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Draven lifted his lips to look up at me. “Who you are?”
“Who do these people all think I am, Draven? Your paramour, yes. But do they think I accepted the role willingly? Or do they think you brought me here as some kind of captive?”
A hint of amusement came over his face and then was gone, leaving his handsome features smooth. “A little of both, I suppose.”
My skin felt hot. Not only from anger, though I was disinclined to admit it.
“Do they care if this... this thing... we’re supposed to be in, is even consensual?”
Draven’s green eyes turned world-weary. “Most won’t care. I’m sure some are decidedly hoping it’s not.”
“What a wonderful people,” I muttered.
So this was my role. The Prince’s Paramour. The prince’s Valtain prize, more like it–at least to some. And evidently Draven believed it was in our best interests not to correct those misimpressions but to drive them along.
As if in answer, he ran a hand over the curve of my waist, down over my hip and along the swell of my thigh. I gave a sharp intake of breath.
“Hush,” he murmured. “Things are about to begin.”
The Queen Regent was rising slowly to her feet below. I watched as she stood, slender and graceful, clasping her hands before her.
“My son has seen fit to grace us with his presence,” she said, her crystalline voice carrying through the hall. “And so, we may now begin.”
There was a smattering of laughter and applause that quickly died away.
I looked around me as the Queen Regent began her speech. Down the row, past Hawl, where a small hand had popped out and was waving enthusiastically.
A larger hand clapped down on the small one, smacking it away. I watched as Javer leaned slightly forward with a frown, muttering darkly to his apprentice.
But Beks continued to grin down the row at me, kicking his childish legs out gleefully to kick the seat in front of him.
What was he even doing here? I supposed the apprentice of a court mage had a more prominent role than I had realized. That, or Javer simply didn’t trust Beks to be out of his sight for a moment.
I gave a small snicker, my eyes continuing to roam. They lighted upon Crescent, who was looking marvelously elegant in a tailored taupe and mossy green silk jacket and fitted pants. Then my eyes widened. Crescent’s hand was locked through Gawain’s.
I watched as the large, red-haired man turned to smile softly at his companion and gave his hand a small squeeze.
“They’re mates,” Draven murmured very quietly in my ear. “Their daughter, Taina, is at home with her nurse.”
“Daughter?”
I felt Draven nod ever so slightly. “A human child. She was orphaned in Noctasia. Gawain found her and they decided to take her in. They’ve raised her together from the time she was an infant.”
The idea that Crescent would make a fantastic father was hardly surprising to me. But the idea of the two men’s bond being so public and official was something else. In Camelot, liaisons with men or women had been commonplace enough–at least before Arthur’s recent restrictions. No one had frowned on it. Camelot was even proud of being more liberal than elsewhere in Pendrath. But while Lancelet may have taken as many female lovers as she liked and chosen to never marry, there was no formal process that I was aware of to officialize a bond between two men or two women.
Perhaps in the future, under a different monarch–one such as Kaye–there would be, I told myself.
For the first time I thought of Galahad and wondered, truly wondered, at his decision to cut romantic love from his life by joining the temple. Had he done so because he was really certain it was the right life for him? Or because he saw no better path because Pendrath had never provided him one?
“We stand witness to a clash of destinies,” the Queen Regent was saying below. “The path to the Umbral Throne is paved with harsh sacrifice, stained with blood, but above it all one contender shall triumph.” She held up her hands. “Those brave souls who dare to enter this crucible of fate, come forward.”
Draven shifted, sliding me off his lap, and bringing us both to a standing position.
He moved without haste, his hands never leaving my body, touching me almost lazily, as if the entire ceremony or the entire night for that matter was some sort of elaborate foreplay and not the kick-off for a deadly competition.
We stood with our bodies pressed together for a moment. His hands wrapped around my hips, his hot breath on my face.
Vaguely, I was aware that every eye in the room was upon us.
