Page 10 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

Five Hours

I sat on my couch surrounded by fabric swatches and five old-world paper sketchpads (they didn’t come cheap, but they were how I preferred to start with preliminary designs), three of which were being used as post-breakfast nap beds by one flame-point, one cream-point and one blue-point ball of fluff (though, Comet’s ball was a lot bigger than the other two).

It was lunchtime, and I was debating whether or not to use the gals’ lunch hours for a conference comm to discuss Allain’s visit.

However, as much as I needed to hash this out (and I needed that badly), I didn’t want to interrupt them at work.

With the showing coming up fast, Cat would be super busy.

Gayle was up to her neck in an upcoming rollout of a huge ad campaign her company had dumped a ton of money into.

And Monique , one of the top aestheticians in the city of Nocturn , was on a mission to do some renovations to her flat (this being why she wasn’t with us last night—she had a late client and then would be “ In my bath pod for two hours” (her words)), and as such, would be covered in clients.

No, it was better to do the conference comm after work when we had plenty of time to suss it all out.

Though, it was killing me to wait.

I sipped coffee (my fourth cup, I’d decided hyper-caffeination was the best way to go after my sleepless night and inexplicable morning) and tipped my head down to the new tablet sitting nestled on the crossed legs of my lap.

“Screen engage,” I murmured.

The screen came up to where I left it (obviously, I’d set up voice acknowledgement, but for some reason, I hadn’t changed the password).

It was the contact list.

At the top, it said HRH Prince Aleksei , and then there were two sequences, one labeled Office , one labeled Palm , with a subcategory of Muriel , Personal Assistant to HRH Prince Aleksei and again with Office and Palm .

Under that was Allain , Royal Aide to HRH Prince Aleksei (so that was what he was).

And he had three sequences: Office , Palm and Urgent .

I couldn’t imagine what would ever be urgent, but I was sensing that Allain was a thorough kind of human.

“Holo conference,” I mumbled my decision about what to do with the girls that evening, moving to reach to my Palm so I could sync it with the tablet, which, among other things, would enter my friends’ sequences. Then , I could send them a text comm to set it up.

While doing this, my ringer from the vestibule went again.

Ugh!

Well, that twenty-four to forty-eight hours didn’t last long.

It didn’t surprise me that Prince Aleksei might be impatient (or even insulted), and he’d send his aide to speed things up (or tell me off).

But it did annoy me.

I set the tablet aside, snatched up my Palm and snapped, “ Engage vestibule,” then immediately continued, “ Forty -eight hours isn’t what it used…”

I trailed off.

Because on the screen I saw HRH Prince Aleksei himself standing in the vestibule, staring right at the camera.

And if that wasn’t enough to strike me mute, the silken cords of his voice drifted around me as he stated, “ I was hoping to convince you only to take five.”

By the gods.

The True Heir was in my vestibule.

The prince was here .

“I—”

The one syllable came out strangled, so it was fortunate he interrupted me by commanding, “ Laura , let me in.”

“Allow entry,” I pushed out.

He disappeared off camera and I sat frozen.

Then I leaped off the couch, sending three cats flying, and raced to the bathroom.

I looked in the mirror.

My blonde hair was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, the haphazard part being tendrils falling around my face and neck.

I tried to tell myself it looked sexy-messy-cute, but I wasn’t quite able to convince myself of that.

I also didn’t have that first swipe of cosmetics on.

I was one of those gals who swung both ways.

I could go cosmetics-free (say, if I was nipping out to get a croissant and coffee from Mr .

Tanugu ), or I could go hog wild ( I’d splurged on one of the best cosme-masks on the market, but I also had the brushes, sponges, pots, bottles and palettes, because sometimes, I liked to paint my own face).

Thus, a clean face didn’t bother me (much).

I still would prefer to be made up for a visit from the prince.

And I was wearing an ivory lounge outfit with a cropped, heavy-knit top that wasn’t much to look at from the front but had peekaboo overlapping panels at the back that made it kind of sexy.

On my bottom half were drawstring joggers in matching material that were just not much (though I liked to think they did nice things for my behind).

The outfit had been a gift from Ernesta Transcendica after I’d used several pieces of hers in Rain and Pavements (and put her on the map, if I did say so myself, but whoever said it, it would be true, Princess Aleece herself (oh, and Princess Anna too) had attended Ernesta’s last three runway shows, so there was that). In other words, it was a great set.

