AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I say nothing, her smile falters. “Are you excited to be matched?”
I’m excited to be king. To rule better than my father before me. Although my father has retired, and I’ve already taken on the responsibility of the king, I get the official title when I wed. The titleandan increase in power to help me continue protecting the kingdom from the damn iron demons. “It’s a requirement I accept.”
She laughs like I’ve said something charming. “I bet you’re hoping to avoid women like that.” Then, she nods to some women in one corner.
Those women don’t have glamors. They stick together in the shadows, hoping not to have to mingle with the men, their masks doing little to conceal their unhappy emotions. These are the very few fae that have no desire to marry, to have husbands, or children, but their families have forced them to come.
My mother was like these women.
The magic claimed her. I’m told she wept as my father took her into his arms. That even with all the power of the magic, and being mates, she hated being claimed by him. A man I’m also told that I’m a lot like.
A shiver rolls down my spine.I will never marry a woman who will hate me for it. Nor will I marry a womanIwill hate.
My thoughts move to Cassia, and every muscle in my body tightens. It’s no lie that I… find her attractive. That I love her fire, her spirit, and the way she seems to fear nothing. But that’s not why I made this proposal to her. I made it because I’ve known her since we were children. She’s smart, capable, and deserving of all the goodness in the world.
Goodness, I couldn’t give her when we were children.
I grip the potion in my pocket. If she comes, if we do this, she will play the role of my wife well. She will never cause me embarrassment. She will make me proud in everything she does. And I won’t crush her spirit the way my father did to my mother because she won’t let me.
And because of our arrangement.
Lady Takara steps into my view. “Checking out the beautiful women?”
I shrug, not sure what she wants me to say. The truth, to tell her that I couldn’t care less about them, rises on my tongue, but I swallow it down. The temptation to tell her that the only thing I want to see is Cassia walking in almost makes me smile, imagining the reaction of the pathetic woman, but that too is information I don’t want her to have.
She runs her hand up and down my arm. “Just so you know, if I become your mate, you don’t need to limit yourself to only me.” Then she winks and saunters away, like I’m going to enjoy the view of her flat ass.
I shake my head, letting my gaze roam around the room. Searching for a woman in gold. Trying not to think about what I’ll do if she doesn’t show.
Gripping the potion again, I take a deep breath.She has to show. I refuse to have a true mate. I refuse to marry and break a woman into pieces the way my father did to my mother. Only through an arrangement, only with Cassia, can I treat my wife like a business partner instead of a spouse. Only with her will I have a unnatural distance between two married people that will keep both our hearts and souls safe.
But Cassia is still nowhere to be seen.
Show up, damn it.I check the clock on the wall. Thirty minutes until midnight, the time when every fae above the age of twenty-five will have the chance to find their mate. Anyone who doesn’t find their mate tonight will have a chance again in five years time, at the Summer and Winter Solstice when the stars have aligned again and their powers are strongest, to find their mate.
The woman needs to get here.My pulse picks up, and I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself. Trying to focus on the room and not the growing dread in my stomach.
Snatching a drink off a servant’s tray, I drink it quickly, then place it on another tray. Summer Solstice should be a night full of new beginnings, but I always dread it, especially this year. This year I’ve hit twenty-five years old, which means the universe is supposed to show me who I’m meant to be with. It’s supposed to pick some unsuspecting fae woman to be my bride.
I’m told that when the magic chooses your mate, it feels like nothing else. Like the instant you see that woman, nothing and nobody matters. That this person now owns your heart in its entirety, and you would do anything for them.
I find that hard to believe when I watch fae cheat on each other as regularly as the sun rises. My father, before his retirement, insisted that this was a choice for each fae couple. Many see the wants of the body as separate from the wants of the heart, but I don’t know how that could be possible. Knowing my luck, I would want a mate, heart and soul, and she would love my money and my title only.
The thought makes a bitter laugh swell in my throat, that I swallow down.
I pass a woman who I think I recognize. I stare at her, trying to figure it out beneath her mask. Then I realize she’s got a glamor on too. Again, I want to laugh. What’s the point of all this? There are no glamors in daily married life. Do these fae men and women really not think enough ahead to consider what it’ll be like when their partner sees the real them at some point?
A glamor certainly never helped my father woo my mother, or made my mother hate him any less. It certainly never made my childhood any happier, any less lonely, having two parents who never wanted to be in the same room together. Two parents who never wanted to be in a room withme.
I shake the negativity away. Cassia’s going to show up tonight, and I won’t have to relive my childhood in a different role. I won’t have to be anything like my father, nor force a child on her that she’ll hate.She’ll show. She has to.
“Sulien, my man, I’ve been looking for you!”
Cobar, the prince of the Spring Court, stands before me looking like some strange combination of an angel and a devil. His curly, honey-blonde hair is loose about his shoulders, and his clothes are even tighter than usual. He’s wearing the colors of the Spring Court, shades of green, and looks nearly as pretty as the women, but without the glamor.
“And I’ve been avoiding you,” I tell him, lifting a brow.
He throws back his head and laughs, then turns to survey the room beside me. “Anyone here tickle your fancy?” He asks, his lips parting into his infamous wide grin.
