Page 73 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

Relationships

“B ollocks,” Gayle spat, throwing my tablet on the miniscule free area on the daybed where we were all curled and crunched together with martini glasses (in which, there were martinis).

FYI: I’d cued up the When the Gods Get It Wrong article and shared it with them all.

As such, she concluded, “ The gods didn’t get you and Aleksei wrong.”

Although I was heartened by the vociferousness of her response, I said, “ You have to admit, we don’t have a lot in common.”

“Tell me one couple, mates or just lovers, who have everything in common,” Gayle returned.

Hmm.

Food for thought.

“You both like animals. You both like hanging out at home. You both don’t like big crowds or attention,” Cat intoned. “ You both like real books and get off on vintage things and doing stuff they invented tech to save us from doing. I mean, cooking?” She pulled a face. “ Hells no.”

Aleksei and I did like all that stuff.

And it didn’t seem like very much, but maybe it was.

“You both also have a lot to get used to,” Monique put in. “ And you would, whether he was the future king, and you were surviving assassination attempts, or not. Relationships aren’t always free and breezy.”

“Actually,” Cat chimed in again, “ I was wondering when you two would get out of the first blush phase. It was lasting so long, it was beginning to get weird.”

“Totally,” Gayle agreed.

Moniqe nodded.

“You all thought we were weird?” I asked.

“Not in a bad way,” Cat said. “ It was awesome, how loved up you were, how well you got along. But couples fight.”

“There are misunderstandings,” Gayle added.

“Shit happens,” Monique summed it up.

“I’m not sure this is just fighting,” I said. “ He’s being so un- Aleksei , I don’t know who this male is.”

“Have you asked him what’s going on in his head?” Monique inquired.

“Not straight out, but I’ve noted his mood and—” I stopped speaking when they all groaned in unison. “ What ?” I asked.

“Telling someone who’s in a mood that you’ve noticed they’re in said mood isn’t a good way to help alleviate that mood,” Gayle advised, like she had a side hustle as a relationship expert.

Although she didn’t have this side hustle, she wasn’t wrong.

“It’s more about digging into it to see what’s causing his mood,” Monique added.

“I’ve mentioned Antheme , he says he’s not grieving, he’s angry,” I remarked.

“He has a dick,” Cat said. “ People with dicks don’t get sad, they get mad.”

Gayliliel and Monique nodded.

This wasn’t wrong either, and Mr . Truelock said much the same thing, without referring to dicks, of course.

“He’s also mentioned me almost dying, which obviously would put him in a crappy mood, but he’s taking that out on me,” I pointed out.

“Suck it up,” Gayle said as Monique reached for my tablet.

“I’m trying,” I replied.

“Well, if giving him grace isn’t working, then give him space,” Cat counseled.

I was all the way down with this option.

Sure, it was avoidance, but that could be good sometimes.

Right?

“I’m considering avoiding dinner,” I told them. “ I don’t want anyone else to notice we’re not getting along. And I agree, he needs space. Maybe he’ll sort himself out.”

“You don’t have to avoid him at dinner. I passed Timothee in the admin wing, and he said that Princes Bainon and Cormac had showed,” Gayle informed us all.

“ He didn’t seem happy that the king and Aleksei were going to be holed up with them in a meeting that would probably go through dinner.

But that was probably because he wasn’t invited to the meeting. ”

Timothee wasn’t happy about much of anything these days.

Though, I thought it was interesting he shared this information with Gayle , rather than being a jerk and ignoring her or something.

Maybe Aleksei sequestering him to the Palace was making him think on things.

These were my first thoughts because I wasn’t going to allow myself to think my next ones.

Those being why Princes Bainon and Cormac were here now, since the Masque was still two days away, and Aleksei probably knew they were coming when we last spoke, but he didn’t tell me.

But if they were already in a meeting, at least that explained why he didn’t come to me after the last one.

