Page 72 of Flirting with Darkness

I beam, because twenty-five bucks per cocktail issonot in my budget. “You’re the best. A terrible businessman, but the best.”

He chuckles easily. “You and I both know whatever club gets your pretty ass on the dance floor has an advantage.”

I don’t find the compliment uncomfortable, because he’s happy to say it in front of Cissa, too. I never asked, but I think those two have an open relationship. None of my business. He’s handsome enough, but unconscious fantasies notwithstanding, I’d never approach a taken guy, and Eochan hasn’t made a move on me either.

“I’ll grab a drink and head right back there, sir,” I announce with a salute. The music’s calling to my heart. Ihaveto start dancing. “How are your djs always so fucking good?”

“They’re out of this world,” Eochan agrees readily. “You have fun, sweetheart.”

“I intend to!”

I’m making my way to the bar when I hear it. A few notes, one high, one low, and a series of light, airy chords that make my heart flutter.

They’re a soft whisper I shouldn’t be able to hear over the deafening beat of the music in the hall. But I do. Oh, I do.

3

VALDRED

“Dred, Dred, Dred!” my circle chants as I throw punch after punch.

I barely even stun the colossal ogre, who finally regains his footing and prepare the next blow. I let that one land to be a good sport, and immediately regret it.

I see stars and fly back three paces at least.

There’s no true danger but my senses prickle nonetheless. My body moves on its own, flipping at the last second to avoid crossing the line marked in the sanded arena.

I hear Lord Kraid grumble his reluctant approval.

Though my foes call me young, and foolish, and selfish, and everything else that justifies the hatred they harbor for the position I occupy, my blood still runs blacker than any of the high fae around me.

My kind likes to conveniently forget our origins.

Long ago, when the worlds were still new and the portals linking them, wide open, the ground was painted red with the blood of mortals, and the little ancient folk used to hide in holes and burrows. The eldritch molded by the creator and their children, the gods, only had care for their pleasures, and their desires, and their petty quarrels.

Then an alliance of folk rulers came together for the first and last time since: Elrik of the woodlands, Oberon of the stones, Una of the wild seas, and Sibil, queen of the night all bent the knee to Morrigan, crowning her high queen to grant her the power of protecting their kind.

Wielding the magic of four rulers, she built the boundaries closing our kingdoms off to all who have not been invited, even to this day. As we prospered, we found that we, too, quite liked pleasures and desires and petty quarrels, given half a chance. Blood spilled again, high in the ogre mountains, lower in the goblin caves.

Old Morrigan was too feeble to attempt to wrangle all of our courts by then. So, she set out to keep controlling the folk through her children—children who wouldn’t weaken as the centuries passed. Children who’d stand high above the rest of the folk, mighty and unchallengeable.

She was the first to think to fuck an eldritch. She was not the last. And thus, the high fae were born to rule the land of Ilvaris.

Kraid and most of my court can trace their family back up to one of the primordial forces shaping the world: darkness, or chaos, or music, or lust, or any of the other eldritch. But they’re just that. Their ancestors. Their blood has been diluted ten times over with fairy, or even mortal, ancestry.

I am the first son of an eldritch born in the last five hundred years. That makes me faster, stronger, and perhaps crueler than almost any of them.

This little fight in the pit might be a game, but it’s also a statement. I like to remind the courts I am more than what they see, more than they sense, and more than they could chew if they dared take a bite.

Unfortunately for Heluc, he’s the fool who volunteered to be my example for the day.

The ogre moves fast for his size, but I could have overtaken him many times over in the seconds he needs to launch himself at me.

I’ve allowed one punch for his pride. I do not suffer a second. I sidestep when he’s close and wrap my hand around his throat before lifting him up off the ground.

The crowd’s mostly silent, though nothing will stop Lorian and the rest of my friends from embarrassing me if they can. “Dred, Dred, Dred!”

With a casual flick, I shove Heluc out of the sparring ring, and turn to the drunken fools who serve as my advisors. “Call me Val, or I’ll spar with you next.”

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