d only experienced a few paltry decades of war.

I went cold. I’d been apprehensive enough at the idea of just dealing with a possessive obsessive Prince, a powerful and arrogant House Lord, but this. . .

We were going to have to readjust our thinking quickly to account for a male who, if triggered, would smatter us all. Smatter, because I couldn’t decide if he would smash us, or splatter us.

My father proved he wasn’t stupid, the expression on his face grave. He couldn’t pale, not with his deep brown skin, but I knew by the subtle tension in his black eyes that he was afraid for me. He stopped, waiting until Renaud nodded before continuing forward slowly.

“Aerinne? You’re well, sweetheart?” His regional Kikuyu accent strengthened, another sign of his unease. A polyglot, he usually spoke Everennesse flawlessly. He eyed my blood-soaked dress, but of all my family, he was the least likely to jump to poor conclusions.

“We were attacked on the way home,” I said. “Renaud intervened and saved our lives.” I spoke slowly, firmly, my voice carrying through the courtyard.

I would probably have to say it a half-dozen times before it got through every thick Faronnesse skulls. I owed Renaud for his restraint—if by dancing on a blade’s edge of attack if anyone sneezed at me wrong was restraint.

Damn. He’d saved our lives.

“The debt is mine, and mine alone,” I said, turning in Renaud’s hold and grabbing his shoulder.

His eyebrow flicked up as if that was the least of his worries, but he nodded after a long moment, and I released a small sigh.

“Ishaan tended her,” he told Baba. “But she will require considerable rest. Alone.”

“I’m not missing the negotiations,” I said. “Return to your palace and I will rest and be ready for the morning.”

Renaud lifted a hand flaking with my dried blood, cupping my cheek and running his thumb over my bottom lip. “Do you now command me, Lady Aerinne?”

“Am I weak, Prince? Would you shame me?”

The words held weight between us. He’d named loyalty to me as loyalty to him. Shame to me would therefore reflect on him as well. That sword cut us both.

He gazed at me, considering. “Very well, my halfling. But either you triple your guard, or my own will serve you.”

“You mean your ‘own’ who attacked us?”

“Those were not Montague.” His voice was chilly. “And it is the White who would attend.”

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