Page 34 of Wedlock

“Princess, now isn’t the time. I apologise for leaving without letting you know, but urgent business drew me home.”

“So urgent that you sit here now at your desk flipping through,” she flicks some of the cards before me with her long, red fingernails, “greeting cards?”

I clench my teeth at her disregard for my privacy and the fact that she’s messed up my piles of letters and cards, those I’d scrutinised and those I’d yet to go through, with her ass and her indifferent swat.

Rising, I walk around to her side of the desk.

I know Revna, know her well, and I can see her ire is raised. She’s a very controlled woman, and she’ll punish me in a myriad of tiny ways for a long, long time if I don’t mollify her. The only problem is, I’m in no mood to play.

“Revna,” I growl, pulling her roughly into my arms and pinning her own behind her, “I know you’re angry, but I can’t give you what you need right now.”

“What I need?” She pouts, her eyes drifting from mine to my lips, “is for you to know that you can’t show up after two centuries, fuck me and then leave like I’m a two-bit whore at a roadside tavern.”

“Princess,” I shake my head and release her hands, running my own up her back and into the hair at the back of her neck, pulling her head back so she can’t avoid my eyes, “you’re tending towards the dramatic again. I was coming back, Iamcoming back, but I have urgent business to attend to.”

‘Business that I can’t and won’t tell you about. A wife I can’t stop thinking about, a lost brother, or two, another plot against my title, a pretend heir, a woman I left in the clutches of Spider who might be carrying my child, and a heart as heavy as the world no matter what, or who, I do, to try and alleviate the weight.’

“La!” she huffs, pulling away and pushing against my chest to force me to step back from her. “What’s going on with you? What could be so urgent that it keeps you from my bed? Is it your suicidal human wife?”

I sigh and turn from her to pour us both a drink. Clearly she still has the ear of my Queen if she’s heard the story I’d fed the monarch about Angie’s post-natal depression. But the last thing I need right now is any other news getting to the Queen that I’drather be kept in-house. I consider my next words carefully as I turn back to her.

“I can’t find my brother.”

She rolls her eyes and accepts the dirty martini I’ve poured for her, throwing the olive garnish into the empty fireplace and frowning as she takes a sip before setting the glass aside.

I raise an eyebrow, but say nothing. Last I knew, she liked olives.

“I’ve switched to classic,” she shrugs, answering my unasked question. “And since when did your brother’s whereabouts concern you. He was always a tear-away, surrounded by sycophants and prone to disappearing for months. I can’t believe he’s changed in such a short time. Why should you care where he is?”

“Two centuries bring a great deal of change,” I murmur, my eyes still on the martini she’s perched precariously on top of the pile of cards on my desk.

‘For fuck’s sake!’

“Indeed?” She snorts, clicking her fingers and pointing to the bar. “I said classic.”

I narrow my eyes at her as she cocks her head to the side, studying me, before sighing and flouncing to the bar to make her own drink.

“You do vex me, Falco,” she laughs as she mixes her drink, “but I like that you won’t put up with any shit — in that, at least, you haven’t changed.”

“You wouldn’t have it any other way,” I shrug.

“Oh, I’d have you any way I could. Any which way,” she smirks, returning to stand close to me, placing her glass down again and running her hand down my chest to my belt buckle.

Snorting, I turn, picking up her discarded glass and placing it on the coffee table away from where it might spill on precious documentation.

Sitting on the firm, leather sofa, I look up at her and wait for her to get to the point. If I know Revna, and I do, since it appears she hasn’t changed one bit, she wants something, something more than just a roll in the hay with an old flame. She’s here for a reason.

“Surely someone as important as you didn’t fly all this way for a fuck, Revna?”

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head in annoyance as she sits opposite me before pursing her lips and meeting my gaze.

“I’ve had to face a hard fact, Falco. Being with you this past week made me realise that I’ve never really loved anyone else, and it’s time I admitted this and acted on it. Mother and Father have given me an ultimatum. I must marry within the next decade and take on the throne within the century. I need my consort. I wanted to spend at least five hundred years enjoying my marriage before I had to become the Queen, but as the days tick by, time is dwindling. I’ve already waited too long. Your life seems to be not as you once wished. I think we could make each other happy, and I’m quite frankly sick and tired of waiting for you to recognise that we belong together. I want you to marry me.”

I frown and look down at my empty glass, swirling the whisky rocks around and listening to them clink as I consider what she’s said.

Finally, I look back up and meet her gaze. She’s supremely confident, I’ll give her that. But then, she always has been.

“Revna, any vampire would be over the moon to marry you and become your consort.”