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hiatuswhore · 2 years

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Viper III

Versatility: The Princess of Conde, oh will the world ever see a woman as clever as she. Why does the expectation to be one kind of person rest on the shoulders of people—especially women. This Princess appears to be the jack of all trades, does that also include deception?

VIPER II: Rattled

IT WAS LAUGHABLE WATCHING FRANCIS AVOID YOU AT ALL COSTS. When has a king ever hid from a Princess in the confines of their own court? Still, you found yourself in the general vicinity most days.

“Humor me, Princess. Are you bored?” Sebastian questioned, standing in the corner of a meeting you likely had no business being in attendance. Your eyes locked on Mary, who swiftly looked away from your mocking gaze.

“Bored? How could one be bored when playing such an amusing game?” You challenged, narrowing your eyes with a mischievous glint. A quiet chuckle left him as you turned away once more. Your eyes back on to the raven-haired Queen, her jaw clenched as she held her composure.

“Mary is a good person. She may not deserve your kindness but your respect at the least. Is that too much to ask?” Sebastian said with his hands clasped in front of him. The smug look on your face hardened before you turned to your dear friend. “I do not mean to upset you.”

“If she is so deserving of my respect, why don’t we weigh in my dear brother Louis in this decision?” Your suggestion came with a sharp inhale from Sebastian. He had also warned Mary of your vengeful nature and fierce loyalty to your brother. You turned back to the open discussion of the religious war that now bubbled in France. The floor was open to all suggestions, and yet the men were coming up short.

“If I may? Your royal highness,” Sebastian covered his chuckle into a cough as you raised your hand. Your tone was almost taunting as you took the attention of the entire room. A silence followed before quiet murmurs made their way around the room; Francis sighed before nodding his head. “All the trouble lies in one common denominator‒you lot want a simple solution to a complex problem. So rather than attempting to isolate issues, spread them amongst solutions. Right now, people fear the arrival of a plague so let us bring people from all walks of life together. We offer food and blankets that we can spare to the needy or anyone who may need them. Right here in the main courtyard. If you fear the safety of the King and Queen Consort, we can up the guards and have you make appearances in slots.”

“What would this accomplish?” One of the privy councilmen grimaced at your brazen actions—how dare a woman use her mind? The room looked back to you for an answer which you simply smiled.

“Mind over matter is what it would accomplish. Not only do you continually build a good repertoire with your subjects, but you force them to really look at each other. Catholics and Protestants alike‒all together getting help from the crown. I’m not saying this will stop this war, but every victory, no matter how small, is a victory,” Your head held high, not a single crack appeared in your confidence. The skepticism of the room remained only in their expression. Their genuine resentment being in your idea being a good one.

“Thank you, Princess. That’ll be taken into heavy consideration. Any other ideas?” Francis said, but each that followed did nothing to rival your idea. They lacked the intricacy you offered in your plan. Finally, after another brutal thirty minutes of the men tripping themselves in attempts to one-up you, it was clear what the verdict would be. “I thank each of you for your contributions to today’s meeting. Since it was your idea, Princess, can the crown bestow the responsibility of this event onto you?”

“With pleasure,” Your smile was more prominent than necessary as Francis adjourned the meeting. Sebastian shook his head, waiting with you as the others cleared the room. Once the indiscernible murmurs of the privy council were gone, it left the throne room with a handful of you left. Mary brazenly met your gaze as Francis huffed as his mother held his ear. “I do not wish to take much of your time. Is it possible for my available resources to be listed, so I have it at my disposal?”

“I’ll make certain you have it by the end of the day, Princess,” Mary said, as she forced a smile onto her features. Your eyes caught sight of how tightly she gripped at her clasped hands‒staring at them too long, she promptly brought them to her sides.

“Very well,” You said, curtsying and doing the same not only for Francis but Catherine as well. If the following days had gone as you would have liked, then ideally, the days would have passed with a mixture of torturing Mary while organizing. Instead, your days were consumed with coordinating with the servants and kitchen staff. While those were the most manageable tasks to be dealt with, the guards proved to be an enormous headache. Sebastian made sure he would select the men that would watch over Mary and Francis, simple, right? Not in the slightest. Lord Narcisse insisted on having some of his men a part of the guard, hence him talking your ear off in the midst of your scrambling.

“—thus, amid my men are just as qualified!” He exclaimed. Nodding your head; you offered a warm smile. A huff escaped you as you scanned the corridor for your swift escape, but it only offered you useless Nobleman and‒your savior Lola Flemming.

“Lady Lola! Just who I was looking for!” You exclaimed, smiling broadly as you acted as though all his words suddenly evaded. Rambling aimlessly about several nonsensical tasks you already completed, you took her arm, matching her stride. Once out of earshot, you looked at her laughing like an old friend, but you spoke in a hushed whisper, “Nod your head and pretend I am telling you something important. Before you consider defying me in the name of your dreadful Queen, do tread lightly. I know my reputation precedes me, and I am not to be trifled with.”

It was almost unsettling how easily you could hold an innocent demeanor while threatening foes. Lola nodded her head, following your directions without protest; once you watched Narcisse huff before disappearing in the opposite direction, your smile dropped.

“Thank you for your cooperation. You’re always such a doll,” You do not allow Lola to respond. Her eyebrows pull knit as she fails to understand your eccentric behavior. In the courtyard, you beam with pride at the turnout; several Frenchmen begrudgingly stand in line together. Some parts of the line conversation strike, some good, others not so much, but still, the event ran smoothly.

“You don’t find the music to be a bit much?” Sebastian stands at your side; you both hand out blankets. Your smile was large as you received strange looks from the patrons in line. Anyone with a crown or status stands a few feet back. So you stand with the servants proudly under the eye of not only the French court but the eye of the ordinary men and women. It was no wonder you were adored.

“Why don’t you take a break,” You turn to find Mary relieving the servant to your right. As she met your gaze, a small chuckle left you; it felt near impossible not to say something.

“Afraid I’ll gain more support than I already hold?” You question while still beaming with joy as you throw spite in her direction. Even you could admit she was quickly learning your game‒or at least that’s what you wanted her to believe.

“I hurt you, and now you devote yourself to my demise. I will not fight you, Princess. That is what they expect of us, and I will have no part in it,” She says, and you openly chuckle as eyes watch you both. It appears as if two friends are sharing a chat, but a handful watched you both wearily, knowing precisely what it indeed was.

“Do as you please, Queen Mary. Whether you indulge, me or not means nothing. I am not certain of much in life, but I am certain of this,” You lean in close to her, smiling with glee as Sebastian makes up for your slacking, “You will never prevail in French Court. Not if I have anything to do with it.”

Mary just barely holds her composure as you return to handing out blankets. Many patrons linger with the blankets and food, chatting amongst the crowd. You join the crowd intermingling happily. A little girl watches you cautiously behind her mothers’ dress. You tilt your head, watching as she buries herself further behind her mother, who urges her daughter not to be rude to a Princess.

“You’re a Princess?” Her tiny voice called out, and for the first time all night, you dropped your carefully calculated pretenses. You crouch down, balancing on your feet as you match the little girl’s height.

“Why, of course, darling, takes one to know one, right?” You questioned, but she immediately corrected you, telling you of her lack of status. Your hands shoot to the diamonds around your neck, unclasping the back; you beckon the child to you. She turns, allowing you to bring the necklace around her neck, “Now all Princesses have their prized possessions. Mine is a bracelet from my beloved brother.”

“Is he here?” The little girl questioned in awe as her tiny hands inspected the heavy metal hanging around her neck. You could feel the subtle gazes and how many around you waited patiently for your response.

“No, he is off to much better things. Promise me you’ll take good care of your prized possession?” You said with her hands in your own she nodded her with vigor before you allowed her back to her mother. Her voice filled the courtyard as she gushed to her mother. You walk to your main guard William, you lean in close with your eyes on the woman and her daughter. “Follow them and make sure no one bothers. I am going to have my pager deliver to you a certain amount of coin. Make certain they get it in confidence.”

“Shall I leave them a message when I do?” Only a few knew of your heavy generosity; that list consisted of your brothers, Sebastian, Francis, and William. You smiled as you watched the young girl run in circles, her hands on the necklace to ensure its presence.

“Just say it’s from one princess to another,” You explain, rolling your eyes as William teases your evident kindness. Too focused on the family, it took Francis three tries at your name before he grabbed your attention.

“Walk with me?” You make no attempt to hide the way you glance over at Mary. She stands with her head high as she pretends to focus on the crowd in the courtyard.

“Will your wife approve?” Francis glanced over at his wife, who met his gaze; he offered a simple nod before looking back at you. “I am King. It is only my approval that matters.”

You join him as the two of you stroll through the crowd casually. Francis commends you on a successful turnout. Of course, you are no fool as you await for the pretenses to drop, but he continues to dissect the impact of your event. “—may even prevent a war from even occurring.”

“Francis, are you reaching a point, dear?” His smile does not falter as you look at him with a raised brow. The skepticism and uncertainty in your features are fully apparent but he dotes on you without shame. “You avoid me for a decent amount of time, and now you greet me with kindness. Francis, what is it that you are doing?”

“As you know, there is a history between us. Due to that, I have been blind to what was also a great friendship. You are here and still in my corner despite all that has happened. Please accept not only my deepest sympathies but my sorrow for being an awful friend to you. Your love is dear to me (Y/n); please say you will,” Francis said as the two of you continued your walk well out of view of the others. You chuckle down at the floor as your hand brushes against his own.

“Things have really drastically changed. We’re a long way from playing King and Queen in the throne room,” You point out, the two of you stopping at the grass. The night sky and the torches from the courtyard offer a minimal view.

“Remember our wedding. We had it right about there, I believe,” Though you could not see where he pointed, you knew exactly what he spoke of. The two of you snuck past the guards and played by the tree line. You both had just attended a wedding with one of France’s allies.

“I promised to love you no matter what,” You said with your arms crossed as nostalgia held you tight. Francis looked over at you, but you did not falter with the far-off look in your eye.

“I promised to protect you. I still intend to do that (Y/n),” He said, and you lean into his side. It would be easy to just lean up and kiss him, the mixture of the stars and the light hum of the music‒it’d be perfect. Perfect was not the goal, though, and you knew this, you needed him burning for you.

“Thank you, Francis,” You whispered, drawing small patterns on his arm; you bat your lashes up at him only for a second. The silence that takes over leaves a slight tension; the energy in the air practically screams for a large display of affections, but you hold it at simple, platonic gestures before excusing yourself. Your journey back through the courtyard entailed smug looks thrown Mary’s way. If you were a writer, France was your masterpiece. You would continue to mold history into a lens that fit your narrative.

VIPER IV: Reputation

MASTERLIST

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ichigo-daifuku · 3 years

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See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil [2]

Fandom: Shall We Date?: Obey Me! Pairing: Diavolo/F!Reader Genre: Soulmate AU, Fake Relationship (?), Misunderstandings, Fluff, Angst, Suggestive Themes

Synopsis: During a confrontation between Diavolo and a certain witch who harbors unrequited feelings for him, he declares his intention to ask you to stand beside him in reigning over the Devildom someday. You conclude only one logical explanation for the insanity he uttered: this is his way of discouraging the witch from being so persistent. Although clueless, you play along and become ‘lovers’ with him.

Inevitably, your existing attraction for Diavolo grows, but the distinction between truth and lies, the crisscrossed lines of the right and the wrong, and the question of what’s real and what isn’t, begin to plague your mind and stir up trouble for your relationship with him with each passing day.

Entangled within the woven threads of soulmates and a royal prophecy, this is the story of the Demon Prince and his future Queen: you.

1 | 2 | 3 Chapter 2: Hear No Evil Word Count: 6.5k

To say your week was eventful would be an understatement.

It was no secret that wherever Diavolo went, eyes followed. Even if demons walked on eggshells with him, word about him spread from one mouth to another rapidly, both news and rumors alike. Now, your circumstances mimicked his own. When the two of you would be spotted together, all hell ensued. Once, Diavolo walked you to your classroom, and by the end of the day, everyone—including Belphegor, who had skipped classes—had knowledge of what happened. As the days passed, you slowly fell into the normalcy of such occurrences. The reason for it was when you were in Diavolo’s company, the last thing you cared about was the eyes trained on you, as strange as it sounded. On a positive note, it contributed to the fabrication of your relationship and made it more believable. No one had questioned either of you about it yet.

The most awaited day of the week arrived, Saturday.

You awoke in a good mood, undeniably filled with anticipation of the events today would bring. As you watered the Mirage Flower on your windowsill, the item resting beside it caught your eye: a note. You finished your task and took the crisp white envelope in your hands, flipping it over to see the crimson wax seal on its flap. While you were expecting the RAD logo to be stamped on it, the sigil was one you were positive you’d never seen before but felt strangely acquainted with.

With utmost care, you unsealed the envelope, and in the card, the sender had written:

Bewitched, I was, on the fateful day you and I met.

The familiar penmanship was all you needed to confirm it was, indeed, from none other than Diavolo.

You’d be lying if you claimed your heart didn’t flutter when you finished reading that single sentence, but that was a normal response, wasn’t it? Such a romantic sentiment was written in a note for you, and it was from an admirable man—of course, you’d be moved by it. As you breathed in and out to curb the initial surprise you felt due to the content of the envelope, you tapped behind the paper with your index finger, thinking.

Diavolo loved games, and he was entertained the most by being their mastermind.

This is a riddle, you thought. What a strange way to ask someone out.

You chuckled, both amused by his antics and by the way the gears in your head turned to figure out the meaning behind his words. Months ago, the demon brothers had insisted on coming with you to the Demon Lord’s Castle when you were invited there for tea. Perhaps, it was because, back then, Diavolo had requested for your company in the same manner that you found the answer in no time.

Quietness ruled over the RAD campus on weekends, a stark contrast to the busy picture it painted on weekdays. The area remained open, though, permitting industrious students to hole up inside the library and club members to work on their extracurricular activities.

