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A brief flicker of exasperation crossed Stefan’s face. I never stayed the night with him. At first, I think he enjoyed how aloof I was, but after a while he began to press me to stay. But no matter how late it was, I always got out of his bed and made my way back to my place. I would often show up the next morning and climb right back into his bed, like I had this morning. But I never stayed the night.
This was what drove Stefan crazy about me, according to him. But I knew it was also whatmadehim crazy about me. A guy like Stefan, who was so used to women throwing themselves at him on and off the dance floor, was appreciative that I always kept him guessing.
“I should probably get going too,” he said. “I have to meet up with Nina soon. I’m to entertain her and Gloria again this afternoon,” he said, trying to sound put out.
Ah, there it is.
I’d been waiting for Stefan’s parry to my early departure from his gig last night and my mention of my night with Luke.
Mentioning the fact that he was now consort to Lady Nina Kearing, after he had abandoned Lady Tragon’s service, was his go-to move. Stefan brought up Nina any time he felt I was getting a leg up on him. He would allude to the fact that he was consort if he thought it would score him a couple of points in the game he and I constantly played. I thought it was ironic, given the fact that he was actually quite sensitive about the whispers around the High Court that he had simply traded being whore for House Tragon for being whore to House Kearing.
This was the game we played, but unlike the game I once played with Jay, I was unsure that the game between Stefan and me had ever been fun. We had never agreed to be exclusive. In fact, that was an impossibility given Stefan’s role as consort to House Kearing. But that did not stop us from engaging in a war of petty jealousies. We took turns trying to hurt each other while pretending we were not doing exactly that. Our entire relationship was just a perpetual settling of scores, even though neither of us could even recall who’d scored the first point.
But before the games started, it had been fun with Stefan. Committed to sabotaging my relationship with Jay, I had moved from Jay’s bed to Stefan’s almost immediately. It was the only way I could figure out how to not end up back with Jay. I knew if I didn’treallyfuck it up with Jay, I would just go back to him, and he would take me back. I needed to not think about Jay and the way things went down. The way I had practically ripped his heart out in return for everything he had given me and everything he had done for me.
I reached the hallway between the front door and his bedroom and bent down to pick up my bra. Stefan beat me to it. He stood before me, my white silky bra hanging from a single finger, a grin on his face.
“I’ll trade you,” he said playfully. “Your bra for your panties?” He gestured to the matching white thong I had already managed to find and put on.
“Well, that would be kind of counterproductive, don’t you think? Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked.
He isn’t as irresistible as he thinks he is, I thought.Well, not entirely, I conceded taking in the view of Stefan wearing nothing but the freckles speckled across his nose.Not without a guitar in his hand.
I had been taken by Stefan’s voice and his hands on a guitar from the first moment I laid eyes on him. My draw to him was not purely organic, however. Early on, Stefan had admitted that his musical skills were enhanced by his magical abilities. As a performer with a light affinity, his magic enabled him to make any crowd beholden to him—he could sing, dance, play an instrument, or tell a story and captivate any room full of people. Stefan had admitted that his abilities had diminished as the magic continued to dull, but he didn’t think his particular form of magic was as impacted as others.
“Alarie, stay. Oh, won’t you stay awhile for me, Alarie?” Stefan sang in his honeyed voice as he pulled me back toward the bed.
“That’s not fair,” I protested, but I gave in to his tugging, falling on top of him on the bed.
* * * *
Lying back in Stefan’s bed thirty minutes later, I thought of how he had talked,no sang, me back to bed. I rose and got dressed. Stefan didn’t interfere this time. But something tugged at the back of my mind.
“Didn’t you say you spent a lot of time up north last year?” I asked, remembering what he had told me during our first conversation months ago. Something about being up north too much for his liking.
“Yeah. Too much time,” he confirmed.
“Like where?” I asked, still not sure what was nagging me.
“You name it. I pretty much did a tour of every northern house.”
“House Patton?” I asked after Lady Vitruvian’s maiden House. It was the first name that came to my mind.
“Yep,” he replied.
And then what was bugging me all clicked into place. I had never figured out how Cole Tragon had convinced those lesser fae to terrorize Lord Garaud and his family. High Lord Dumont and Cass had disclaimed having anything to do with it and had expressed befuddlement at what had come over the group of lesser fae. But Luke had told me that everyone was listening to music that night at Lord Garaud’s before everything went wrong.
“House Garaud?” I asked, unable to keep some of my suspicion out of my voice.
Stefan’s hands stopped on the buttons of his blue pants. He looked up at me, and the flicker of emotion on his face said it all.
“Stefan…” I said, disgusted. I was glad that I had managed to find and put on all my clothes.
“You didn’t,” I whispered.“You—” I stopped myself, realizing that I shouldn’t say anything more. But it was too late. I’d already said too much. He’d seen the look of disgust on my face.
“Alarie, Alarie,” he tsked, and his perpetually cocky smirk turned cruel.
It was like I was looking at a different man, as if he had flipped a switch and turned on a new personality. Even the way he moved, normally cocksure but smooth, now had cruel, sharp edges to it.
