Page 32 of Pining for the Prince
“Do you also get this sort of attention?”
“Pretty much.” He smirked. “Are you going to enjoy pissing all these people off with them seeing we’re together? You could play the jealous vampire boyfriend. Bare your fangs if someone gets too close.”
If Hyax had really been his, he’d have been doing just that. “Sounds like you’d want me to.”
“I’m all for a bit of verisimilitude.” He smiled, a teasing edge to his tone. “Then if you’ve finished dinner we can take our seats in the lounge.”
He wondered if it was possible to be jealous of himself. Or the version of him people thought was dating Hyax. He didn’t scrub up badly, and the suit he was wearing did make him feel sexy on the rare occasion he’d worn it, but compared to Hyax he probably looked like a troll.
Hyax stood and Gwil did the same, Hyax’s hand coming to rest on the small of his back, making it obvious they weren’t meant to be there as friends. A hostess was quick to escort them from their table through to a lounge area that, like the restaurant, was full of beautiful people, several of them watched as they took their seats in an alcove. Hyax slid close to him, he smelt delicious. Tonight had already been one torture after another, and now he had to endure the warmth of being pressedup to Hyax, acting the dutiful boyfriend but not getting carried away.
He sipped a blood mixed with a fruit cocktail while Hyax had a nectar topped with champagne. “We’ve picked a perfect night to do this, I recognise several people who’ll be racing home to tell my parents that they’ve seen us,” Hyax said, lips almost brushing his ear. “I must say, that suit is great on you. Are you working your thrall?”
“I think you’ll find the people are staring because of you, not me.”
“You never give yourself the credit you deserve.”
He shifted and found himself staring into Hyax’s eyes, even in the low light of the club they seemed to glow with an intensity. It would be so easy to kiss him, to have a taste of what he’d craved for years but it was a stupid idea. He moved away, he needed to put some distance between them before he acted out one of his fantasies and lost his best friend. “I’m going to use the bathroom. I’ll be back.”
A couple of fae caught his eye as he walked through the club, they were swaying in their seats, heads together and he was sure they were high. Most of these places had a modicum of drug use, and he thought it was a prime pitch for a dealer where the clients would be rich and likely not to be bothered by human laws.
Distracted, he didn’t notice the hand until it landed and he was yanked sideways into a booth.
He struggled against two beefy security guards, they were vampires, elite and strong and could rip his head off without thinking. As far as he knew he hadn’t pissed off anyone enough to be kidnapped or maimed permanently. “What’s going on?”
“Calm down, brother dear.” His sister sat next to him and her security melted away.
“Penelope, I should’ve known this would have been the sort of place you haunted. But I don’t have time for siblings being shitty.”
“Now, now, Gwilym, I am merely interested in my big brother and that he appears to be on a date with a fae prince. A fae prince, I might add, who he claimed was just a friend and had no interest in him at all.”
“Things can change.”
She gave a look that she thought he was being an arsehole. “Then there’s the rumours that you’re betrothed to the said fae prince. I would have liked to have been told in advance, even asked my permission since I am a countess, rather than hear it tonight from a broken-tooth harpy passing on her congratulations.”
“As much as I’m not usually on first-name terms with the treasurer of the Vampire Council, I’m pretty sure Mari would take exception to being called that.”
She slammed her hand on the table, her fangs bared. He had the good grace to be scared of Penelope. Her sire might have been lower down the pecking order but he’d been a powerful bastard and had passed down his gift. “Don’t change the subject.”
They were secluded in the booth, even her security had backed off far enough. “It’s not real. Hyax needed to stop his family from setting him up, so I agreed to play the role of boyfriend.”
Her fangs retracted and the anger replaced with pity. He didn’t know which was worse. “You fucking twat. Why are you doing that to yourself?”
“I couldn’t say no to him without him asking what the problem was.”
She shook her head. “The problem being you’re in love with him, and he considers you a friend.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that. But there’s more to it than I can go into. Sooner rather than later we’re going to be summoned to the fae world so I can meet his parents.”
“I didn’t think you did well with their portals.”
“He says travelling into the fae realm proper is different than using the portals in fae intra-space, the energy drains are different or something, and he can cast spells to make sure there’s no feedback.”
“I’m sure that makes sense to someone, but my applied degree in fae physics must’ve got lost in the post.”
He didn’t pretend to understand it himself, just that it was like travelling in a tunnel and it was easier if were straight with no curly bits. Hyax had tried to explain the difference using the inside of a toilet roll and a bendy straw but it hadn’t helped.
“I heard that daylight is different there too, you might be able to see the sun again.” She sounded almost wistful. “Without the suncream and welder-level sunglasses.”