Leisurely, you strolled along the garden and entered the building without bumping into anyone you knew. Once inside, you recognized a few demons and nodded to them as a greeting while navigating your way to the answer to the riddle: The Student Council Room.

The door let out a small creak as you pushed it open. Since Diavolo was nowhere to be found, you stepped inside and opted to look around for any signs of another envelope. Despite having a lot of papers and writing implements, Lucifer’s area was the tidiest. The square-shaped tube of the tinted lip balm Asmodeus had been frantically searching for yesterday was on his table. Meanwhile, a stack of overdue assignments Belphegor ‘forgot’ to bring home was on his desk.

You roamed around the room until you reached the space you had landed on when you were transported into this world. Standing still, you raised your head, your gaze meeting the podium Diavolo had occupied, the place where he greeted you. It was the very first time your eyes landed on him. In absolute clarity, you could picture the scene of your meeting and how he looked like back then. He was tall and proud, his eyebrows scrunched together in worry at your discomfort at being summoned so suddenly. Most of all, he was regal, as if the place he had been standing on was not a student council podium but a throne.

“This takes me back,” you commented, feeling nostalgic after realizing how far you’d come. You’d learned many things from your stay and met friends more precious to you than anyone else. In the past, if someone told you what kind of relationship you’d be sharing with the Demon Prince months later, you would’ve laughed and brushed them off. “Now, where could that envelope be?”

You stepped aside and moved forward. The stairs led you to where Diavolo had been on that ‘fateful’ day. Footsteps tentative but thrilled, you approached his seat, halting and pulling the chair out. You stood in the place where Diavolo belonged; high up, the sight offering a clear view of what was happening below. Your gaze zeroed in on the center of the room, the spot you stood at a while ago, where he first landed his eyes on you. It hit you that you were looking at that place from his perspective. What did he think of you back then?

“‘ Bewitched, I was, on the fateful day you and I met, ’” you uttered and caught yourself having thoughts you shouldn’t have. Sighing, you shook your head, picked up the envelope on Diavolo’s desk, and muttered, “Why is he so good at this?”

You unsealed the envelope and read the next riddle:

The greed and lust I harbor for you know no bounds.

How in the Devildom were you supposed to interpret that message? If you were surprised by the previous riddle, then you were flabbergasted now. You had to remind yourself multiple times: it was a riddle; nothing more, nothing less. Based on the emphasis he had given the sins in the message, the clue laid in the two members of the Seven Rulers of Hell: Mammon and Asmodeus. Intrigued by the events he had in store for you, you contemplated the riddle’s meaning further and descended on the stairs with the intent of going home. Before you could forget, you grabbed the missing lip balm Asmodeus left on his desk and decided to return it to him and ask him for any clues Diavolo might have given him.

Once you arrived back at the House of Lamentation, you went straight in the direction of Asmodeus’s room, but surprisingly, you met him along the hallway.

“Asmo! I found the tinted lip balm you’re looking for in the Student Council Room,” you stated, handing him the item.

He accepted it gratefully, his eyes wide. “Oh, my… I must have left it there a few days ago. Thanks for bringing it!”

“Sure thing,” you replied. “Where are you off to, by the way?”

“Glad you asked! The Into The Devildom collection I designed is going to be launched soon, so I’m meeting some partners for it.”

“Wow, congratulations! I’m looking forward to seeing your designs!”

“Oh, thank you, darling! As crazy as this sounds, the executives suggested Mammon as one of our models, so he’s going to attend the meeting, too.”

“Wait! What did you just say? Mammon?”

“I know, right?” His facial expression morphed into one full of disbelief and exasperation. “Well, I mean, even if he’s scummy off-cam, he does justice to clothing on-cam, so I have high hopes for this campaign... but don’t tell him I said that!”

“Yes, yes, of course…”

The request Asmodeus made barely registered in your mind as you figured out the place connected to both the Avatar of Greed and the Avatar of Lust: Majolish.

The Majolish VIP Room lived up to its name; it was nothing short of glamorous.

After going to an AkuDonald’s drive-through, Mammon, Asmodeus, and you—or as you liked to refer to yourselves: TEAM PARTYYYYY—headed straight to Majolish while chatting about random topics and gossip. Once inside the rose-colored establishment, Mammon and Asmodeus parted ways with you to attend their meeting. You were about to search for clues from the racks and shelves when a staff member approached and escorted you to a sitting room to serve you tea and snacks.

Minutes after partaking of the refreshments, the head stylist welcomed you to the adjoining VIP Room, where, at the moment, you were sitting inside and waiting. You stared at your reflection in the grand vanity mirror. All its lights were turned on, and it was an image you’d only seen in Hollywood movies back in your world. After you were all glammed up with flawless makeup, a staff member under Asmodeus brought an ensemble from his unreleased Into The Devildom collection. You tried to refuse, but after a phone call from the designer himself, insisting he wanted the best clothing for you on your ‘momentous’ date, you relented and expressed your gratitude for his thoughtful gesture.

“My lady,” the head stylist called. Although everyone in this place had been referring to you using this title since earlier, you were still unused to it. The head stylist offered you the item in their hands. “Lord Diavolo asked us to give you this envelope after you’d chosen your outfit.”

You smiled and received it. “I see. Thank you so much.”

“I wish you both a wonderful time,” the head stylist replied and left to give you privacy.

You opened the envelope, wondering what the riddle would say. Since he led you here to prepare you for your date, this would be the last note, wouldn’t it?

Meet me at the place where we first shared dinner, my princess.

I will be waiting.

— Diavolo

‘My princess.’

He called you his princess.

Your heart did a complete somersault at that.

Unexpectedly, the riddle—if you could even call it one—was more straightforward than the previous two you’d received. You placed the card back inside the envelope, putting it together with the other two inside your clutch. Clearing your throat and fixing your posture, you stood and adjusted your clothing. You were nervous again, but you were ready.

A sleek black car waited for you outside, ready to take you to your destination: Ristorante Six.

“You look even more beautiful tonight,” Diavolo remarked.

He smiled at you from across the table, his appearance dashing though he was only in a plain dress shirt and slacks. He took the champagne flute in his long fingers, your eyes refusing to miss the way his arm flexed at the movement and how his throat bobbed as he took a sip of the beverage.

“I have you to thank for that,” you gulped and managed to reply. “The staff at Majolish were all so nice and accommodating.”

“That’s good to hear.” He placed his glass on the side and leaned back to his seat, his eyes trained on you. “Did you enjoy the riddles?”

You let out a laugh. “I can’t say I didn’t.”

“I’m glad,” he said, the smile on his lips shifting into a frown. “To tell you the truth, I initially planned for us to enjoy a day together in the human world… but when I asked Lucifer for advice, he told me it wouldn’t be pleasant if we were to run into a certain witch…”

Ah, you thought, wondering what that would’ve entailed. However, wouldn’t it be better for Maddi to see you and Diavolo together for her to be deterred? When you contemplated the matter further, you supposed that would be dangerous—for you, at least. Honestly, you would’ve been fine with a simple dinner, but knowing Diavolo, the fact that Ristorante Six was empty save for the two of you was his way of apologizing and making up for the breakfast Maddi ruined. “You don’t need to worry about that. I really enjoyed today. It’s my first time going on a date in the Devildom.”

“That makes me happy,” he stated, visibly relieved and pleased. “We can still go, next time.”

Next time. The implication he wanted to go out with you again made your chest thrum with anticipation. “Yes, you’re right. Next time.”

He reached across the table and took your hand in his, his thumb brushing your knuckles. “Thank you for agreeing to go out with me.”

The scent of roses swirled around the room. The romantic atmosphere enveloping the two of you was intoxicating—as if it was an invitation for you to give in to the thoughts and emotions looming over your mind and heart. Was it those riddles that got to you? Or was it Diavolo himself, whom you’d always admired from afar?

You smiled at him and let your fingers hold on to his own tighter, just for a moment.

As you expected, Diavolo insisted on taking you home. You didn’t mind—no scratch that—it delighted you he’d offer, as your dinner with him felt strangely short. You’d spent a considerable amount of time during the day figuring out the riddles, a period longer than your two hours of dinner. While the five-course meal left you satisfied, your conversation with him was so enjoyable that it felt brief. It wouldn’t take that long to travel from Ristorante Six to the House of Lamentation, so you figured a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Soon, you arrived at your home. Diavolo entered the gates of the House of Lamentation with you in comfortable silence. Once the two of you stepped on the porch, you offered, “Do you want to go in and say hi to everyone?”

“Hm?” Diavolo was lost in thought as he gave you an indecisive stare.

“Diavolo?”

As you stared back at him, it dawned on you. You’d witnessed this scene a thousand times in human world movies before, and with his interest in the pop culture of your realm, he had, too. You used to think it was nothing but a ridiculous cliché, but now, you weren’t so sure about that anymore.

“Can I kiss you good night?” Diavolo asked in a low, husky voice.

You had no way of concealing the surprise etched on your face. Even if you expected the question, the thought of kissing him was surreal. You never dared to dream of it, yet here he was, truly asking you if such a thing would be fine with you. The demon brothers would be watching somewhere from one of the tall windows, you had no doubt about it, burning with curiosity about the date between the human they shared a pact with and the Prince they swore their loyalty to. You had agreed to be a part of Diavolo’s charade, and your first date went well. This was natural.

You nodded. “Okay.”

Closing your eyes, you leaned into his warmth as his palm made its way to your cheek and curved at your jaw. The gentle pressure of his lips on your own lasted for a mere second, and the loss of contact prompted your eyes to open, the desire for more reflected in your eyes… and his.

In front of you, Diavolo revealed the rare sight of his vulnerability. You’d never known it before, but there was a limit to his seemingly perpetual composure. As you gazed at the undeniable flush on his cheeks and the hesitation painted all over his countenance, the longing to see more of this version of him led adrenaline to spike in your veins.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and whispered, “Do you need me to do more?”

Diavolo’s eyes widened at your astute inquiry, but he made no move to deny it. “Will you?”

The question sounded like a challenge, but underneath that layer, it was a plea. He wanted this, and you did, too—even if it was only for show.

“I can,” you confirmed, “if you’d like me to.”

At your agreement, his hesitation dissipated. He leaned in and brushed your lower lip with his thumb. “If you continue to tempt me like that, you need to prepare yourself for the consequences.”

“I’ve been prepared for them. Ever since I said ‘yes’ to you.”

You closed your eyes as Diavolo bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss on your lips. It was a real one, this time, and you returned it enthusiastically, throwing caution to the wind. His palm moved past your cheek, down to your shoulder, pausing on the small of your back until it settled around your waist, fitting your bodies together. His warm tongue slid past the seam of your lips to meet yours, deepening the kiss and awakening a wave of desire inside of you.

Before it could get out of hand, you broke the contact of your lips on his. You caught your breath while Diavolo leaned his forehead against yours. Your lips stayed a hair’s breadth away from each other’s, sharing warm puffs of breath and brushing as you whispered, “Good night, Diavolo.”

“Good night, my princess.”

The first kiss you shared with Diavolo had been the beginning of many.

A certain thrill hung in the atmosphere whenever the two of you were in the vicinity of each other. More often than not, your encounters would lead to the two of you leaving hand in hand to move to a more private setting as everyone watched. Although there was no reason for you to continue your charade behind closed doors, the moment your eyes met his, kisses followed. When your relationship with him took a physical turn through your heated kisses, your attraction to him inevitably grew stronger.

Being the heir to the Devildon’s throne, Diavolo was a busy demon. Despite this, he would still take you on dates. You’d gone to Ristorante Six a few more times. There was an instance when he wanted to go to AkuDonald’s, and you were more than happy to introduce him to your favorites. Your date at Hell’s Kitchen went well, too. How he managed to find the time for these things, you had no idea. The following dates you went with him were accompanied with gifts, and soon, across your bedroom’s shelves and beside your pillows, various plush toys from Cranesanity rested—all acquired personally by Diavolo. It was both amusing and endearing, his interest in that game.

On a Sunday afternoon, weeks after you began your dangerous affair with him, Diavolo invited you to come over for tea in the Demon Lord’s Castle. Much like how it began after your second date, he had asked you in a way you’d consider normal, this time, through a text message. Either way, if he was the one who invited you, you’d be delighted to accept.

With the inky view of the Devildom outside the sitting room window, you sat across Diavolo, a round ornate table full of pastries between the two of you. The freshly brewed Ceylon tea by none other than Barbatos, a culinary legend, was warm and fragrant in your teacups. One of the best things in the Demon Lord’s Castle was the food. Barbatos’s cooking was the best, truly fit for royalty, and worth every praise you’d heard about it. As Beelzebub would mention now and then, from being served such food alone, Diavolo was lucky to have Barbatos as his butler.

While eating, Diavolo brought up how the RAD Newspaper Club contacted him and asked for his approval for your photo in the academy’s courtyard to be published. Before giving them a response, he wanted to know if you had any objections or conditions for Mephistopheles to take into account.

“I have no problem with it, honestly. It would be better if the denizens knew, wouldn’t it?” you responded after giving it some thought, meaning every word you said.

Diavolo nodded, considering your answer.

“What about you? What do you think?” you asked.

“I’d like nothing more than to let everyone know about us. Not that they don’t know already, but officially, I mean.” Diavolo chuckled and handed you a printed copy of the photograph for your approval. “We look like quite the pair, don’t we?”

As you examined the picture, a smile made its way to your lips, a tiny, if not bittersweet, one. You, Diavolo, and the Mirage Flower were at the center of the frame. On the surface, the two of you looked like a couple in love; convincing, real. You knew better, though, and that reality left a pang in your chest. “We sure do.”

A celebratory ball was going to be held at the Demon Lord’s Castle in honor of Diavolo’s prophesied ‘Queen.’ In other words, the ball was going to be held to honor you. The situation was similar to what happened some time ago when the demon brothers, through their gratitude, made you the guest of honor during Diavolo’s birthday. It lessened the nervousness you felt and replaced it with anticipation.