“Yikes,” Cat said as she looked at her watch. “ We need to get on that. Pre -dinner drinks are at six thirty, and it’ll take us an hour to walk there, but we only have ten minutes.”

I smiled at her, not feeling totally better about Aleksei and me, but it felt good to hammer it out with my gals.

And I did feel better, even if just a little bit.

Aleksei and I were new. We did have things in common. We were facing scary, unknown issues that we had no control over.

It didn’t excuse Aleksei getting cold and quarrelsome, but it explained it.

My gals were right.

I just needed to suck it up.

“Why were you reading about Aerin and Iphelia ?” Monique asked, waving my tablet at me.

“That article came up in a search about how the True Heir would react to the vulnerability of his Bride ,” I shared.

“Well, an epic fuck-fest is always fun,” Monique said on a grin, waggling her eyebrows. “ But you two don’t need to plant the next beast in the burner just yet.”

I one hundred thousand percent wanted to give Aleksei babies.

I mean, little black-haired baby females and males?

Definitely.

But she was right.

Not just yet.

“And anyway,” Gayle put in, “ Iphelia was a kickass warrior. No shade, babe, but you are not that. Your talents lie elsewhere. So her ‘vulnerability’ and yours are two different things.”

I felt no shade, seeing as she spoke truth.

“Okay, before we head out, I want updates on Bash ,” I said this to Cat and shifted my attention to Gayle . “ And Sirk .”

“Bash is still on,” Cat shared with a smug smile that turned wonky. “ And I’m nervous. He’s escorting me to the Masque . So he’ll meet Dad .”

We all gave her understanding looks, because Mr . Truelock might be pressing Cat to get her life sorted (meaning, in demon dad terms, find a husband), but he was even more picky about the prospects than she was.

And it seemed Cat actually liked Bash .

It had been just over a month since she met him, and they were still together.

It wasn’t a record for Cat , but it was promising. Especially since he shared her love of art, fine dining, he was generous, he had an impressive credit line, and pedigree (the last two more important to Mr . Truelock than Cat ), and reportedly, he was very good in bed.

“Sirk?” I asked Gayle .

“Okay,” she replied, throwing up her hands. “ I’ll admit. I’m into him. I’ll also admit, he was comming, but he’s stopped, because I’ve planted us firmly in the friend zone.”

Another collective groan rang out.

“What gives with that?” Monique asked.

“He’s Aleksei’s best friend,” she explained.

“It’s very sweet you’d worry about that,” I told her. “ But we’re all adults.”

“There was something…” she looked away.

“What?” Monique pushed.

She returned her attention to us. “ When he got all pissed on my behalf when they took me in for questioning, it felt…” Her focus homed in on me. “ I think it felt a little like what you feel for Aleksei .”

Oh my gods!

“Do you think he’s your mate?” I asked breathlessly.

“I know he’s not,” she replied, and my face fell, because she sounded sure of that.

“ And that’s just it. Feeling that little feeling I had when he was trying to protect me, watching you and Aleksei fall in love, I want that.

I want my mate.” She squared her shoulders and announced, “ So , I’ve decided, after this plot gets thwarted, I’m going on my quest.”

Whoa!

Awesome!

But wait.

“I did a lot of reading this afternoon, and it said sometimes fae don’t recognize their mates right from the jump,” I told her.

She nodded. “ I know. You have to be open for it. And with Sirk , I’m so open for it. I’ve searched deep because I really like him. But he’s not the one.”

She lifted a hand our way to stop us speaking, because we all were about to say something, and continued.

“I want to go there. I’m attracted to him.

I think he’d be great company.” She gave us a small smile that was a bit melancholy.

“ And he’d feed me well. But then, what if he finds his mate?

What if I do? What if it doesn’t end well?

We can’t have one of Laura’s best buds being weird around one of Aleksei’s best buds.

We’re all in this for a lifetime. And it shouldn’t be weird. ”

It was beautiful she understood we were all in this for a lifetime.