But it wasn’t what you’d want to entertain a prince in.

I didn’t have time to slap on my cosme-mask, even on a setting of “natural, casual, at home,” which only took five minutes. I definitely didn’t have time to don my mane-mate to do something with my hair.

The door ringer sounded.

Shit, I forgot to open the door.

Okay, okay, okay.

I would have to do this as just me.

I raced out of the bathroom, calling, “ Open door.”

It did its thing, and Prince Aleksei sauntered in.

I rocked to a halt, having no choice but to allow my brain and body to respond to his presence in my space. It did this by bolting through me, sparking a myriad of pleasant, terrifying and stunned embers that burned, shook and soothed every inch of me.

His suit was black, his shirt blue-black, both attractive, both clearly tailored for him, both in material I might weep if I ever had the opportunity to work with it.

His thick black hair was brushing his collar and curving around his ear in a way my finger itched to trace that delectable lock.

No. It wasn’t an itch.

It was a longing.

His head turned my way, and my breath caught.

It was the first time I’d truly seen his famous eyes, no shadow obscuring their direct hit, which was what it felt like.

Like I’d been struck by a laser stream.

They were what identified him as the first True Heir of the realm in two centuries.

I remembered when the change had happened for him (he’d been thirteen, so I’d been nine). I also remembered the exhilarated announcement from the Palace . And I remembered the week of celebrations it had brought on for the entire realm.

Right now, they were a cloudy sky-blue.

The exact color of the sky outside.

They would change to whatever the color of the sky was, that being the magic that denoted a True Heir .

The current color seemed stark in his tanned face, and by Beelzebub , it was astonishing .

That was laser hit one.

Laser hit two was his sheer size.

I knew he was tall and built, you couldn’t miss it in his public appearances, how he often dwarfed anyone around him.

But last night, I’d been so muddled by all that was happening, it hadn’t struck me just how much of him there was.

And how delicious was every inch.

It was then, the smell permeated the tumbles of my brain.

My gaze jolted down to his hands.

In one, his fingers were wrapped around the handle of a drink carrier that held two beverages.

In the other was a bag printed in well-known blue and yellow stripes.

He lifted the bag, turning it my way, exposing the illustration on the broad side of the peg-legged, wild-haired, patch-eyed, maniacally grinning Captain Jacques of Captain Jacques’s Fish and Chips .

As my stupefied gaze took in Captain Jacques , Prince Aleksei’s silk wove around me. “ I thought we’d share lunch.”

I forced my eyes to his. “ You …you bought me Captain Jacques’s ?”

“You piqued my curiosity.”

Right.

Well.

Dang.

That was…

Holy Lilith .

It was sweet, and…and…

Actually cute .

Uh…

Wow .

Prince Aleksei could be cute .

He glanced around my space, and more embers sparked, these tense and anxious.

My loft was large, seeing as it took up the whole floor.

And it was every inch me .

What it was not, was elegant or palatial.

Along the left side of the loft was my bathroom, which had doors to the main space and to my closet, something that separated it from my bedroom.

In front of that wall was my dining room table, an oval of glass over curved lines of wood slashing in various ways to support it. It hosted eight comfortable, upholstered chairs, those also a study of curves, in cream. Over this, three crystal-covered lamp drones hovered, currently unlit.

To the back was a long bar with four mismatched stools on the outside, a variety of cookware hanging from a rack above it.

Opposite , there was a long counter and the uninterrupted slant of windows (which I now saw, with a sinking stomach, needed to be cleaned, inside and out). All of this made up my kitchen.

The middle of the space was taken up with my wide, deep couch and four armchairs arranged around a circular table.

At the corner back right, facing the kitchen (and the windows) was a big, old-fashioned drafting desk for use when I wanted to sit at one and work, but not go down to my studio.

The wings to its sides and the trays stationed under it were cluttered with a disorganized rainbow of colored pencils and pens.

At the corner right front windows, there was a chaise longue that had an elaborate gold hook lamp drone drifting above it, a colorful silk, tasseled shawl thrown over it, and an antique, tri-legged table at its side.

There were various rugs of differing sizes and styles under these furniture arrangements or simply scattered about willy-nilly, these covering the wood-planked floors.