Still, it would be nice to thank Diavolo for everything he had done for you. You looked back on the facts you’d learned about him in the past few months and listed the arts, cute animals and items, and sweets as the things he was partial to. His tastes were eclectic. When you first met him, you wouldn’t have guessed he considered flowers and small animals to be comforting.

In the end, you decided to go for the ‘sweets’ option. Macarons and cupcakes would be nice, wouldn’t they? Both of them would be cute and sweet. You decided to experiment with a few trial batches before making a final one to give Diavolo as a gift on the day of the ball.

Luke, who you were convinced was truly your guardian angel, was more than happy to assist you when you asked him for help.

Once your classes were dismissed, you returned to the House of Lamentation with Luke. After he demonstrated how to make macarons and cupcakes, you sat side by side and chatted as you waited for the pastries to bake.

“So,” Luke began out of the blue, “you’re really dating Lord Diavolo, huh? I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about it.”

While you had experienced telling white lies to children back in your world, at the moment, you found it difficult to believe how you were lying to an angel. “Haha, yeah. It’s been a while.”

“I’m still not over the fact that a good human like you ended up being destined for a demon all along! Even if that demon is Lord Diavolo…” Luke frowned. He had always been like this, worrying about you, a human who was constantly surrounded by demons. To him, now that you were going to be Diavolo’s Queen, your entanglement with demons had become inexorable.

You couldn’t help but reach out to him and ruffle his hair. He was truly an angel, a good kid.

“H-Hey,” he complained but did nothing to move your hand away, “stop that!”

“Thanks for worrying about me, Luke.” You smiled at him reassuringly and patted his shoulder. “Everything will be fine. As you said, Diavolo and I… well, we are destined, after all.”

The sound of the timer prompted your heads to turn to its source. Luke’s face lit up as he excitedly grabbed his mittens and skipped to the corner of the room. The heavenly scent of pastries wafted all over the kitchen as he drew the oven’s door open.

You, however, stayed in place and merely watched, once again having difficulty believing how you lied to an angel.

Diavolo’s trusted footmen fetched you from the House of Lamentation to the Demon Lord’s Castle.

Over the last few months, you’d developed a sense of familiarity not only with Diavolo’s staff but also with the ins and outs of his grand home. You’d stayed over numerous times that the guest room you frequented in was now assigned as exclusively yours, with your personal effects in it, serving as your room. Aside from your possessions, brand new designer clothing purchased by Diavolo—which were, unexpectedly, all in your size—as well as makeup, accessories, toiletries, and everything you could need, occupied the walk-in closet.

“Is this really necessary?” you had asked him when you found out about his shopping spree, worry trumping the other mixed emotions you felt at the sight of more gifts.

“I want to give all the best things to you.”

“If you say things like that, I…”

“Don’t you think my future Queen deserves the best of the best?”

“...Right, of course.”

Diavolo’s Queen. That person was not you. You sighed and reminded yourself he was the Demon Prince. He had an eternity’s worth of money to spare, purchasing these items was nothing to him. He prepared this for the Queen in the prophecy, a partner deserving of such luxury. When you eventually had to use some of the items for attending events with Diavolo, you told yourself you were just borrowing them. You handled everything with care and returned them to their original place after use—as if your hands never touched them at all.

You arrived at the Demon Lord’s Castle and found yourself sitting on the plush sofa inside Diavolo’s study. After recently having a vision of Diavolo playing hooky, Barbatos requested for you to keep an eye on him, insisting his master would listen to you. Barbatos asked you to make sure Diavolo would finish his tasks before the two of them had to leave for a meeting with important figures of the nobility in the Devildom. You obliged, having nothing else to do on a Friday night, preferring Diavolo’s quiet company over the club music and neon lights in town, which would no doubt be full of demons unwinding tonight. While you scrolled through Devilgram, liked your friends’ photos, and laughed at funny videos, Diavolo went through his stack of papers diligently. As the pile grew smaller, he hummed to the tune of a song from Mononoke Land, which piqued your attention.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” you commented.

“I am.” He nodded happily. “You’re here, after all.”

You smiled at him. “I’m glad.”

Diavolo signed his name at the bottom of the page he was working on and placed his seal on it. After the wax dried, he closed the folder and placed it to the side, leaning back against his seat with an exhausted sigh.

You glanced at him and asked, “You’re finished?”

“It seems so,” he replied, checking the grandfather’s clock in the corner of the room, “and with a few minutes to spare, too.”

“Barbatos will be pleased. Congratulations!”

He chuckled and shifted his gaze back to you, a mischievous smirk on his lips. “Don’t you think I deserve a reward?”

“Maybe,” you played along coyly. “What kind of reward do you want?”

“Something only you can give me.”

“Such a thing exists?”

“Yes.” He gestured to you with his fingers, beckoning you over. “Come here.”

You locked your D.D.D. and left it on the sofa, standing up and stepping in front of his desk. “What can I do for you, Diavolo?”

“You can come closer.”

You circled the desk until you were beside him. “Here?”

“Not quite.” He took your wrist and encircled your waist with his arm, pulling you into his lap. “Right here.”

You shifted and found a more comfortable position with your legs hanging from the side of his knees. “That’s it?”

“No.” Diavolo brushed your hair aside and caressed your cheek. “Kiss me.”

Gladly, you thought but ultimately chose actions over words as a response.

Your lips had long been acquainted with his, but every single time remained as a sensual experience that left you wanting for more. Sometimes he’d be slow and gentle, taking his time to savor your taste, while other times had been quick pecks on your lips when either of you would be busy and in a rush to say goodbye.

But now, the kiss the two of you were sharing could only be described as passionate. Your palms rested on his shoulders, and slowly, you wrapped your arms around him, closing in your bodies toward each other. His lips moved against yours so greedily—lustfully—that you felt sinful as you reciprocated, drowning in his warmth.

When you pulled away to catch your breath, his arm tightened around your waist, and his mouth swept over your cheek, leaving a trail of kisses in its wake until his lips found your neck. He kissed you softly, his tongue darting out to dampen your skin before nipping and sucking at it.

“Diavolo,” you closed your eyes and whispered, not wanting to make noise but unable to hold it in.

“Let out your voice,” he said, moving his lips downward after leaving a lovebite on your skin. “I want to hear you.”

His long fingers unfastened the button of your blouse, giving him more access to your body. As he moved to the next button, however, a loud knock on the door caused the two of you to freeze.

“My Lord,” Barbatos called. “It is time for us to leave.”

Without waiting for an answer, the sound of footsteps echoed on the empty hallway and faded as Barbatos gave the two of you privacy.

He knows, doesn’t he? That Barbatos, you thought, internally panicking. You moved away from Diavolo and fixed your hair and clothes. Even though your mind was all muddled now, you managed to casually tell him, “I guess it’s time for you to go.”

Deep inside, you were anything but calm. Your head replayed the events that occurred minutes ago. That was a close call. Too close. What in the Devildom were you thinking? Seriously…

It always irked you how times when, after sharing a kiss, Diavolo appeared to be unbothered existed. You preferred the vulnerable expression he had shown you during the first time you agreed to kiss him. Still, you were curious, and you turned your head to peek at the face he made tonight, but nothing could have prepared you when your eyes met his.

His gaze on you was full of desire, an emotion you’d only seen on him in flickers before; a speculation you doubted but was now a blatant truth. He stepped closer to you and pulled you in a tight embrace, letting you feel the extent of his arousal as he stroked your hair and inhaled your fragrance.

“We’ll finish this next time,” he whispered.

And then, he sealed his promise with a kiss.

After seeing Diavolo and Barbatos off, you opted to go home instead of staying longer in the Demon Lord’s Castle. You needed time to think, and being in a place full of memories with Diavolo didn’t help in clearing your mind.

You’d long accepted your attraction to him. If you were to imagine what it would be like to be in a relationship with a soulmate, every detail would be the same as the romantic affair you shared with Diavolo, except it would be real. Tonight, you had to face the music and admit it to yourself: you wished it was.

The situation was getting out of your hands, and at a loss of what to do, you grabbed your D.D.D. from your pocket and dialed a reliable friend’s number, knowing this decision would change your life.

As insisted by the angels, Solomon went to town to order takeout for dinner instead of experimenting in the kitchen. That was when he received your call. The two of you agreed to meet up at Hell’s Kitchen, as you spontaneously decided to purchase food for the demon brothers as well. It had been a while since all eight of you had gone for a meal there. Solomon wasn’t in a rush and had time to spare, so he was more than happy to sit down with you for a chat as you waited for your orders to be processed.

“Shall we have a round of Demonus tonight?” he asked, leading you to a nice, secluded table in the corner of the room.

“Sounds good,” you replied with a nod and took the seat in front of him.

After some idle chat, a waiter brought two horns of Demonus for you and Solomon.

With his elbows on top of the table, Solomon rested his chin over his folded hands. He broached the subject with a smile, “So, what did you want to talk about? Spells? Pacts? Demons? Recipes?”

You took your time in replying, not having uttered this word in this world before. “I’d like to talk about… soulmates.”

“Soulmates? Well, that’s something I didn’t expect.”

“Yes, I… I wanted to know if there are demons who have soulmarks.”

“How come? By any chance, do you have a soulmark?”

It was difficult enough for you to acknowledge you had one, but if you wanted to acquire information from Solomon, your best bet at the moment, you had to come clean about your situation. “Yes, I do.”

“Does Lord Diavolo know?”

“No, this is a secret I’ve never revealed to anyone before.”

Solomon contemplated the situation you had given him. “That is certainly complicated.”

You sighed and took a sip of your Demonus. “I know.”

“I hate to be the one to break it to you. I’ve been around for a long time, but I’ve never met a demon with a soulmark.”

“I see. That’s…” Sad? Unfortunate? Heartbreaking? What were you supposed to say when the disappointment clouding your mind felt so heavy?

“I’m sorry,” Solomon said sincerely.

“It’s… It’s nothing. I’m alright.”

He took a sip of his drink and allowed you to process the information he had given you. As you did, you couldn’t help but dwell on another matter that continued to plague your mind. After a few minutes, you decided this would be the best moment to ask.

“Solomon…”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Have you heard about Diavolo’s prophecy?”

A sly smile made its way to his lips. “Let’s just say having pacts with seventy-two demons has its perks.”

That caught your attention. He knew something about it. “Will you tell me?”

“Why not ask him yourself?” Solomon suggested. “It’s something that concerns you as well, doesn’t it?”

There had always been a sense of camaraderie between the two of you as the only humans in the exchange program. Revealing the fact you had a soulmark was one thing, but telling him about the secret you shared with Diavolo was another. Still, if you were to receive the answer your gut feeling told you that you would receive, there would be no need to worry about that any longer.

“I’m going to tell you another secret.”

Solomon nodded encouragingly. “And it will remain as one.”

His quip made you laugh, but the amusement faded in the blink of an eye, the words you were about to utter weighing you down.

“The truth is, I’m just a stand-in for whoever is the one in the prophecy,” you confessed. “I’m sure you’ve heard of her, but Maddi… well, long story short, Diavolo had to drive her away, but she steered the conversation to the prophecy, and I happened to be there, so…”

Solomon peered at your face, his expression grave. “You’re sure about this?”

“Yes, I was there. That’s what happened.”

“And the demon brothers don’t know, so you can’t ask them yourself.”

“That’s right.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”

Relief washed over you at his agreement. If Solomon ended up refusing, you didn’t know who else you could approach.

Solomon cleared his throat and divulged, “It was long ago, so the version of the story varied, but from what I’d gathered from the different sources I had, one thing was constant: a witch had a vision of the future when the Demon Prince was born. It was said that Diavolo’s Queen would be the bridge to his goals, and only when the Queen would rule by his side would he be able to see them into fulfillment.”

This was the revelation you needed, the answer you sought after. If the prophecy was made when Diavolo was born, it meant that he had been waiting for his Queen for millennia.

It must be lonely, you thought, but loneliness was something you never saw on him.

While you never cared about finding nor ending up with your soulmate, it was a different matter with Diavolo. The Devildom would always be his number one priority. To figure out the dream the prophecy was referring to was easy: for the three worlds to live peacefully in coexistence. He’d expressed that many times before. The establishment of the exchange program was a stepping stone to actualize his vision, but he was still waiting for his Queen, a position vyed by many but was in your wrongful hands.

It would be fine to continue pretending to be his Queen if you weren’t in love with him… but you were. How could you continue kissing him and wishing every caress of his lips was sincere? It was as if you were a traveler with a parched throat who spotted an oasis from afar, only to discover it was a mirage once you reached it. Even now, a flicker of envy sparked within you for the nameless, faceless Queen of the Devildom he was bound to have by his side. At once, you discarded the thought and decided it wasn’t a good feeling to have, to covet him, who is destined for someone else. It would be wrong of you to continue pretending to be someone you weren’t, especially since someone who might be out there already existing, deserved this place.

Solomon’s worried voice roused you from your reverie. “You seem shaken. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine,” you responded with a shaky voice. “It’s just… a lot to take in.”

“What do you plan to do now?”

“I’m going to break things off with him.”

“You say that, but will he let you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” You let out a sardonic chuckle. “It’s not like there was anything going on between us, to begin with.”

“Hmm…”

“Solomon? What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.” He shook his head and smiled. “I’m curious to see how this unfolds. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you.”

Yes, breaking things off with him would be the right thing to do. After all, you couldn’t help but imagine yourself in Maddi’s shoes as Diavolo blatantly rejected your affection. The thought alone was painful enough. Before that could happen, you’d part ways with him in amicable terms and through your own will. The exchange program was going to end soon, anyway. Truly, there was no point in holding on to him any longer. This would be for the best.

You would set things straight and end your arrangement with him the next time you planned to meet each other: at the upcoming celebratory ball at the Demon Lord’s Castle.

