Page 79 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

Drones

I was in our closet, strapping on my pink high-heeled sandals (maybe one day my feet would get used to the torture), the ones I’d worn the night I met Aleksei .

I was doing this because, while we were in the bath, we both got a comm that we would be having a semi-state dinner that night, considering Princes Tanyn , Cormac and Bainon were joining us.

So it was going to be fancy.

That was why I was wearing my silvery-pink dress in a material that looked like molten metal.

The other reason I was wearing it was because I had love bites all over my neck and shoulders, and it had long sleeves and a turtleneck.

I could attach a Medi - Aid to them, and they would fade, but no way I was doing that.

A part of me wanted to show Aleksei’s marks to the world.

But not at that night’s dinner.

The dress came to just below my knees. My hair was down. And I’d scanned in a photo and set the Ultra Paint to evening, semi-formal, sultry.

I did this because Aleksei and I were back, we’d had some more fun in the tub (just not the dragon sex kind), and even if everything was still a mess, I was feeling all kinds of sultry.

The dress also needed it since it was skintight.

While we were in the bath, staff came up to move me back to Aleksei’s room.

I refused to allow people knowing my private business to affect me.

Spikeback Castle would have a full contingent of breathing (not bot) staff, so this was my life.

Aleksei had explained this was for two purposes.

The first, it was important for the royals to employ actual beings.

The second, although the time was long gone when bots had glitches and bugs, and as such, could cause unexpected damage or do things in error, these two properties were too significant to take that chance.

The bottom line, as mentioned, this was my life now, it would be when we moved, it would be forever, so I had to get used to beings in my business.

Twenty realms of them.

I wandered to the sitting room where Aleksei (and Nova ) was lounged on the sofa.

But only Aleksei was sipping whisky.

He took one look at me, his eyes darkened, I congratulated myself for the sultry idea, and he set his glass aside and rose to his feet.

He came to me, his gaze devouring me from top to toe to top again (one could say mine were doing the same with him, and I’d already seen him in his suit before he left the closet), and he rested his hands on my hips.

“That’s quite a dress,” he murmured.

“Hmm,” I hummed, pleased with the pinprick stars in his eyes.

“I remember those shoes,” he purred.

Of course he did.

He took his gaze off my dress and aimed it at mine.

“Royal testosterone tantrum?” he teased.

I wanted to shout my joy that he was teasing. That we were here, not where we were. That he liked my dress, and he had his hands on me, and Nova had her daddy back.

I didn’t.

Because after he left the closet, a few things had occurred to me, and we needed to have them out before we went to pre-dinner drinks.

I arched into him and cupped his jaw in one hand. “ Before we go, I’d like to talk about a few things.”

He sighed. “ We need to talk about a number of things. I’ll fill you in with what I can after dinner.”

He was referring to political intrigue.

I wanted to talk about something else.

“Real quick, can I get into mine?”

“Of course, darling,” he murmured.

Gods, I loved this male.

“I think I made…not a mistake, but I said something which might have made you concerned about something else, and it was right at the time, but now, not so much.”

One side of his lips tipped up. “ Laura , I’m not understanding.”

“I told you how upset I was the last time you got angry at me.”

No humor in his face now, and the pads of his fingers dug into my hips.

“Part of what we need to talk about is your father,” he stated. “ But you’re right. I should have gone somewhere to cool down before I confronted you.”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m trying to say is, when you’re angry, you need to be angry. You need to express it. You need to share it with me so we can work it out.”

His attention had drifted to my ear.

So I cupped his jaw in both hands and called, “ Aleksei .”

He looked again at me. “ It upsets you.”

Yes.

What occurred to me in the closet was yet another nuance of what he’d done the last two days.

“As I think I’ve made clear, I can hold my own,” I told him.

“I don’t want you to fear me.”

“I’ve never feared you, not once, not even when your dragon came out and tossed me on its neck. When we argued before, it wasn’t fear I felt. Never . Upon contemplation, I realized it was shock, because I hadn’t seen that side of you. But also, anger, because, well…just because you pissed me off.”

I wasn’t going to tell him I was also triggered due to how my parents treated me.

I wasn’t doing this because I was keeping it from him.

No.

I was seeing now that was a false alarm, and more, I was safe with Aleksei in an argument, and we needed to be free to have them.

