Page 62 of The Lord of Whispers

“Alarie, take a seat,” he ordered, indicating the chair he pulled out.

The chair I’d often sat in while he… I blocked out the happy memories, defiance showing on my stony face. I continued to stand, arms crossed.

“Alarie,sit,” he ordered again, this time with the authority of the high lord of three hundred years.

Begrudgingly, I walked over to the table and leaned against it. It was as much of a concession as I was willing to make at the time. Jay came and stood in front of me.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you found out this way,” he said flatly.

Shock, mixed with the other emotions, whirled inside of me. My exacting high lord did not apologizeto anyone.

“As you know, Lady Vitruvian willingly spends most of her time away from our estate. She arrived unexpectedly while you were away today and”—he drifted off for a moment before continuing—“although there’s an arrangement between us, there are certainduties, Alarie, that you have to understand I must fulfill. It is my duty as high lord of House Vitruvian to try for an heir,” he explained.

Thankfully choosing not to go into details, he said unpleasantly, “This particular duty will not arise again for another several months.”

Not good enough, I screamed in my head.

But I knew I had no right to feel the way I felt. Lady Vitruvian was his wife and the lady of the House. I was the extra in their marriage and in their home. I’d gotten so entrenched in the daily life that Jay and I enjoyed in the usual absence of the lady that I’d grown blind to what the reality of our situation was. I felt like an angry fool, hurt and confused. He could have explained this to me before, but I was rational enough to understand the deal struck with the lady. I unfolded my arms, softening the smallest bit.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me before now, Jay?” I exclaimed.

“Because I haven’t been fulfilling this particulardutysince the day I met you. Because I didn’t want to sully the time we spent together at my estate. Because I love you and didn’t want to hurt you,” he said, at last, dropping the high-lord veneer.

I had an idea of what it would cost him to renege on his agreement with the lady. The high lord had married Lady Vitruvian during the war with Alancia, a marriage necessitated to secure her maiden House’s support and their strategic position in northern Valencia. It wasn’t a bad arrangement for either the high lord or the lady. He gained the forces he and the King needed, and her lesser House allied itself with the well-established House of Vitruvian, earning itself a voice at the High Court. But they had never loved or wanted each other. Even before I’d ever shown up, the lady had preferred her family’s estate and the cooler weather in the north, so she had spent most of her time up there.

But I should have known that their arrangement included the duty to try for an heir. Since the magic had started to fade, fae children, high fae and lesser fae, were a rare blessing. It would be considered sacrilege among the fae not to at least try for a child in marriage, especially when the perpetuation of one of the most prestigious Houses of Valencia was on the line.

I didn’t want to ask why. Why he had chosen to go through with it? Why he had chosen her over me? I knew why. It wasn’t only that it would be dishonorable to break off the arrangement where the lady had upheld her end of the bargain, which it would be, and for someone like the high lord, honor was everything. I didn’t ask why because, even though I was hurt and angry, I would not make him admit that he needed the alliance with the lady and her House. He needed the connections through the lady to keep his thumb on the pulse in the north, especially with the trouble Cass was stirring up.

So, I knew why, but I still couldn’t help asking, “Whynow?”

“For you, Alarie.For us,” he stated simply.

“For me?” I asked incredulously, my disbelief dripping from my words.

“Look, I knew we were struggling with the transition back from Breakpoint and I wanted to give you something more. I immediately told the lady of my intention to name you as consort to House Vitruvian at the Spring Ball, and she called me out on not abiding by the terms of our original agreement. She agreed that as long as I fulfilled the terms of our arrangement, she would have no problem with naming you as House consort.”

I was stunned by the high lord’s explanation. The admission that we’d both been struggling since we’d returned from Breakpoint hung in the air between us. At the High Court, we played the roles of high lord and liaison and then, in secret, that of lovers. But in Breakpoint, for the first time, we’d seen what life could be like with our love in the open, as high lord and lady together. And it was glorious. I could not forget the days we walked hand in hand through Breakpoint, the nights we spent together, and the morning we awoke in each other’s embrace. And apparently neither could he. And when we’d returned to the High Court, to our secret lives, and our separate lives, what was once a thrilling secret became a glaring and painful truth—we could never be together, not like that, not at the High Court.

I was reeling, not only from that but also Jay’s reveal:consort to House Vitruvian. There it was—the ugly truth that we’d both avoided talking about, that our relationship had a ceiling. The high lord was stuck in a loveless marriage, and as long as the high lord stayed married, I could never be anything more than a consort to the high lord. Consort to the Contra was nothing to frown at, especially for a young mixed fae like me. In fact, it would be a dream come true for almost any young fae lady. But not for me, I realized with a pang in my heart.

I did not claw my way from Harborview to the High Court only to live my life out of a lord’s manor, not even a high lord’s manor, not even Jay’s home. I thought of Cass leading a damn revolution among the lesser fae. If he could do that, I had to aim higher than a highly regarded kept woman.

The truth was that before Jay, I’d never allowed myself to want, only to need. Before Jay, the luxury to consider what would make me happy instead of what I needed was not a lot reserved for me in life. Jay was the first person who ever really tried to take care of me. It was difficult in the beginning to let him take care of me. But eventually, I’d learned to accept and enjoy his ministrations, even come to expect them. Being with Jay had allowed me to think of more than just surviving. I had aspirations, and consort was not one of them.

I’d been treated by everyone I knew my entire life as if I were different. I was either not high fae enough or not lesser fae enough, making me an island ofnever enough. But Jay had never made me feel that way about myself. I’d expected my accomplishments to be discounted by the high lord and others at the High Court when I’d first arrived. I’d expected them to say that I’d done well,for where I came from, or perhaps, I was talentedfor someone like me. But the high lord’s approbation had been served without such hurtful qualifiers. I had never truly realized what it meant to hear others speak of my accomplishments in life without the hurtful caveats.

I’d worked my entire life to get to the High Court, and now that I was there, I realized that I still had so much further to go and so much more I wanted to do.

I bristled at his touch but did not resist when he, like so many times before in that very library, sat in the chair next to us, pulling me into his lap. I did not change my stony expression. I could not let him know how I felt inside, how much this hurt. Not the events of the night with the lady—although that was certainly devastating all by itself—but what caused me to feel like a boulder sat upon my chest was my sudden realization that I didn’t know if I had a future with Jay.

“It’s time for another lesson, my love,” he said, but when I looked at him, it was not the stoic high lord who once taught my lessons in this library.

For the first time, he spoke of lessons, not as my high lord, but with the face of the man I loved. He softly brushed my arm with his fingertips, but I did not melt into his touch like I normally would.I tried to push down the panic rising in me as a result of my epiphany.

“You and your love aremine, Alarie,” he said, his hand dropping to my inner thigh as he softly kissed the top of my shoulder. “Your body was made to show me your love. So, your body is mine as well,” he continued as he drew circles on my skin with his rough fingertips.

My skin burned under his touch despite the chaos of emotions I felt raging inside.

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