Notes: I went through a writing slump for a while, so I decided to work on a few shorter pieces before writing this chapter. Finally, it’s here! To those who had been waiting for this, I hope you enjoyed reading. Thank you for your patience! ♡

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

Obey Me! Masterlist | Main Masterlist

#obey me #obey me!#obey me diavolo #obey me! diavolo #obey me fanfiction #obey me fanfic #obey me fic #obey me imagines #obey me scenarios #swd #shall we date #shall we date obey me #shall we date: obey me #LordDiavolo #diavolo x mc #diavolo x reader #🙈🙉🙊

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clansayeed · 4 years

Text

Bound by Destiny ― Chapter 1: The Job

PAIRING: Kamilah Sayeed x MC (Nadya Al Jamil) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Destiny ⥽

Nadya Al Jamil (MC) has been struggling from the day she moved to Manhattan, but her new job as assistant to the mysterious CEO of Raines Corp was supposed to turn her luck around. Until she finds herself caught in the middle of a war involving the Council of Vampires who secretly run the city. An evil from the birth of Vampire-kind stirs beneath, feeding on the conflict, and finds Nadya bound to a destiny she never asked for.

Bound by Destiny and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series and spin-off, Nightbound. Find out more [HERE].

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

She’s never thought about doing clerical work before, but that’s not going to stop her. Nadya begins her new job as secretary for the mysterious Adrian Raines.

[READ IT ON AO3]

As soon as Lily yanks the lipstick from her hand the cab screeches to a jerking halt on the curb. The kind of stop that has the potential to ruin an entire twenty minutes-worth of hasty makeup application.

“Here.” grunts the Cabby, already flicking on his ‘VACANT’ sign and punching the buttons on his dash panel.

“Think you could chill out a little next time on the landing, Speed Racer? Here hon, hold this.” She returns the lipstick to its rightful owner to dig around in her bag for the cab fare.

Nadya sits in a daze; stares at her lipstick like she’s forgotten how to use it until Lily is grabbing hold of her wrist and pulling her out onto the bustling Manhattan sidewalk.

“You okay?” Lily’s hands are warm in the sunlight. They manage to bring her out of her spell. With a one-two-three swipe of her lipstick she brings a beaming smile her roommate’s way.

“Never better. Thanks for the save back there.”

“Thank me with a paycheck. And pizza — you can never go wrong with pizza.”

The main entrance of Raines Corp. faces north, follows the path of the sun so as not to shine in. A strange thing to notice, Nadya thinks, but she can’t help but hope that means she won’t constantly have the sunset glaring in her eyes every evening.

“Final checks!” Lily announces, loud enough to gain the attention of several Wall Street schlubs on their blue-teeth or air-phones or whatever else they use to distract from the tedium.

God, I hope I don’t end up like that at the end of this job… The thought flits through Nadya’s mind briefly before it’s lost in Lily’s vibrancy.

“Phone-wallet-keys?”

“Check.”

“Emergency Listerine strips?”

“Check.”

“Emergency deodorant?”

“Check.”

“Disdain for the bourgeoisie bullshit that allows people to treat secretaries like servants?”

Nadya laughs. “Check!”

“Then my dear,” she squeezes their hands together before letting go with a flourish of wide arms, “there’s nothing more I can do for you. You’re ready to walk into the belly of the Capitalist beast.”

But ‘ready’ though she may be Nadya doesn’t move; just stares at Lily’s encouraging smile like it’ll give her the power to take on the whole world or bring every skyscraper on the block crumbling to their foundations.

Her roommate pushes her ropes of neon-purple dreads over her shoulder and goes in for the hug Nadya didn’t know she even needed; let alone ask for. It’s one she returns warmly — it brings back distant memories of clinging to her mother on the first day of school.

“Seriously, Nadi’, you’ve got this.” whispers Lily into her ear, and Nadya very much has this.

She turns and steels herself—a final mental check to ensure all is secure and well and oh god did I forget my emergency tampon at home no Lily put it in the side pocket thank god so yes, it’s all well—before she strides in through the revolving doors.

“Don’t worry about dinner, honey-bunch! You just earn Momma that cheddar!” She can hear Lily’s faint laughter before the roar of industrialized air conditioning drowns out everything else.

Everything that had happened on the day of her interview had led Nadya to believe he might be a decent boss to work for; one of those kinds of CEOs who had wealth but didn’t flaunt it, or who gave out really epic bonuses come Christmas or the New Year. She figured she’d be seeing a lot of him around — not that he’d be asking her to accompany him to important client dinners or doing that thing in movies where he asks her to order him midnight sushi and it turns out to be enough for two — because what CEO goes out of their way to personally attend the hiring of someone who only has top-tier security clearance because that’s where her desk is?

Boy, was she wrong.

Adrian Raines communicates almost solely by email (or in the more urgent requests, the Raines Corp. interdepartmental instant message app). When he leaves his office he never needs to be accompanied. If not for the heaps of digital filing she’s asked to organize she’d almost forget who she was working for. He’s always polite; signs his emails with ‘thank yous’ and things like ‘I really appreciate all your hard work!’ but the distance takes some getting used to.

“Maybe he’s just antisocial,” Lily suggests over their now-standard lunch break phone call. Nadya can hear the distant tinny noise of digital zombies having their heads blown off on Lil’s livestream. “You know, like one of those reclusive ba-jillionaires in the movies. Or he thinks you smell.”

“I don’t smell!” Nadya argues back — and definitely doesn’t do a smell-check of her armpits sheepishly.

But Lily intends to find the silver lining in everything; one of the things that makes them get along so fabulously. “Think of it this way; sooo many people in your position have to see way too much of their bosses, right? And that burns them out! So you have more time to rake in the dough before you gotta high-tail it from Armaniville.”

“I guess,” she stabs a cold lump of orange chicken absentmindedly, “it’d just be a lot easier if he weren’t so darn nice.”

The next day Adrian sends her a list of things to get from the sub-basement archives; gifts for some client meeting he has in an hour. Nadya takes it on as a DEFCON 5 because each item is a separate ping on the IM server. If it can’t all be in one email it’s gotta be important, right?

All it takes is a requisition form sent below and the whole two dozen paces between her desk, the elevator, and the building delivery desk on the ground floor. She’d go into the conference room and deliver the package herself but while Adrian might appreciate the gesture the same might not be said for other head-honchos. So she leaves it on the corner of her desk for Adrian to grab on his way down.

Just before the lift doors open Adrian turns on his glossy heel. For the first time since her interview he addresses Nadya face-to-face.

“Nadya?”

“Yes, Mister Raines?” They both chuckle. Even with the impersonal disposition of digital communication they’ve found a way to share inside jokes; it took half a dozen messages for Nadya to learn how very serious Adrian was about being addressed by his first name even via email.

She glances up from Nicole’s daily ‘list of chores’ (Lily’s words, not hers, but she doesn’t deny the accuracy) to find Adrian staring at her. Even from across the room there’s a clarity to him. Adrian Raines is attractive; Nadya knows it, the numerous reporters from the tech, business, and gossip magazines Nadya has had to politely turn away all know it, hell even Adrian himself probably knows it — and not in the vain way pretty rich men know they’re pretty, but in a more humble sense.

So yeah, having someone like him stare with that movie-star smolder at someone like her makes it impossible for Nadya not to blush. But he’s her boss, and this gig is too good for all the months of “We promise we’ll have the rent next month please don’t evict us!” back-pay they owe their landlord to risk. And she’s pretty sure trying to romance the boss is a big risk.

She tries again, “Yes, Mister Raines?” because Adrian seems to be in his own little world. One he finally snaps out of.

“I just wanted to make sure you know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me since you came on. You’ve definitely been one of my more successful assistants.” That’s Adrian; making sure everyone feels appreciated.

Nadya simply shrugs it off; wouldn’t do her well to get too airheaded so early in the game. “Just doing my job, Mister Raines.”

“Nadya…”

“Just doing my job,” she winks, “Adrian.”

It’s the longest meeting he’s ever had; the text she gets somewhere near dawn thanking her for staying but releasing her fills Nadya with nothing short of relief. Gathering her things, clocking out, swiping her card for the lift; everything is routine now. Even strolling passed the conference room on her way to the front desk.

“Are you sure he’s being truthful about his numbers?”

“We can’t be sure of anything when it comes to Cecil, Adrian. That is why I insisted I go myself. He knows better than to lie to my face.”

“Yet he may still have.”

Stopping in front of the frosted glass isn’t one of her smarter ideas. Not like it stops her. Mostly she’s caught off guard by the seriousness of Adrian’s tone even through the doors. Can’t think of a time when she ever heard him sound like that; almost dark, or angry.

But where Adrian is filled with passion whoever he’s speaking to keeps her cool. Her voice a velvet purr so low Nadya finds herself straining to hear, leaning closer to the door and closer to the danger of discovery.

“I have my associates scouring the city for where they might be originating. You’d think someone might report seeing a corpse or two suddenly going grey and—”

A gruff Indian drawl interrupts her. Even from a distance Nadya feels like that’s a bad move.

“This is New York, Kamilah. Bodies are as rare as pigeons!”

“Then what have you contributed, Lester?” asks Adrian.

Lester grumbles something she doesn’t quite catch, then: “Don’t flash those at me, pup. I’ll speak to my men on the PD and see if they’ve been keeping anything hiding under their little blue belts.”

None of it makes sense. There’s walking in on half a conversation and then there’s whatever Adrian and his associates are discussing. The one thing Nadya is sure of is how much she dislikes the knot forming in her gut while her mind races to try and put some of what she’s hearing together.

There’s a long silence. For a moment she fears she’s been found out and her heart drops out through her stomach. Then she hears Adrian again — this time he sounds tired.

“We have to get this under control. Until we do every victim is our fault; their blood is on our hands.”

If there’s more to his speech she doesn’t stick around to hear it. Finds herself out on the cold Manhattan sidewalk just as the sun starts to haul itself up over the horizon. She doesn’t even remember if she said goodbye to the night guard. Her blood pounds in her ears.

Lily made a valiant effort to stay awake and greet her as evidenced by a full cup of tea gone cold on the island counter. But her roommate is passed out on the couch — Nadya envies that ability to sleep anywhere. The words victim and blood and hands echo in Adrian’s voice around her skull like bouncy-balls while she gets ready for bed.

Adrian acts like nothing is different — and to him it isn’t. But whenever she gets the chance Nadya tries to find some inkling, some shadow hidden behind his megawatt smile and usual charm. If ever given the chance to wander her mind starts coming up with fantastical ideas and scenarios: like seeing him as Christian Bale in American Psycho or getting a late-night text for her to come into work and finding him in the process of wrapping a body up in construction plastic.

Nadya only imagines being the victim of the cruel-yet-classy alter ego of Adrian once. Somehow discovering his secret life as a hitman or deranged killer is more believable than the thought that he would ever harm her.

But it doesn’t stop the hairs on the back of her neck from standing up when the rarity arrives of Adrian leaving at the same time as her. Lots of people are murdered in elevators in the movies.

“So… everything alright?”

Nadya looks to find Adrian’s gaze level and calm and right at her. Oh god, she thinks, he knows!

She fumbles for an answer instead — tries, and fails, to play it cool.

“Peachy keen.”

“Are you sure?” He’s not gonna press the matter if she doesn’t want to talk about it; just another one of the things that makes Adrian Raines possibly the ideal man. But he needs to stop looking like a kicked puppy in order to make it easier for her to lie to him.

So she decides to pick a different truth instead. “Yeah, I’m just not looking forward to the long trip home.”

Adrian’s nose scrunches. “I was under the impression your apartment was one train away.”

“Normally it is. But they shut down the station at my stop a couple nights ago. Some accident on the weekend or something.”

It’s exactly the Adrian thing for him to do when he offers her a ride home in the company car. And it’s the Nadya thing for her to decline, but rather than playfully letting it slide Adrian actually insists. Pipes up what could have been the speech her mom gave her about moving to ‘the Big City’ verbatim; with strangers lurking the streets and the subway never really being as safe as they claim.

“And forgive my selfishness,” he finishes while opening the sleek black Buick door, “but I’d have a pretty hard time finding another secretary with hours as flexible as yours. So let’s get you home safe and sound.”

One complimentary ride home is a favor. Then one turns into two, turns into the whole week, turns into “I know your station opened back up yesterday, Nadya, but if I’m being honest I enjoy the detour and the company,” and by the time Adrian’s car is pulling onto the curb outside her building at sunset—the usual time she sets off—there’s really no opportunity to refuse.

“I went to make you a cup, too, but then I realized I have no idea how you take your coffee — secretaries everywhere have shunned me.” Nadya greets him by way of apology, sliding into the now-familiar front seat with her travel mug in hand. Adrian laughs.

“I appreciate the gesture, but I’m more of a tea person.”

If Adrian is surprised when, same time next day, Nadya slides in with her usual mug and a second with a teabag string dangling over the side, he hides it well.

But while their routine has become more personable and casually affectionate it hasn’t entirely cleared her boss of suspicion. There’s three more meetings he releases her early for. She doesn’t snoop like the first time but definitely catches the same voices in her passing haste to the exit.

Then one ordinary night she spots an error on Adrian’s agenda.

“Did you want me to call the Gallery about getting a refund?” She doesn’t knock before entering — doesn’t really need to at this point. There’s something weirdly intimate about sitting in his car flicking radio stations while he pumps gas and returns with her favorite chocolate peanut-butter cookies. Intimate in that it makes knocking seem unnecessary.

Used to it, Adrian doesn’t look away from his screen. “Refund for what?”

“You bought two tickets to this thing, the ‘Manhattan Gallery’s Dedication to National Geographic Auction’ on Friday next.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And—Jesus—they’re five hundred bucks a piece?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So did you want a refund?”

“Why? I asked yesterday if you had plans then. You said no.”

It takes her a moment before Nadya’s doing her best impression of a fish.

“That second ticket’s mine?”

Now out of his chair Adrian leans against his desk with a smirk that could almost be called cheeky. If she didn’t know him better, that is.

“Well who else would I take?” he asks genuinely.

“I—I mean—well Nicole, for one.”

He waves off his assistant’s name. Odd, Nadya can’t help but think, since they seemed have a close relationship — close enough for her to berate him in front of a stranger on the day they met. Maybe less so in the last months… but still.