I couldn’t fight back with my parents. I could with Aleksei , with no ramifications.

It was a style of communication for a couple, a passionate one, that, if done right, could lead to working things out.

Both times for us, we did it right. We’d worked things out.

“Darling—” he started.

I moved my hands to his chest and pushed in.

“ Part of the last two days was that you needed to do what we did in the daybed. Part of it, I’m sensing, is that you couldn’t let loose like you needed to for fear you’d upset me.

And yet, nearly every conversation we had, you were goading me, so I’d get mad and we’d start fighting, and that way you would either manage to push me away in order to protect me from your attentions, or alternately, you could feel free to let loose like you needed to. ”

His lips thinned.

Mm-hmm.

I sensed right.

“I didn’t do it consciously, but yes,” he said. “ That was what I was doing.”

“I want you to be you, honey,” I told him. “ What’s happened with Errol is too much to bear on your own. You needed to offload.” I smiled. “ Pick a fight with me. I can take it. And then we can make up.”

“That isn’t fair. It wasn’t you I was angry at.”

“I’m not a flower, remember?” I asked. “ I’m a star. There is not one thing in the universe that makes a star burn less bright. Right ?”

At my words, he groaned, pulled me up his chest and shoved his face in my neck.

Okay.

I was taking that as he got me.

“You’re my flower,” he murmured into my neck.

So farging loved him .

He lifted his head. “ You’re also my star.”

I got up on tiptoe to touch my mouth to his.

When I settled back on my heels, I said, “ We best go.”

He didn’t want to, I could tell, but he nodded.

He tucked my hand in his elbow, so it was me who slid it up to his biceps and leaned into him as we walked to the door, Aleksei being careful to close the cats in behind us.

As we made our way to the stairwell, I noted, “ I know we’ll get into it later, but I take it from the little you said in regard to Arnaud and Errol , and the fact all the princes are here, Arnaud is behind all of this, and something not-so-fun is brewing.”

“Tanyn has some spies in Arnaud’s inner sanctum. When things started to go down with you and me, he directed them to ferret out if Arnaud might be behind it. Unfortunately , they learned of the plot to take out a member of your detail only minutes before it happened.”

That was unfortunate indeed.

However, since time travel hadn’t been invented yet, I couldn’t do anything about it, so I had to set it aside.

We continued walking even as he said, “ We’ll have this conversation now, since there really isn’t much more I can tell you, because most of it is tactics, diplomatic discussion and details, and although I’m interested in that, for most, it would be boring.

Though , if you’re interested in the details, I’ll share them. ”

I had a feeling I’d be part of that “most” because I could get down with the detail in every stitch of an elaborate gown from the Dark Epoch , but I wasn’t sure I could get fired up about details of tactics and diplomatic discussions.

“Tanyn is poised, Laura , should he need to take action,” Aleksei informed me.

“ Bainon and Cormac are on board. They all have few doubts, if something sparks in Sky’s Edge , all their reps will vote to support Tanyn , and this has been confirmed because many of the ones those males can trust have been polled, confidentially. ”

“Good,” I murmured.

“It’s just that we can’t be sure what else Arnaud might get up to in the meantime,” he warned. “ And he’ll be in this Palace tomorrow night. So we must be wary.”

“Great,” I pushed out sarcastically.

“They’ve lost their tie to us and our family, love. He won’t know it, until we share the memories that were scrubbed after it’s over, but Errol is our agent now. Whatever comes in Sky’s Edge may be ugly, but it shouldn’t last long.”

I was a lover of history, and not just the clothing part of it, so I knew many had said that before, and something ugly lasted far longer than anyone could expect.

I didn’t share that.

If Aleksei was going for optimism, I was going to stick with him.

By the time we made it to where we were to have pre-dinner drinks (it wasn’t the parlor this time), I wanted to throw my shoes out the nearest window, but the vibe of the place took my mind off my feet.

The king and queen were there.

He looked tired. She looked drawn. They were both talking to the Vinestrongs , with Aleece , who probably took some time with a spa-visor because she appeared her normal self, but her eyes were haunted.

This was expected.

What was unexpected was that Cat was alone on a couch, arms crossed over her chest, poison in her eyes aimed at Prince Tanyn , who was talking to Mr . Truelock , as well as Prince Bainon and Prince Cormac .