But it still made me sad, as much as it made me proud she was mature enough ( Timothee and Errol could take lessons) to consider herself, Sirk , their futures, and how something like this might affect them and the beings they cared about.

It still sucked.

“I’m super excited you’re going on your quest,” I said.

“Me too,” Monique agreed. “ Once I finish pumping my credit line enough to get the renos done on my flat, and if you haven’t found him yet, I’ll join you for a month. Though , then I’d have to pump my credit line up enough to be away from clients for a month.”

“That would be awesome,” Gayle replied, her green eyes lighting.

“I’m down with meeting you for some long weekends and mate trawling,” Cat put in.

It occurred to me then that the idea the problem with Aleksei and I was space, actually was part of the problem.

But only part of it.

He needed space and time.

He and I both worked. We weren’t together 24/7, but we were together a lot, and that togetherness had been intense from the start. He enjoyed work, but now he had all of this other stuff weighing on him too.

So perhaps he not only needed space to see to all the things he needed to see to, without having to worry about looking out for or paying attention to me, we also both needed time.

Time to deal with the loss of Antheme . Time to get to know one another better. Time to settle into our lives together.

The thing about that was, all of that made sense, but it didn’t feel right.

And it hurt my heart, and my beast didn’t like it either (at all), to think of giving it to him.

But everyone needed a break.

And they needed those on the regular.

Anyway, I wanted to support Gayle on her quest too.

“I’m in for long weekends as well,” I said. “ And maybe we can ask Alchemy if she could narrow down the search area.”

Alchemy was the witch that had her mystic sanctum in my building.

Gayle scrunched her nose. “ Do you think she’s actually a witch?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter. We’d have fun wherever we went,” I replied. “ She could just offer vacation suggestions, and I’d be down.”

“Too true,” Cat agreed.

Monique raised her glass. “ Suck ’em back. I need dinner to soak up some of this vodka.”

I should have requested snacks, because she was very correct.

We all lifted our glasses and did as told.

Then we all hoisted ourselves out of the comfortable but tight fit on the daybed.

Cat linked arms with me as we walked to the door.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

I took in a deep breath, let it out and nodded.

“Also, you totally need to tell the staff to stock your fridge and snack cupboard up here,” she went on.

I turned to her in order to refute this assertion.

“Don’t say it,” she said before I could say anything.

“ It’s their job. They like to have those jobs, since they get paid to do them.

And you have a job as well, actually, two of them.

The point of having staff is so they’ll do things to give you time to do the things you have to do.

” She jostled my arm. “ There are lessons Madam Garwah can’t teach you but you need to learn, because you aren’t Laura Makepeace anymore.

You’re her, of course. You always will be. But you’re also the True Bride .”

I absolutely was.

And I needed to remember that in all the things that were swirling around us.

Destiny put me here. Destiny gave me Aleksei .

And I needed to embrace my destiny.

“These include offloading and delegation,” Cat continued.

“ I know it doesn’t seem like it’s any skin off your nose to wait until someone can deliver the ingredients of martinis to you.

But first, it takes them a lot less time to stock the snack cabinet than it does to constantly be running up here with stuff you order. ”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Also,” she kept at it, “time is our most important commodity, and you need to learn how to stretch yours as much as you can, because you’ll have tons of stuff pulling at it, and when you need to work things out with your gals, you don’t need to be placing a call and waiting for vodka and olives.”

There it was again.

Time.

She pulled me closer to her as we kept walking.

And she finished, “ Trust me.”

I always trusted her.

But this was excellent advice.

It would feel weird at first, but I’d get used to it.

I hadn’t really thought I’d get used to living in a penthouse and being looked after by bots.

But once I was in, I barely noticed it.

And now I was living in a palace.

I nodded to Cat .

We then followed Gayle and Monique to the parlor where the family had drinks before dinner. Fortunately , a room I knew.

Then again, after last night, we all knew it.

Because—and I had to remember this above everything—something amazing had happened.

A gift I’d always wanted, I had received.

Through destiny and circumstance, we were now one big family.