“She’s been to dozens of these. I wanted to take someone who might actually appreciate something new.” His falter is only slight. “I mean, of course, if you want to come. I probably shouldn’t have assumed.”

And she does, oh she does, but a nagging voice in the back of her head that sounds not-so-suspiciously like Anne-Marie from HR — who probably didn’t think Nadya could hear her over the gurgle of the downstairs coffee cart when she leaned over to her coworker and whispered a nasty rumor about “Mister Raines and his Secretary of the Night” — has her hesitant to say the least.

She’s taken too long to respond when Adrian’s hands fall on her shoulders. He cranks up the AC so high she had to pull her winter sweaters out of storage in the middle of summer. Even through the wool though she can feel the chill of his palms.

“Nadya? Talk to me.” Kind Adrian; Kind, empathetic, stupidly perceptive Adrian.

It makes her step back; gain some personal—and professional—space between them.

“Mister Raines,” and when did this become her life exactly, “I appreciate the gesture; all the gestures, actually, but…” already she’s hoping Lily kept yesterday’s newspaper with the classifieds, “I’m not… well, I’m not exactly interested in you in that… way.”

Adrian Master-of-the-Unexpected Raines goes bright red. Has Nadya wondering if she should take a picture to sell to the same tabloids that claim to see equally nonexistent things like Bigfoot.

Then he takes a deep breath. “Nadya — er, Miss Al Jamil — if I ever gave you the impression I… what I mean to say is that if you’ve found any of my actions untoward — erm — or, possibly, salacious in nature, I assure you, I—wait no, let me—”

He’s actually fumbling, which is how Nadya realizes he’s taken aback by her statement; how she realizes he was a million miles away from that dangerous place. And did he just say salacious?

To her surprise Adrian actually stops when she holds up a finger.

“Before you, uh, choke on your own tongue,” probably not the best idea to bring up his tongue but you know what they say about hindsight, “just… answer one question, okay?”

He nods.

“Is this an invitation as your date, or as your coworker?”

“Good heav — as my coworker, Nadya!” He practically chokes on his relief. It takes an exhale for Nadya to realize she is, too. Then they’re laughing, separately and awkwardly, and the next thing Nadya knows Adrian is pouring two tumblers of expensive scotch from the little trolley to the side of his desk that she’s never seen him use before. He’s her boss and he’s the one offering it, so he can’t get on her case when she accepts the liquor like the peace offering it is.

Friday night comes around and, as expected, the world ends.

“How can one person own this many dresses and none of them be for freakin’ formal events?!”

“Hey! That Sailor Mars dress was made specifically for a ball!”

“Lily, I’m only gonna say this one more time—” Nadya pokes her head out of her roommate’s tiny closet with what she hopes is a glare that thoroughly conveys her frustration; though the way her large glasses are dangerously ready to fall off the tip of her nose negates that completely, “—I can’t wear Sailor Moon cosplay to the Manhattan Art Gallery!”

Lily huffs and nibbles another spicy cheese puff. “Show me where it says that on the damn dress code…”

In a flurry of barely-clothed despair Nadya rushes back across the hall to her own room. Lily follows — cradles her snack bowl in her arms like one would a precious infant.

“I don’t get why the dress you bought doesn’t work.” Lily plops down next to the last-minute ordered dress and is careful to keep her cheesy mitts off the fabric. “It’s nice! And pink looks good on you, girl.”

Nadya looks the dress over with barely-contained spite. “It’s just… more skin than I thought it would be.” She mimes the shape of the dress’ lack of shoulder-cloth and Lily nods with an understanding “Oooh.”

“It just feels weird to wear something, like, kinda sexy after last week’s weirdness, you know? It’s weird! I think it’s weird, he’ll think it’s weird. It’ll just be…”

“Weird?” supplies Lily, who barely has time to duck the ball of socks thrown her way.

“And I don’t have time to go shopping. Adrian’ll be here in…” she looks to her bedside clock and groans, “an hour… I need more than an hour to fix my life!”

“Don’t we all.” Lily falls down beside the distraught form of her room mate and finger-feeds her a puff as per their agreement on dealing with messy snacks in mess-free zones. She wipes her hands diligently on her junk tee and caresses the apple of Nadya’s cheek with her thumb.

“Hon, just wear it. It’s your first time doing the ‘ritzy rich person’ thing and Adrian’ll totally get that. And if he tries to make it weird just laugh it off in that totally un-sexy way you do and boom—instant boner-killer.”

It’s not the pep-talk that would get the Cordonian Princess Caoimhe through her wedding day jitters, but it’s enough for Nadya; and that’s all that matters. With exaggerated grunts and huffs she hauls herself off the bed and starts to wrangle on the dress.

“I told you what he said, right?”

“You tell me a lot of things, sweetie.”

Nadya turns for Lily to dutifully zip her up. “He said I was ‘too young for him anyway,’ like, what does that even mean?”

“Do you want the Valyrian translation or something?”

“He’s thirty-one. I’m twenty-five! My parents had a bigger age gap than that!”

Lily pats the finished zipper, pulls Nadya to turn around so she can do her other, unsung duty by helping Nadya show off what she was born with.

“I mean maybe — stop fidgeting you have boobs so show them off, Christ — maybe he’s into cougars. Pretty boys usually have some form of Oedipus complex.”

“Mm… I don’t think so. Adrian’s different.”

“How?”

“He just — OW who the heck gives purple nurples these days?! — He just is, okay?! Now take your hands out of my bra Lily Spencer!”

The play-fighting gets put aside for the good of maintaining the integrity of the dress. The hour drags on, half of it spent waiting around for her (suddenly too-long, too-unruly, too-resistant) hair to dry. Nadya is always more likely to throw her hair up in a bun and go no matter the occasion, but this isn’t just any occasion. I’ll be representing Raines Corp, and Adrian by proxy, she reminds herself through every stubborn tug of her brush.

Lily is fiddling with her purse as Nadya finally exits the bathroom in a cloud of hairspray and second thoughts.

“So I packed you two granola bars in case they don’t have anything lactose-intolerant. And there’s some spare cash if you wanna dip out and grab a cab home. Did you grab your flats?”

“I can’t switch shoes in the middle of a thing like this.”

“Pretty sure I read something about it being totally acceptable.”

“Where, in a fanfiction?”

“I mean, it was The Royal Romance so… does that count?”

She turns around as she asks and sucks in audibly. The silence is self-conscious; immediately makes Nadya smooth down her hair with a nervous hand.

“What? Oh no, what’s wrong? Speak, Lily, words!”

She finds herself enveloped in a tight hug instead of an actual response, which is both a comfort and jostles her nerves slightly. “Lil’…”

Her roommate’s words are choked with embellished emotion. “You look like a real adult. I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Oh—bull!” Nadya pushes her off with a laugh — but the compliment does bring a flush to her cheeks. “I look good, though? I’ve still got a bit to change up—”

The sudden, high-pitched buzz of the complex bell interrupts as argument. One, long noise before it goes deathly silent.

Lily’s beaming. “Well that was an awfully adult ring. The kind of ring fancy professionals use!”

“No, no no!” Nadya fumbles for her phone to check the time. “He’s early! He’s here! Why is he here why is he ringing the bell why is — Lily don’t you dare!”

But she’s too late to stop the bouncing, bubbly roommate from rushing to the comm.

“Buzzing you in! Come on u—ah!”

Her greeting turns into a cry of protest as Nadya yanks her backwards.

“What are you doing?!”

“I wanna meet him!”

Nadya gestures wildly around the apartment; she doesn’t need to explain herself. The place isn’t exactly in the best state. But who could blame them — the last thing anyone wants to do when they finish a night shift is clean and Lily… well, it was in a worse state before Nadya moved in. At least now there’s a small garbage can beside the couch for all the empty chip bags.

In the time it takes Adrian to knock on their door, the pair manage to gather up empty snacks into the trash and hide everything else inside the ottoman. Lily’s hair whips at her face as she tries to pin down Nadya for the door.

“Girl—what are you doing?” She uses a little too much force in turning off the running sink and they battle clumsily over a soapy plate before Lily successfully replaces it with a towel. “He’s not staying. You don’t need to wash the plates.”

“I—” She has to right herself, but Lily’s correct, as usual. “I panicked.”

“Uh-huh. Door.”

“What?”

“Door.”

A second knock startles Nadya to action. “C-Coming!”

The doorways of Raines Corp. must be specially-designed to make Adrian look like the average man, Nadya realizes, because there’s a towering, statuesque beauty to the way her boss stands before her. He even manages to make the chipped old paint job from the ‘70s look glamorous.

“Ready to get going?” Adrian asks by way of greeting; slides one of his hands out of his pockets and offers a crooked elbow like he’s escorting her to some fancy ball.

She almost manages to take it without incident. Almost. While she regains her balance from being unceremoniously shoved aside Lily busies herself with shaking Adrian’s hand with firm vigor.

“You must be the boss-man! Lily Spencer — roommate, confidante, and Nadya’s personal Bryan Mills.” The way her smile falters isn’t unfamiliar — Adrian’s furrowed brow has already lost him points in Lily’s book.

“I’m sorry — who?” he asks; only just manages to steal his hand back.

Lily scoffs, yet Nadya can’t remember an instance where someone did understand her right off the bat.

“Bryan Mills?” As though repeating his name will somehow jog Adrian’s nonexistent memory. “You know… ‘I have a very particular set of skills that make me a nightmare for people like you?’”

Before he can flounder too long, though, Nadya mouths the movie title over Lily’s shoulder.

“Oh, right, from Taken.”

Lily brightens considerably. “Oh, good! You’ve seen it!”

“Once, I think. I remember it playing on the plane…”

“So you know what I’ll do to you if my girl doesn’t come ho—”

“And we’re leaving!” Her voice raised and pitched high with panic, Nadya manages to hip-check her way into the hall. “When I get home I’m gonna kick your butt!” she hisses — and punctuates her threat by closing the door harder than necessary.

She really hopes she still has a job by the time she and Adrian make it to the stairwell. There are five, possibly six different apologies ready on the tip of her tongue but they die off with a quick glance. Adrian’s smiling — no — beaming in a way she’s not seen before. It makes him look years younger — less like there’s a burden on his chest. She allows herself a moment of relief, and strains herself not to ruin it.

They could be heading out for another evening at the office with the casual ease between them. How Adrian opens the door and only starts the car when she’s buckled in properly, and the light conversation about a meeting he has next week with the CFO of a recently-acquired company. Nadya fidgets in what she hopes is a subtle way the entire drive downtown — it would be a shame to ruin such polite conversation with questions about which forks to use and who to not make herself look like a fool in front of.

Then (all too soon in Nadya’s opinion) Adrian pulls out of evening traffic to park on the Gallery curb. While he steps out to flag down a valet she allows herself a moment of pure, unrestrained panic while looking out the tinted windows.

A red carpet has been draped out for the occasion; down the Gallery steps to stop on the sidewalk where one couldn’t get through the mob of onlookers, reporters, and photographers if they tried. It looks less like a Gallery exhibition than a Hollywood movie premiere. Makes Nadya aware of every stark flaw — from the slightly loose fit on her dress to the few flyaway hairs she couldn’t wrangle in.

“You absolutely cannot do this,” she scolds — an insult aimed to quiet her racing heart, “this is way beyond you. You’re gonna make a fool out of yourself. Nothing in life has prepared you for a night like this… just like your interview. Got that, huh? So… don’t fall on your face or murder somebody and you’ll be fine. Just fine.”

The passenger door opens and a gust of cool night air sends goosebumps racing through every exposed part of her. Adrian extends his hand.

In a stupor, Nadya blinks and it takes a moment for her to register what he’s doing. “Huh?”

He laughs, takes the initiative, and tucks her clutch in his armpit before pulling her from the car.

“Come on. Wouldn’t want to miss the hors d’oeuvres. You haven’t lived until you’ve had beluga caviar.”

Nadya follows — and readies herself to live.

#bloodbound #bloodbound mc #kamilah sayeed #adrian raines #kamilah x mc #mc: nadya al jamil #; my fics #oblv: bound by destiny #oblv: new chapter #lily spencer #nicole anderson

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highqueenjude · 5 years

Text

THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS + PROLOGUE OF TQON

Buckle up buttercups. Everything is under the cut, but you can read it here.

PROLOGUE

The Royal Astrologer, Baphen, squinted at the star chart and tried not to flinch when it seemed sure the youngest prince of Elfhame was about to be dropped on his royal head.

A week after Prince Cardan’s birth and he was finally being presented to the High King. The previous five heirs had been seen immediately, still squalling in ruddy newness, but Lady Asha had barred the High King from visiting before she felt herself suitably restored from childbed.

The baby was thin and wizened, silent, staring at Eldred with black eyes. He lashed his little whiplike tail with such force that his swaddle threatened to come apart. Lady Asha seemed unsure how to cradle him. Indeed, she held him as though she hoped someone might take the burden from her very soon.

“Tell us of his future,” the High King prompted. Only a few Folk were gathered to witness the presentation of the new prince—the mortal Val Moren, who was both Court Poet and Seneschal, and two members of the Living Council: Randalin, the Minister of Keys, and Baphen. In the empty hall, the High King’s words echoed.

Baphen hesitated, but he could do nothing save answer. Eldred had been favored with five children before Prince Cardan, shocking fecundity among the Folk, with their thin blood and few births. The stars had spoken of each little prince’s and princess’s fated accomplishments in poetry and song, in politics, in virtue, and even in vice. But this time what he’d seen in the stars had been entirely different. “Prince Cardan will be your last born child,” the Royal Astrologer said. “He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.”

Lady Asha sucked in a sharp breath. For the first time, she drew the child protectively closer. He squirmed in her arms. “I wonder who has influenced your interpretation of the signs. Perhaps Princess Elowyn had a hand in it. Or Prince Dain.”

Maybe it would be better if she dropped him, Baphen thought unkindly.

