Page 11 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

And the right-side wall had its entire lower half covered in built-in shelves, where I stored my small (but growing, and very precious) collection of real books (the ones made of paper), along with bits and pieces I’d found that intrigued me or I thought were pretty.

Sitting on top of these, between the windows, were two large shadowboxes, one displaying the famous, slinky dress the character Reeva wore in Rain and Pavements , a garment of my own design that had become iconic to that show.

The other held the vintage-inspired undergarments the character Porcelain wore in the famous sex scene in Sheets (something I’d also designed).

Across from this, adorning the wall by the dining room table, also in a shadow box, was the massive gown I’d created for The Sunny Glade .

The intricate embroidery, tiny lace ruffles, satin bows, delicate piping, slender velvet belt with its oval diamanté fastener and extraordinary seam work, draping and ruching were what earned my first award nomination.

This dress, in the colors of a peach, from fresh to ripe, was displayed with the intricate, creamy-peach gossamer bow that had been tied around the actress’s neck pinned above it, and the blushing-peach satin and grosgrain tri-cornered cap with its bruised-peach feather situated in the frame at the top.

Mr. Truelock called it a work of art, and I tended to agree. I was super proud of it.

But it wasn’t a sculpture by LeMond or a watercolor by Arrivi .

“Considering the content of our repast, shall we adjourn to the couch?” Prince Aleksei suggested.

Fabulous.

I wore no cosmetics, my hair was in a ponytail, my outfit was on the lower scale of cute (until you saw the back, which he had not) and I was being a bad hostess.

Well, at least he didn’t seem put off by my eclectic space.

“Of course,” I replied, swinging an arm toward the couch in a belated invitation.

He moved that way and sat, saying, “ I didn’t know your preference, so I called the club and requested the manager ask the bartender who served you. He said you ordered a pink fizz. So I deduced you enjoyed sweet and tart, and brought you a grape sparkle.”

Grape sparkle sodas were my favorite .

And the effort he put behind that wasn’t cute, it was just sweet.

But…wait.

“You went yourself to Captain Jacques’s ?” I asked.

“I hovered through their flyby,” he murmured, pulling one of the beverages out and setting it on the table in front of the empty side of the couch, all while I tried to wrap my mind around the idea of Prince Aleksei piloting his craft through a fast-food flyby.

He then started to unearth the food.

So, of course, Comet joined him.

And by joining him, I meant that Comet hefted his great cat weight up, perched all four paws on the prince’s thigh and aimed his meddlesome, sunken nose toward the food.

“Who’s this creature?” the prince asked, his attention on Comet , as it would of course be. When Comet didn’t want to be ignored, he wasn’t.

I headed toward the couch, offering, “ You can push him off. He won’t like it. But he’ll eventually get over it.”

He turned to me. “ That’s not an answer to my question.”

Well then.

I sat and shared, “ He’s Comet . And no, as you can tell, I do not starve him, no matter what he says.

And he’s not allowed treats, or Dr . T will yell at us again during his annual.

He’s had his morning kibble. Later , he’ll laze on his back while Nova and Jupiter play with the kitty-light drone, instead of joining in and getting his doctor-mandated exercise.

As such, I fear I’ll go into the annals of Bad Cat Moms when he gets arthritis at age four. ”

I was sitting as far from him as I could get, but I was close enough to see clearly as the prince wrapped his long fingers around the back of Comet’s neck, and I noted through the thick, creamy fur, his thumb stroking.

Watching this, I got a melty feeling in two places. One , around the left side of my chest. The other, parts south.

Comet looked from the bag of food to the prince and stated, “ Meow .”

“That’s not what your mother says,” Prince Aleksei replied.

Terrific.

He spoke Comet .

“Meow!” Comet dissented.

“I would give you fried chicken formed in logs. But it isn’t my choice. You need to talk to your mother.”

Totally spoke Comet .

Comet’s baby-blue eyes glared at him, then he moved them to me.

Prince Aleksei curved his hand under Comet’s belly, lifted him and gently dropped him to his golden paws on the floor.

Comet tipped his grouchy face toward the prince and griped, “ Meow !”

“Sorry, buddy,” the prince mumbled.

Okay.

Um.

Who was this guy?

Comet decided to circle the prince’s ankles in a last-ditch attempt at changing his mind while Nova decided to say hi, jumping into the space between us and peering up at him with her trusting round blue eyes and adorable scrunchy face.

“Hello there,” Prince Aleksei greeted her.

