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She slipped from his lap and glanced over her shoulder. "But maybe I can help wake you up later."
Before he could do more than blink, the door opened and the footman who'd ridden next to the coach driver helped Nora descend.
Shaking his head to clear away Nora's flirting, he slowly stepped down and looked up. And up. For a two-story house, it was fucking huge.
A well-dressed male in gray slacks, silver waistcoat, black jacket, and a dark tie emerged from the front door. Nora smiled and went up to take the older vampire's hand in hers.
He was about to ask who the fuck he was when Nora said, "Evans, it's been far too long. It seems Swiftmoon Court is thriving under your care."
"With Mrs. Evans's assistance, of course." His gaze fell on River, moved to his pointed ears, and then went back to Nora. "Shall I show you and your guest to your rooms?"
"I'm sure Leo's told you everything." She gestured at him. "Dr. River Vale is my fiancé."
Evans sniffed, actually fucking sniffed like some damn TV butler, before answering Nora, "Yes. The news was quite a surprise."
In overly polite talk, it meant Evans fucking hated him already. It just meant River had yet another person to convince that he wasn't a complete bastard.
Nora ignored the slight—River remembered something about Yesenia saying it was better to address things in private here than in public—and gestured toward the house. "I assume you prepared the same room I had before?" Evans nodded. "Then I'm going to go for a walk in the gardens before heading upstairs. You can show River to his room, though, and get him settled."
River grunted and moved to stand beside Nora. "I can see it later. I'd rather walk with you and get the VIP tour."
She frowned. "VIP? What's that?"
"It stands for 'Very Important Person.' Sort of like a royal guest, I guess you'd say."
"Ah, I see. Well, my family's never hosted Queen Victoria, although Dark Lord Black has done so for some of her children; the shifters and royals have a long-standing relationship. Well, until the most recent generation, that is. But I shouldn't gossip. If Dark Lord Black wishes to discuss it, I'm sure he'll say something to you."
River didn't really care if the shifters were close with the royal family or not. He didn't hate shifters, but they'd always kept more to themselves back in the future than the vampires, at least where River had lived. Sure, he'd healed some, but they weren't overly buddy-buddy.
He motioned with his hand for Nora to walk—he was eager to get away from the sniffy butler—and he followed her around the house and into a formal garden.
It wasn't perfectly symmetrical like some, but had more of a natural feel with the plants almost overgrown, filling in certain areas. A small lake was in the distance and several paths wound through softly rolling green hills and a spattering of trees. Even birds chirped, as if determined to make the day nearly perfect.
He could see why Nora liked it here.
"River?"
"Sorry. I was distracted by the view. I'm sure the shifter and royalty stuff is fucking fascinating, but maybe just tell me what I shouldn't say to Dark Lord Black when he and his sister arrive."
She shrugged. "Well, avoid mentioning royalty, or his aristocratic title—he's a count, you know. Be careful of his sister and wait to see how to treat her. He's overly protective of her, and for good reason."
As Nora explained how the weakest shifters were often targets for sexual slavery—shifters being the most desired by humans since they had the highest sex drives—River started to understand that while the future had problems with sex trafficking, the laws were almost nonexistent in this time.
It was fucking dangerous to be a female in general. The same probably applied to children.
He most definitely needed to put his everything into training and building back his muscle. Nora wasn't completely helpless, of course, but River wasn't about to let any harm come to her ever again, if he could help it.
He nodded. "Okay, so wait to see how to treat this Grace and no asking about royalty. Gee, not sure how I'll accomplish that second one." Nora raised an eyebrow and he snorted. "Sorry. I'm American, remember? I haven't thought about kings or queens once in my life. Well except maybe when royal weddings were all over the news and I couldn't help it. Unlike with you all here in the UK, I don't have to care what the queen thinks." He paused, and added, "No, the only thing I ever had to really worry about was my father and the Fae Witch Council."
Nora plucked a tulip from the walkway and rubbed the pink petals against her lips.
And just like that, River was back to thinking of her naked and at his mercy. What he wouldn't give to blindfold her and tease her skin with the flower petals. He wondered if he could make her come that way, with only light touches against her clit.
Her voice snapped him out of his fantasy. "What happens if you break one of the council's rules? I know the inner workings of the council are probably different from your time to here, but I'm sure both have punishments for misusing or abusing magic."
Usually, fae witches kept most of the council shit private. But if he was going to marry Nora, he wasn't going to hold back. If Dark Lord Khan tried to punish him for it, he'd fight it. "Yeah, for sure there are punishments. They range from warnings to jail time, and in super rare cases, death. But you have to really hurt someone or take advantage of them to get the harsher punishments." He paused, but figured what the hell, if he was going to talk to anyone about his father's fucked-up ways, it'd be with Nora. "One of the main reasons Meadow and I agreed to run away and hide, leaving Yesenia alone to deal with our father, was because he wanted us to break those rules. Meadow, especially, would've been in some serious fucking danger. She controls lust and desire, and my father wouldn't care who was manipulated by Meadow's magic as long as the price was right. However, if caught, Meadow would've suffered severe penalties. If her magic was used on, say, prominent politicians, to influence laws or start a war, then she could've faced a death sentence."
Nora gasped. "He would've made her do that, even knowing it could mean death?"