High King Eldred ran a hand over his chin. “Can nothing be done to stop this?”

It was a mixed blessing to have the stars supply Baphen with so many riddles and so few answers. He often wished he saw things more clearly, but not this time. He bowed his head, so he had an excuse not to meet the High King’s gaze. “Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise, but not before what I have told you comes to pass.”

Eldred turned to Lady Asha and her child, the harbinger of ill luck. The baby was as silent as a stone, not crying or cooing, tail still lashing.

“Take the boy away,” the High King said. “Rear him as you see fit.”

Lady Asha did not flinch. “I will rear him as befits his station. He is a prince, after all, and your son.”

There was a brittleness in her tone, and Baphen was uncomfortably reminded that some prophecies are fulfilled by the very actions meant to prevent them.

For a moment, everyone stood silent. Then Eldred nodded to Val Moren, who left the dais and returned holding a slim wooden box with a pattern of roots traced over the lid.

“A gift,” said the High King, “in recognition of your contribution to the Greenbriar line.”

Val Moren opened the box, revealing an exquisite necklace of heavy emeralds. Eldred lifted them and placed them over Lady Asha’s head. He touched her cheek with the back of one hand.

“Your generosity is great, my lord,” she said, somewhat mollified. The baby clutched a stone in his little fist, staring up at his father with fathomless eyes.

“Go now and rest,” said Eldred, his voice softer. This time, she yielded.

Lady Asha departed with her head high, her grip on the child tighter. Baphen felt a shiver of some premonition that had nothing to do with stars.

High King Eldred did not visit Lady Asha again, nor did he call her to him. Perhaps he ought to have put his dissatisfaction aside and cultivated his son. But looking upon Prince Cardan was like looking into an uncertain future, and so he avoided it.

Lady Asha, as the mother of a prince, found herself much in demand with the Court, if not the High King. Given to whimsy and frivolity, she wished to return to the merry life of a courtier. She couldn’t attend balls with an infant in tow, so she found a cat whose kittens were stillborn to act as his wet nurse.

That arrangement lasted until Prince Cardan was able to crawl. By then, the cat was heavy with a new litter and he’d begun to pull at her tail. She fled to the stables, abandoning him, too.

And so he grew up in the palace, cherished by no one and checked by no one. Who would dare stop a prince from stealing food from the grand tables and eating beneath them, devouring what he’d taken in savage bites? His sisters and brothers only laughed, playing with him as they would with a puppy.

He wore clothes only occasionally, donning garlands of flowers instead and throwing stones when the guard tried to come near him. None but his mother exerted any hold over him, and she seldom tried to curb his excesses. Just the opposite.

“You’re a prince,” she told him firmly when he would shy away from a conflict or fail to make a demand. “Everything is yours. You have only to take it.” And sometimes: “I want that. Get it for me.”

It is said that faerie children are not like mortal children. They need little in the way of love. They need not be tucked in at night, but may sleep just as happily in a cold corner of a ballroom, curled up in a tablecloth. They need not be fed; they are just as happy lapping up dew and skimming bread and cream from the kitchens. They need not be comforted, since they seldom weep.

But if faerie children need little love, faerie princes require some counsel.

Without it, when Cardan’s elder brother suggested shooting a walnut off the head of a mortal, Cardan had not the wisdom to demur. His habits were impulsive; his manner, imperious.

“Keen marksmanship so impresses our father,” Prince Dain said with a small, teasing smile. “But perhaps it is too difficult. Better not to make the attempt than to fail.”

For Cardan, who could not attract his father’s good notice and desperately wanted it, the prospect was tempting. He didn’t ask himself who the mortal was or how he had come to be at the Court. Cardan certainly never suspected that the man was beloved of Val Moren and that the seneschal would go mad with grief if the man died.

Leaving Dain free to assume a more prominent position at the High King’s right hand.

“Too difficult? Better not to make the attempt? Those are the words of a coward,” Cardan said, full of childish bravado. In truth, his brother intimidated him, but that only made him more scornful.

Prince Dain smiled. “Let us exchange arrows at least. Then if you miss, you can say that it was my arrow that went awry.”

Prince Cardan ought to have been suspicious of this kindness, but he’d had little enough of the real thing to tell true from false.

Instead, he notched Dain’s arrow and pulled back the bowstring, aiming for the walnut. A sinking feeling came over him. He might not shoot true. He might hurt the man. But on the heels of that, angry glee sparked at the idea of doing something so horrifying that his father could no longer ignore him. If he could not get the High King’s attention for something good, then perhaps he could get it for something really, really bad.

Cardan’s hand wobbled.

The mortal’s liquid eyes watched him in frozen fear. Enchanted, of course. No one would stand like that willingly. That was what decided him.

Cardan forced a laugh as he relaxed the bowstring, letting the arrow fall out of the notch. “I simply will not shoot under these conditions,” he said, feeling ridiculous at having backed down. “The wind is coming from the north and mussing my hair. It’s getting all in my eyes.”

But Prince Dain raised his bow and loosed the arrow Cardan had exchanged with him. It struck the mortal through the throat. He dropped with almost no sound, eyes still open, now staring at nothing.

It happened so fast that Cardan didn’t cry out, didn’t react. He just stared at his brother, slow, terrible understanding crashing over him.

“Ah,” said Prince Dain with a satisfied smile. “A shame. It seems your arrow went awry. Perhaps you can complain to our father about that hair in your eyes.”

After, though he protested, no one would hear Prince Cardan’s side. Dain saw to that. He told the story of the youngest prince’s recklessness, his arrogance, his arrow. The High King would not even allow Cardan an audience.

Despite Val Moren’s pleas for execution, Cardan was punished for the mortal’s death in the way that princes are punished. The High King had Lady Asha locked away in the Tower of Forgetting in Cardan’s stead—something Eldred was relieved to have a reason to do, since he found her both tiresome and troublesome. Care of Prince Cardan was given over to Balekin, the eldest of the siblings, the cruelest, and the only one willing to take him.

And so was Prince Cardan’s reputation made. He had little to do but further it.

CHAPTER ONE

I, Jude Duarte, High Queen of Elfhame in exile, spend most mornings dozing in front of daytime television, watching cooking competitions and cartoons and reruns of a show where people have to complete a gauntlet by stabbing boxes and bottles and cutting through a whole fish. In the afternoons, if he lets me, I train my brother, Oak. Nights, I run errands for the local faeries.

I keep my head down, as I probably should have done in the first place. And if I curse Cardan, then I have to curse myself, too, for being the fool who walked right into the trap he set for me.

As a child, I imagined returning to the mortal world. Taryn and Vivi and I would rehash what it was like there, recalling the scents of fresh-cut grass and gasoline, reminiscing over playing tag through neighborhood backyards and bobbing in the bleachy chlorine of summer pools. I dreamed of iced tea, reconstituted from powder, and orange juice Popsicles. I longed for mundane things: the smell of hot asphalt, the swag of wires between streetlights, the jingles of commercials.

Now, stuck in the mortal world for good, I miss Faerieland with a raw intensity. It’s magic I long for, magic I miss. Maybe I even miss being afraid. I feel as though I am dreaming away my days, restless, never fully awake.

I drum my fingers on the painted wood of a picnic table. It’s early autumn, already cool in Maine. Late-afternoon sun dapples the grass outside the apartment complex as I watch Oak play with other children in the strip of woods between here and the highway. They are kids from the building, some younger and some older than his eight years, all dropped off by the same yellow school bus. They play a totally disorganized game of war, chasing one another with sticks. They hit as children do, aiming for the weapon instead of the opponent, screaming with laughter when a stick breaks. I can’t help noticing they are learning all the wrong lessons about swordsmanship.

Still, I watch. And so I notice when Oak uses glamour.

He does it unconsciously, I think. He’s sneaking toward the other kids, but then there’s a stretch with no easy cover. He keeps on toward them, and even though he’s in plain sight, they don’t seem to notice.

Closer and closer, with the kids still not looking his way. And when he jumps at them, stick swinging, they shriek with wholly authentic surprise.

He was invisible. He was using glamour. And I, geased against being deceived by it, didn’t notice until it was done. The other children just think he was clever or lucky. Only I know how careless it was.

I wait until the children head to their apartments. They peel off, one by one, until only my brother remains. I don’t need magic, even with leaves underfoot, to steal up on him. With a swift motion, I wrap my arm around Oak’s neck, pressing it against his throat hard enough to give him a good scare. He bucks back, nearly hitting me in the chin with his horns. Not bad. He attempts to break my hold, but it’s half-hearted. He can tell it’s me, and I don’t frighten him.

I tighten my hold. If I press my arm against his throat long enough, he’ll black out.

He tries to speak, and then he must start to feel the effects of not getting enough air. He forgets all his training and goes wild, lashing out, scratching my arms and kicking against my legs. Making me feel awful. I wanted him to be a little afraid, scared enough to fight back, not terrified.

I let go, and he stumbles away, panting, eyes wet with tears. “What was that for?” he wants to know. He’s glaring at me accusingly.

“To remind you that fighting isn’t a game,” I say, feeling as though I am speaking with Madoc’s voice instead of my own. I don’t want Oak to grow up as I did, angry and afraid. But I want him to survive, and Madoc did teach me how to do that.

How am I supposed to figure out how to give him the right stuff when all I know is my own messed-up childhood? Maybe the parts of it I value are the wrong parts. “What are you going to do against an opponent who wants to actually hurt you?”

“I don’t care,” Oak says. “I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t want to be king. I never want to be king.”

For a moment, I just stare at him. I want to believe he’s lying, but, of course, he can’t lie.

“We don’t always have a choice in our fate,” I say.

“You rule if you care so much!” he says. “I won’t do it. Never.”

I have to grind my teeth together to keep from screaming. “I can’t, as you know, because I’m in exile,” I remind him.

He stamps a hoofed foot. “So am I! And the only reason I’m in the human world is because Dad wants the stupid crown and you want it and everyone wants it. Well, I don’t. It’s cursed.”

“All power is cursed,” I say. “The most terrible among us will do anything to get it, and those who’d wield power best don’t want it thrust upon them. But that doesn’t mean they can avoid their responsibilities forever.”

“You can’t make me be High King,” he says, and wheeling away from me, breaks into a run in the direction of the apartment building.

I sit down on the cold ground, knowing that I screwed up the conversation completely. Knowing that Madoc trained Taryn and me better than I am training Oak. Knowing that I was arrogant and foolish to think I could control Cardan.

Knowing that in the great game of princes and queens, I have been swept off the board.

Inside the apartment, Oak’s door is shut firmly against me. Vivienne, my faerie sister, stands at the kitchen counter, grinning into her phone.

When she notices me, she grabs my hands and spins me around and around until I’m dizzy.

“Heather loves me again,” she says, wild laughter in her voice.

Heather was Vivi’s human girlfriend. She’d put up with Vivi’s evasions about her past. She even put up with Oak’s coming to live with them in this apartment. But when she found out that Vivi wasn’t human and that Vivi had used magic on her, she dumped her and moved out. I hate to say this, because I want my sister to be happy—and Heather did make her happy—but it was a richly deserved dumping.

I pull away to blink at her in confusion. “What?”

Vivi waves her phone at me. “She texted me. She wants to come back. Everything is going to be like it was before.”

Leaves don’t grow back onto a vine, cracked walnuts don’t fit back into their shells, and girlfriends who’ve been enchanted don’t just wake up and decide to let things slide with their terrifying exes.

“Let me see that,” I say, reaching for Vivi’s phone. She allows me to take it.

I scroll back through the texts, most of them coming from Vivi and full of apologies, ill-considered promises, and increasingly desperate pleas. On Heather’s end, there was a lot of silence and a few messages that read “I need more time to think.”

Then this:

I want to forget Faerie. I want to forget that you and Oak aren’t human. I don’t want to feel like this anymore. If I asked you to make me forget, would you?

I stare at the words for a long moment, drawing in a breath.

I can see why Vivi has read the message the way she has, but I think she’s read it wrong. If I’d written that, the last thing I would want was for Vivi to agree. I’d want her to help me see that even if Vivi and Oak weren’t human, they still loved me. I would want Vivi to insist that pretending away Faerie wouldn’t help. I would want Vivi to tell me that she’d made a mistake and that she’d never ever make that mistake again, no matter what.

If I’d sent that text, it would be a test.

I hand the phone back to Vivi. “What are you going to tell her?”

“That I’ll do whatever she wants,” my sister says, an extravagant vow for a mortal and a downright terrifying vow from someone who would be bound to that promise.

“Maybe she doesn’t know what she wants,” I say. I am disloyal no matter what I do. Vivi is my sister, but Heather is human. I owe them both something.

And right now, Vivi isn’t interested in supposing anything but that all will be well. She gives me a big, relaxed smile and picks up an apple from the fruit bowl, tossing it in the air. “What’s wrong with Oak? He stomped in here and slammed his door. Is he going to be this dramatic when he’s a teenager?”

“He doesn’t want to be High King,” I tell her.

“Oh. That.” Vivi glances toward his bedroom. “I thought it was something important.”

CHAPTER TWO

Tonight, it’s a relief to head to work.

Faeries in the mortal world have a different set of needs than those in Elfhame. The solitary fey, surviving at the edges of Faerie, do not concern themselves with revels and courtly machinations.

And it turns out they have plenty of odd jobs for someone like me, a mortal who knows their ways and isn’t worried about getting into the occasional fight. I met Bryern a week after I left Elfhame. He turned up outside the apartment complex, a black-furred, goat-headed, and goat-hooved faerie with bowler hat in hand, saying he was an old friend of the Roach.

“I understand you’re in a unique position,” he said, looking at me with those strange golden goat eyes, their black pupils a horizontal rectangle. “Presumed dead, is that correct? No Social Security number. No mortal schooling.”

“And looking for work,” I told him, figuring out where this was going. “Off the books.”

“You cannot get any further off the books than with me,” he assured me, placing one clawed hand over his heart. “Allow me to introduce myself. Bryern. A phooka, if you hadn’t already guessed.”