It took her a second, but she was female, so that wasn’t a very long second before she placed one paw on his thigh as her invitation to show some love.

He accepted and stroked her spine while he asked, “ How many of these do you have?”

“Three, but don’t worry. Jupiter is timid. He barely comes out even for me.”

The sky of his eyes came to mine, and I felt a lazy lurch in my chest.

Oh my. Was my phantom beast back?

“Do you intend to get number four?” he inquired.

“I’d absolutely get another kitty.” Or two. “ But I worry Comet would eat them.”

A deep, velvety chuckle rolled from his chest, and no, the phantom wasn’t back. Because that lurched in my belly (okay, no, not there…full disclosure: it throbbed in regions south).

He stopped stroking Nova (who didn’t mind, she never did, but then again, she was a cat and could curl into a ball and lick her paw at his hip, which was what she decided to do next).

The food was exhumed, one blue-and-yellow-striped parcel for me, the other he set aside before upending the bag and a variety of sauces rained on the table.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I told them to give us two of everything,” he explained.

Seriously.

He could have saved me and my gals a lot of intense dissection last night if he’d been even slightly like this guy at the club.

I tore my attention from him and looked to the sauces. Spoiled for choice, I was my usual indecisive.

But who was I kidding?

For Captain Jacques’s chicken oars, it was always herbed cream sauce, and for the fries, it was garlic aioli.

I grabbed my packets, split them open, perched them in my schooner and nabbed an oar.

I was munching when the prince queried, “ The fish is greasier than this?”

My gaze flew to his face to see his handsome features fixed in a picture of sheer disbelief.

I wanted to laugh, but I was horrified.

I mean, he probably frequently ate foie gras (diabolical), which wasn’t that healthy.

But if he had a hankering for strawberries, they’d jet them in supersonic, fresh from Land’s End .

“I could…”

I faltered as my mind mentally scanned the contents of my integrated Chill - Cupboard / Cook - Companion as to what I could program up for him.

When was the last time I’d sent in a food supply order?

“Calm, Laura ,” Prince Aleksei said in a low, soothing voice. “ They’re very good, as food like this tends to be. But they’re also greasy.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

His eyes dropped to my mouth (and yep, more sensation in those regions south).

Fortunately, his attention slid over the seating area, and before he took another bite of his oar, he noted, “ You’re working.”

“Yes,” I said, though I wasn’t working as such. I was trying to work. But he’d long since interrupted me before he even showed up.

He chewed, swallowed, I watched his corded throat introduce the food into his stomach, I worried his beast’s sense of smell would share precisely what was happening in my regions south, and he asked, “ Did I interrupt you?”

I shook my head, shaking some sense into it ( I hoped) while I did.

This was just a male.

A rich one. A handsome one. And recent evidence suggested possibly even a sweet and thoughtful one.

But just a male.

“No, I’m kind of stymied.”

“Not that I can help, but I’m interested. How are you stymied?”

I squinted my eyes at him. “ I take it you know I’m a costume designer.”

He nodded once, his gaze sharp, and I knew he was studying me closely, missing nothing. “ Yes . I’ve had a limited brief on you.”

Mm-hmm.

I decided to set that aside, for now.

“Well, I’m doing a period piece. It’s early days, so I have time.

A lot of pre-production stuff is going on.

But part of that pre-production stuff is me giving them ideas of where I’d like to head with the design so they can sign off, and then I can get stuck in designing. And I’m not sure where to take it.”

“What’s the period?”

“The Troll Invasion .”

He nodded again, this time more than once, “ Year of the Dragon , thirteen twenty-four. Art was interesting then, most of it rough, due to the rudimentary implements and materials they had to use. I never noticed it, but I can imagine the artists didn’t tend to spend a good deal of time documenting what people were wearing. ”

“No, I can get a sense of that,” I told him. “ It’s the troll skin that’s throwing me.”

As my work had wont to do, and since we were talking about it, I got into it. I set my schooner on the table and reached for some swatches I’d been trying, and failing to make work.

I fanned out the leathery, scaly, spiky pieces in my fingers and flapped them at him.

“I’ve seen you and your brothers wearing the troll skins, but only in pics.

The hero appears in one in the final scene, the big climax that shares he was victorious, and he has the skin to prove it.

Not to mention, the SFX people need a direction to go with building the creatures.

I want to get it right, but I can’t get the feel of it. I just know none of these are it.”

I tossed the swatches onto the table and kept blathering.