He didn’t ask for oaths of loyalty or any promises whatsoever. I could work as much as I wanted, and the pay was commensurate with my daring.

Tonight, I meet him by the water. I glide up on the secondhand bike I acquired. The back tire deflates quickly, but I got it cheap. It works pretty well to get me around. Bryern is dressed with typical fussiness: His hat has a band decorated with a few brightly colored duck feathers, and he’s paired that with a tweed jacket. As I come closer, he withdraws a watch from one pocket and peers at it with an exaggerated frown.

“Oh, am I late?” I ask. “Sorry. I’m used to telling time by the slant of moonlight.”

He gives me an annoyed look. “Just because you’ve lived in the High Court, you need not put on airs. You’re no one special now.”

I am the High Queen of Elfhame. The thought comes to me unbidden, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from saying those ridiculous words. He’s right: I am no one special now.

“What’s the job?” I ask instead, as blandly as I can.

“One of the Folk in Old Port has been eating locals. I have a contract for someone willing to extract a promise from her to cease.”

I find it hard to believe that he cares what happens to humans—or cares enough to pay for me to do something about it. “Local mortals?”

He shakes his head. “No. No. Us Folk.” Then he seems to remember to whom he’s speaking and looks a little flustered. I try not to take his slip as a compliment.

Killing and eating the Folk? Nothing about that signals an easy job. “Who’s hiring?”

He gives a nervous laugh. “No one who wants their name associated with the deed. But they’re willing to remunerate you for making it happen.”

One of the reasons Bryern likes hiring me is that I can get close to the Folk. They don’t expect a mortal to be the one to pickpocket them or to stick a knife in their side. They don’t expect a mortal to be unaffected by glamour or to know their customs or to see through their terrible bargains.

Another reason is, I need the money enough that I’m willing to take jobs like this—ones that I know right from the start are going to suck.

“Address?” I ask, and he slips me a folded paper.

I open it and glance down. “This better pay well.”

“Five hundred American dollars,” he says, as though this is an extravagant sum.

Our rent is twelve hundred a month, not to mention groceries and utilities. With Heather gone, my half is about eight hundred. And I’d like to get a new tire for my bike. Five hundred isn’t nearly enough, not for something like this.

“Fifteen hundred,” I counter, raising my eyebrows. “In cash, verifiable by iron. Half up front, and if I don’t come back, you pay Vivienne the other half as a gift to my bereaved family.”

Bryern presses his lips together, but I know he’s got the money. He just doesn’t want to pay me enough that I can get choosy about jobs.

“A thousand,” he compromises, reaching into a pocket inside his tweed jacket and withdrawing a stack of bills banded by a silver clip. “And look, I have half on me right now. You can take it.”

“Fine,” I agree. It’s a decent paycheck for what could be a single night’s work if I’m lucky.

He hands over the cash with a sniff. “Let me know when you’ve completed the task.”

There’s an iron fob on my key chain. I run it ostentatiously over the edges of the money to make sure it’s real. It never hurts to remind Bryern that I’m careful.

“Plus fifty bucks for expenses,” I say on impulse.

He frowns. After a moment, he reaches into a different part of his jacket and hands over the extra cash. “Just take care of this,” he says. The lack of quibbling is a bad sign. Maybe I should have asked more questions before I agreed to this job. I definitely should have negotiated harder.

Too late now.

I get back on my bike and, with a farewell wave to Bryern, kick off toward downtown. Once upon a time, I imagined myself as a knight astride a steed, glorying in contests of skill and honor. Too bad my talents turned out to lie in another direction entirely.

I suppose I am a skilled enough murderer of Folk, but what I really excel at is getting under their skin. Hopefully that will serve me well in persuading a cannibal faerie to do what I want.

Before I go to confront her, I decide to ask around.

First, I see a hob named Magpie, who lives in a tree in Deering Oaks Park. He says he’s heard she’s a redcap, which isn’t great news, but at least since I grew up with one, I am well informed about their nature. Redcaps crave violence and blood and murder—in fact, they get a little twitchy when there’s none to be had for stretches of time. And if they’re traditionalists, they have a cap they dip in the blood of their vanquished enemies, supposedly to grant them some stolen vitality of the slain.

I ask for a name, but Magpie doesn’t know. He sends me to Ladhar, a clurichaun who slinks around the back of bars, sucking froth from the tops of beers when no one is looking and swindling mortals in games of chance.

“You didn’t know?” Ladhar says, lowering his voice. “Grima Mog.”

I almost accuse him of lying, despite knowing better. Then I have a brief, intense fantasy of tracking down Bryern and making him choke on every dollar he gave me. “What the hell is she doing here?”

Grima Mog is the fearsome general of the Court of Teeth in the North. The same Court that the Roach and the Bomb escaped from. When I was little, Madoc read to me at bedtime from the memoirs of her battle strategies. Just thinking about facing her, I break out in a cold sweat.

I can’t fight her. And I don’t think I have a good chance of tricking her, either.

“Given the boot, I hear,” Ladhar says. “Maybe she ate someone Lady Nore liked.”

I don’t have to do this job, I remind myself. I am no longer part of Dain’s Court of Shadows. I am no longer trying to rule from behind High King Cardan’s throne. I don’t need to take big risks.

But I am curious.

Combine that with an abundance of wounded pride and you find yourself on the front steps of Grima Mog’s warehouse around dawn. I know better than to go empty-handed. I’ve got raw meat from a butcher shop chilling in a Styrofoam cooler, a few sloppily made honey sandwiches wrapped in foil, and a bottle of decent sour beer.

I knock three times and hope that if nothing else, maybe the smell of the food will cover up the smell of my fear.

The door opens, and a woman in a housecoat peers out. She’s bent over, leaning on a polished cane of black wood. “What do you want, deary?”

Seeing through her glamour as I do, I note the green tint to her skin and her overlarge teeth. Like my foster father: Madoc. The guy who killed my parents. The guy who read me her battle strategies. Madoc, once the Grand General of the High Court. Now enemy of the throne and not real happy with me, either.

Hopefully he and High King Cardan will ruin each other’s lives.

“I brought you some gifts,” I say, holding up the cooler. “Can I come in? I want to make a bargain.”

She frowns a little.

“You can’t keep eating random Folk without someone being sent to try to persuade you to stop,” I say.

“Perhaps I will eat you, pretty child,” she counters, brightening. But she steps back to allow me into her lair. I guess she can’t make a meal of me in the hall.

The apartment is loft-style, with high ceilings and brick walls. Nice. Floors polished and glossed up. Big windows letting in light and a decent view of the town. It’s furnished with old things. The tufting on a few of the pieces is torn, and there are marks that could have come from a stray cut of a knife.

The whole place smells like blood. A coppery, metal smell, overlaid with a slightly cloying sweetness. I put my gifts on a heavy wooden table.

“For you,” I say. “In the hopes you’ll overlook my rudeness in calling on you uninvited.”

She sniffs at the meat, turns a honey sandwich over in her hand, and pops off the cap on the beer with her fist. Taking a long draught, she looks me over.

“Someone instructed you in the niceties. I wonder why they bothered, little goat. You’re obviously the sacrifice sent in the hopes my appetite can be sated with mortal flesh.” She smiles, showing her teeth. It’s possible she dropped her glamour in that moment, although, since I saw through it already, I can’t tell.

I blink at her. She blinks back, clearly waiting for a reaction.

By not screaming and running for the door, I have annoyed her. I can tell. I think she was looking forward to chasing me when I ran.

“You’re Grima Mog,” I say. “Leader of armies. Destroyer of your enemies. Is this really how you want to spend your retirement?”

“Retirement?” She echoes the word as though I have dealt her the deadliest insult. “Though I have been cast down, I will find another army to lead. An army bigger than the first.”

Sometimes I tell myself something a lot like that. Hearing it aloud, from someone else’s mouth, is jarring. But it gives me an idea. “Well, the local Folk would prefer not to get eaten while you’re planning your next move. Obviously, being human, I’d rather you didn’t eat mortals—I doubt they’d give you what you’re looking for anyway.”

She waits for me to go on.

“A challenge,” I say, thinking of everything I know about redcaps. “That’s what you crave, right? A good fight. I bet the Folk you killed weren’t all that special. A waste of your talents.”

“Who sent you?” she asks finally. Reevaluating. Trying to figure out my angle.

“What did you do to piss her off?” I ask. “Your queen? It must have been something big to get kicked out of the Court of Teeth.”

“Who sent you?” she roars. I guess I hit a nerve. My best skill.

I try not to smile, but I’ve missed the rush of power that comes with playing a game like this, of strategy and cunning. I hate to admit it, but I’ve missed risking my neck. There’s no room for regrets when you’re busy trying to win. Or at least not to die. “I told you. The local Folk who don’t want to get eaten.”

“Why you?” she asks. “Why would they send a slip of a girl to try to convince me of anything?”

Scanning the room, I take note of a round box on top of the refrigerator. An old-fashioned hatbox. My gaze snags on it. “Probably because it would be no loss to them if I failed.”

At that, Grima Mog laughs, taking another sip of the sour beer. “A fatalist. So how will you persuade me?”

I walk to the table and pick up the food, looking for an excuse to get close to that hatbox. “First, by putting away your groceries.”

Grima Mog looks amused. “I suppose an old lady like myself could use a young thing doing a few errands around the house. But be careful. You might find more than you bargained for in my larder, little goat.”

I open the door of the fridge. The remains of the Folk she’s killed greet me. She’s collected arms and heads, preserved somehow, baked and broiled and put away just like leftovers after a big holiday dinner. My stomach turns.

A wicked smile crawls across her face. “I assume you hoped to challenge me to a duel? Intended to brag about how you’d put up a good fight? Now you see what it means to lose to Grima Mog.”

I take a deep breath. Then with a hop, I knock the hatbox off the top of the fridge and into my arms.

“Don’t touch that!” she shouts, pushing to her feet as I rip off the lid.

And there it is: the cap. Lacquered with blood, layers and layers of it.

She’s halfway across the floor to me, teeth bared. I pull out a lighter from my pocket and flick the flame to life with my thumb. She halts abruptly at the sight of the fire.

“I know you’ve spent long, long years building the patina of this cap,” I say, willing my hand not to shake, willing the flame not to go out. “Probably there’s blood on here from your first kill, and your last. Without it, there will be no reminder of your past conquests, no trophies, nothing. Now I need you to make a deal with me. Vow that there will be no more murders. Not the Folk, not humans, for so long as you reside in the mortal world.”

“And if I don’t, you’ll burn my treasure?” Grima Mog finishes for me. “There’s no honor in that.”

“I guess I could offer to fight you,” I say. “But I’d probably lose. This way, I win.”

Grima Mog points the tip of her black cane toward me. “You’re Madoc’s human child, aren’t you? And our new High King’s seneschal in exile. Tossed out like me.”

I nod, discomfited at being recognized.

“What did you do?” she asks, a satisfied little smile on her face. “It must have been something big.”

“I was a fool,” I say, because I might as well admit it. “I gave up the bird in my hand for two in the bush.”

She gives a big, booming laugh. “Well, aren’t we a pair, redcap’s daughter? But murder is in my bones and blood. I don’t plan on giving up killing. If I am to be stuck in the mortal world, then I intend to have some fun.”

I bring the flame closer to the hat. The bottom of it begins to blacken, and a terrible stench fills the air.

“Stop!” she shouts, giving me a look of raw hatred. “Enough. Let me make you an offer, little goat. We spar. If you lose, my cap is returned to me, unburnt. I continue to hunt as I have. And you give me your littlest finger.”

“To eat?” I ask, taking the flame away from the hat.

“If I like,” she returns. “Or to wear like a brooch. What do you care what I do with it? The point is that it will be mine.”

“And why would I agree to that?”

“Because if you win, you will have your promise from me. And I will tell you something of significance regarding your High King.”

“I don’t want to know anything about him,” I snap, too fast and too angrily. I hadn’t been expecting her to invoke Cardan.

Her laugh this time is low and rumbling. “Little liar.”

We stare at each other for a long moment. Grima Mog’s gaze is amiable enough. She knows she has me. I am going to agree to her terms. I know it, too, although it’s ridiculous. She’s a legend. I don’t see how I can win.

But Cardan’s name pounds in my ears.

Does he have a new seneschal? Does he have a new lover? Is he going to Council meetings himself? Does he talk about me? Do he and Locke mock me together? Does Taryn laugh?

“We spar until first blood,” I say, shoving everything else out of my head. It’s a pleasure to have someone to focus my anger on. “I’m not giving you my finger,” I say. “You win, you get your cap. Period. And I walk out of here. The concession I am making is fighting you at all.”

“First blood is dull.” Grima Mog leans forward, her body alert. “Let’s agree to fight until one of us cries off. Let it end somewhere between bloodshed and crawling away to die on the way home.” She sighs, as if thinking a happy thought. “Give me a chance to break every bone in your scrawny body.”

“You’re betting on my pride.” I tuck her cap into one pocket and the lighter into the other.

She doesn’t deny it. “Did I bet right?”

First blood is dull. It’s all dancing around each other, looking for an opening. It’s not real fighting. When I answer her, the word feels as though it rushes out of me. “Yes.”

“Good.” She lifts the tip of the cane toward the ceiling. “Let’s go to the roof.”

“Well, this is very civilized,” I say.

“You better have brought a weapon, because I’ll loan you nothing.” She heads toward the door with a heavy sigh, as though she really is the old woman she’s glamoured to be.

I follow her out of her apartment, down the dimly lit hall, and into the even darker stairway, my nerves firing. I hope I know what I’m doing. She goes up the steps two at a time, eager now, slamming open a metal door at the top. I hear the clatter of steel as she draws a thin sword out of her cane. A greedy smile pulls her lips too wide, showing off her sharp teeth.

I draw the long knife I have hidden in my boot. It doesn’t have the best reach, but I don’t have the ability to glamour things; I can’t very well ride my bike around with Nightfell on my back.

Still, right now, I really wish I’d figured out a way to do just that.

I step onto the asphalt roof of the building. The sun is starting to rise, tinting the sky pink and gold. A chill breeze blows through the air, bringing with it the scents of concrete and garbage, along with goldenrod from the nearby park.

My heart speeds with some combination of terror and eagerness. When Grima Mog comes at me, I am ready. I parry and move out of the way. I do it again and again, which annoys her.

“You promised me a threat,” she growls, but at least I have a sense of how she moves. I know she’s hungry for blood, hungry for violence. I know she’s used to hunting prey. I just hope she’s overconfident. It’s possible she will make mistakes facing someone who can fight back.

Unlikely, but possible.

When she comes at me again, I spin and kick the back of her knee hard enough to send her crashing to the ground. She roars, scrambling up and coming at me full speed. For a moment, the fury in her face and those fearsome teeth send a horrible, paralyzing jolt through me.

Monster! my mind screams.

I clench my jaw against the urge to keep dodging. Our blades shine, fish-scale bright in the new light of the day. The metal slams together, ringing like a bell. We battle across the roof, my feet clever as we scuff back and forth. Sweat starts on my brow and under my arms. My breath comes hot, clouding in the chill air.

It feels good to be fighting someone other than myself.

Grima Mog’s eyes narrow, watching me, looking for weaknesses. I am conscious of every correction Madoc ever gave me, every bad habit the Ghost tried to train out of me. She begins a series of brutal blows, trying to drive me to the edge of the building. I give ground, attempting to defend myself against the flurry, against the longer reach of her blade. She was holding back before, but she’s not holding back now.

Again and again she pushes me toward a drop through the open air. I fight with grim determination. Perspiration slicks my skin, beads between my shoulder blades.

Then my foot smacks into a metal pipe sticking up through the asphalt. I stumble, and she strikes. It’s all I can do to avoid getting speared, and it costs me my knife, which goes hurtling off the roof. I hear it hit the street below with a dull thud.

I should never have taken this assignment. I should never have agreed to this fight. I should never have taken up Cardan’s offer of marriage and never been exiled to the mortal world.

Anger gives me a burst of energy, and I use it to get out of Grima Mog’s way, letting the momentum of her strike carry her blade down past me. Then I elbow her hard in the arm and grab for the hilt of her sword.

It’s not a very honorable move, but I haven’t been honorable for a long time. Grima Mog is very strong, but she’s also surprised. For a moment, she hesitates, but then she slams her forehead into mine. I go reeling, but I almost had her weapon.

I almost had it.

My head is pounding, and I feel a little dizzy.

“That’s cheating, girl,” she tells me. We’re both breathing hard. I feel like my lungs are made of lead.

“I’m no knight.” As though to emphasize the point, I pick up the only weapon I can see: a metal pole. It’s heavy and has no edge whatsoever, but it’s all there is. At least it’s longer than the knife.

She laughs. “You ought to concede, but I’m delighted you haven’t.”

“I’m an optimist,” I say. Now when she runs at me, she has all the speed, although I have more reach. We spin around each other, her striking and my parrying with something that swings like a baseball bat. I wish for a lot of things, but mostly to make it off this roof.

My energy is flagging. I am not used to the weight of the pipe, and it’s hard to maneuver.

Give up, my whirling brain supplies. Cry off while you’re still standing. Give her the cap, forget the money, and go home. Vivi can magic leaves into extra cash. Just this time, it wouldn’t be so bad. You’re not fighting for a kingdom. That, you already lost.

Grima Mog comes toward me as though she can scent my despair. She puts me through my paces, a few fast, aggressive strikes in the hopes of getting under my guard.

Sweat drips down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

Madoc described fighting as a lot of things, as a game of strategy played at speed, as a dance, but right now it feels like an argument. Like an argument where she’s keeping me too busy defending myself to score any points.

Despite the strain on my muscles, I switch to holding the pipe in one hand and pull her cap from my pocket with the other.

“What are you doing? You promised—” she begins.

I throw the cloth at her face. She grabs for it, distracted. In that moment, I swing the pipe at her side with all the strength in my body.

I catch her in the shoulder, and she falls with a howl of pain. I hit her again, bringing the metal rod down in an arc and catching her outstretched arm, sending her sword spinning across the roof.

I raise the pipe to swing again.

“Enough.” Grima Mog looks up at me from the asphalt, blood on her pointed teeth, astonishment in her face. “I yield.”

“You do?” The pipe sags in my hand.

“Yes, little cheat,” she grits out, pushing herself into a sitting position. “You bested me. Now help me up.”

I drop the pipe and walk closer, half-expecting her to pull out a knife and sink it into my side. But she only lifts a hand and allows me to haul her to her feet. She puts her cap on her head and cradles the arm I struck in the other.

“The Court of Teeth have thrown in their lot with the old Grand General—your father—and a whole host of other traitors. I have it on good authority that your High King is to be dethroned before the next full moon. How do you like those apples?”

“Is that why you left?” I ask her. “Because you’re not a traitor?”

“I left because of another little goat. Now be off with you. This was more fun than I expected, but I think our game is at a close.”

Her words ring in my ears. Your High King. Dethroned. “You still owe me a promise,” I say, my voice coming out like a croak.

And to my surprise, Grima Mog gives me one. She vows to hunt no more in the mortal lands.

“Come fight me again,” she calls after me as I head for the stairs. “I have secrets aplenty. There are so many things you don’t know, daughter of Madoc. And I think you crave a little violence yourself.”

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naturecoaster · 3 years

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Citrus Beautification Award to Floral City Organizations

On May 14 th the FFGC Floral City Garden Club will meet at 11:00 am at the Floral City Community House at the Town Center. Citrus Beautification Award to Floral City Organizations Members and visitors will bring their own beverage and lunch bag for enjoying at 11:30, followed by the business meeting at 12:00. Wearing masks and distancing will apply.President Susie Metcalfe will preside as the Club recaps the successful Annual Plant Sale and finalizes plans for hosting the FFGC District V Meeting. There is still time to register to attend the District V Meeting to be held on May 19 th at the Inverness Golf & Country Club. Send reservations to Kathy Lingusky at [email protected] or give her a call at (352) 56403704 bythe 10 May deadline.A highlight will be a presentation of the Pride Award by Keep Citrus County Beautiful at 11am. This Award will be jointly presented to the Garden Club and the Floral City Heritage Council. The organizations have joined forces for the work initiated to beautify the corner of US 41 and CR 48 and for the floral sculptures added to the Town Center. The Heritage Council has installed the antique-style street sign along Orange Avenue in the National Register Historic District.Following this meeting members and guests are invited to tour the gardens of two Club members, Susie Metcalfe and Carol Kanka. These members have waterfront property and are known for their well-kept landscapes containing a wide variety of plants. These civic beautification projects are being supported by Club fund raisers, and business and private contributions. Donations are gratefully accepted to complete the US 41/CR 48 Corner Project and can be sent to F. C. Garden Club, Inc. at P.O. Box 833,Floral City, FL 34436 noting “Civic Beautification.”At the gathering on May 14 th , Horticulture Chair Kathy Lingusky will share knowledge and lessons learned with the group. In her recent “Horticulture Hints” she was exclaiming the virtues of Epsom Salts for in-ground and potted plants. “Epsom Salts also known as magnesium sulfate, is made up of magnesium, sulfur and oxygen. It has a interesting history. Epsom is a small town in Surrey, England, just south of London, where the mineral was discovered during a period of drought in 1618,” says Kathy.“A local cowherd's man named Henry Wicker found that his cattle refused to drink from a puddle of water bubbling up in the middle of the town's common. He tasted it and found that it was 'bitter' water. However, he also discovered that any wounds that the cattle may have had when they waded into the water seemed to heal more quickly than normal. The rest is history,” Kathy states. “Epsom, England, was soon to become a spa town, And the mineral is now all the rage in gardening circles on Pinterest,” Kathy continues. “I've had a fair amount of personal experience with the stuff, and I swear by it. I put it in every planting hole I dig and in every pot I plant.”“Studies have been done on the mineral and they seem to suggest that its best use is that of a foliar spray – dissolve in water and spray on the foliage of the plant- and it is only necessary if the soil is low in magnesium. The only thing I have found that doesn't benefit from its use is cacti. For some reason the cacti that I have used it on have died forthwith!” Kathy concludes, “Please keep in mind that this is only my opinion and anecdotal evidence. Nothing more.”Kathy, also, shared in her “Hints” that she has had great success growing Campari's tomatoes from the seeds of salad tomatoes she purchased from a local grocery store. She had not tried these before and it was an education for her. She thinks they must be disease resistant, don't grow big or gangly and bear prolifically. Proof was in the eating since they taste just like the originals!Only one caution was expressed and that was that the clusters get so heavy that they break the stem, so individual clusters need to be supported..Visitors and new members are always welcome at the FFGC Floral City Garden Club gatherings, so plan to attend our May 14th meeting. Visit the Club website at www.floralcitygardenclub.weebly.comIncoming Club President Carol Wood may be reached at (813-235-3917 or [email protected]. Read the full article

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go-redgirl · 5 years

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Joe Biden Reportedly Involved in Controversial Early Stages of 2016 Russia Probe

NEW YORK — Former Vice President Joe Biden was reportedly one of the few Obama administration officials who participated in secretive meetings during the early stages of the Obama-era intelligence community’s initial operations regarding suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

That tidbit was contained deep inside a 7,700-plus word Washington Post article published June 23, 2017 in which the newspaper also detailed the highly compartmentalized nature of the original Russia interference investigation and the manner in which other U.S. intelligence agencies were deliberately kept in the dark. Part of the efforts eventually involved unsubstantiated and ultimately discredited charges made by the Christopher Steele dossier that Trump campaign officials were colluding with Russia.

Biden’s largely unreported role in the initial Obama administration meetings on the matter of Russian interference could spark further questions now that Attorney General William Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney to investigate the origins of the Russia collusion claims.

Only last week, Barr commented that the intelligence community’s early handling of the Russia investigation may itself raise questions. He noted that it was first handled at a “very senior level” and then by a “small group.”

In an interview on Fox News, Barr stated:

The thing that’s interesting about this is that this was handled at a very senior level of these departments. It wasn’t handled in the ordinary way that investigations or counterintelligence activities are conducted. It was sort of an ad hoc, small group — and most of these people are no longer with the FBI or the CIA or the other agencies involved. I think there’s a misconception out there that we know a lot about what happened. The fact of the matter is, Bob Mueller did not look at the government’s activities.

The lengthy Washington Post article from 2017 detailed the closed circle of Obama administration officials who were involved in overseeing the initial efforts related to the Russia investigation — a circle than was narrowly widened to include Biden, according to the newspaper report.

According to the newspaper, in the summer of 2016, CIA Director John Brennan convened a “secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.”

The Post described the unit as so secretive it functioned as a “sealed compartment” hidden even from the rest of the U.S. intelligence community; a unit whose workers were all made to sign additional non-disclosure forms.

The unit reported to top officials, the newspaper documented:

They worked exclusively for two groups of “customers,” officials said. The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials in government. The second was a team of operations specialists at the CIA, NSA and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more intelligence on Russia.

The number of Obama administration officials who were allowed access to the Russia intelligence was also highly limited, The Post reported. At first only four senior officials were involved, and not Biden. Those officials were CIA Directir John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and then-FBI Director James Comey. Their aides were all barred from attending the initial meetings, The Post stated.

The circle of those who attended the secretive meetings on the matter soon widened to include Biden, The Post reported (emphasis added):

The secrecy extended into the White House.

Rice and White House homeland-security adviser Lisa Monaco convened meetings in the Situation Room to weigh the mounting evidence of Russian interference and generate options for how to respond. At first, only four senior security officials were allowed to attend: Brennan, Clapper, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and FBI Director James B. Comey. Aides ordinarily allowed entry as “plus-ones” were barred.

Gradually, the circle widened to include Vice President Biden and others. Agendas sent to Cabinet secretaries — including John F. Kerry at the State Department and Ashton B. Carter at the Pentagon — arrived in envelopes that subordinates were not supposed to open. Sometimes the agendas were withheld until participants had taken their seats in the Situation Room.

Adding another layer of secrecy, the newspaper reported that when the closed Cabinet sessions on Russia began in the White House Situation Room in August, the video feed from the main room was cut off during the meetings.

The feed, which allows only for video and not audio, is usually kept on so that senior aides can see when a meeting takes place.

The paper reported:

The blacked-out screens were seen as an ominous sign among lower-level White House officials who were largely kept in the dark about the Russia deliberations even as they were tasked with generating options for retaliation against Moscow.

It was not clear what went on inside those meetings and how many included Biden’s participation. The meetings progressed during the period that the Steele dossier was reported to the FBI.

The dossier was cited as evidence in three successful FISA applications signed by Comey to obtain warrants to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The second and third were renewal applications since a FISA warrant must be renewed every 90 days.

Comey, Brennan and Clapper have been the subjects of a dispute in recent weeks over which top Obama administration officials advocated for the infamous dossier to be utilized as evidence in the Russia collusion investigation, as Breitbart News reported.

The dossier was produced by the controversial Fusion GPS firm which was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.

Last year, meanwhile, Biden publically defended the Obama administration’s handling of the Russia probe amid accusations that the Obama White House didn’t do enough and waited until after the election to make the Russia interference charges public.

“I’m sure I’m leaving stuff out,” Biden said last January at a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. “The bottom line was it was tricky as hell. It’s easy to say now, well maybe we should have said more. But I’ll ask you a rhetorical question — can you imagine if the President of the United States called a press conference in October … and said, ‘Tell you what, the Russians are trying to interfere with our elections and we have to do something about it.’ What do you think would have happened?”

Trump, however, previously suggested Obama’s not being forceful enough on the matter was politically motivated.

Taking to Twitter, Trump wrote:

The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win … and did not want to ‘rock the boat.’ He didn’t ‘choke,’ he colluded or obstructed, and it did the Dems and Crooked Hillary no good.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.