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“Just passing through,” he said, taking my hand in his own. “Armand? Is that a northern name?” he asked, eyeing me analytically.
“North of here, but no, not northern. Just Harborview,” I replied.
I eyed the ground, searching for the source of my clumsiness. Water covered the cobblestones surrounding the grand fountain between House Kearing and House Heroux. If I hadn’t been so distracted by my thoughts about Stefan, I would have remembered that this was a regular hazard on my walk home.
I looked back up to find his startling light eyes intently focused on me. “Thanks for catching me, uh…” I paused, realizing I had not gotten my savior’s name.
The strange man kept looking at me in a way that was not unfriendly. If anything, it wastoofriendly. He continued to eye me like he, alone, had discovered something beautiful and wild.
“Look, I have to run. Maybe I’ll see you around some time,” I said, beginning to turn back in the direction I was heading, making note to skirt around the slippery cobblestones this time.
He gently grabbed my hand before I was out of reach and bowed formally. Looking up at me through his eyebrows, he laid a polite, quick kiss on the top of my hand.
“You can plan on it, little star,” he said.
I hustled back to meet Rhett, not looking over my shoulder at the man I could feel watching me as I walked away.
Did he just call me little star?
* * * *
“What’s that look for?” Rhett asked as I walked into his study.
“I just had the weirdest interaction,” I said, my mind still on the man with the washed-out hazel eyes.
I explained what happened with me almost falling and being caught by the strange man.
“And then I think he called me ‘little star,’” I said like I didn’t believe it myself.
I didn’t mention how I thought the man’s eyes had changed colors from brown and gold to an icy hazel. I didn’t want Rhett to think I had bumped my head.
“That doesn’t sound all that surprising. You’re always wearing those damn high heels, Al. Honestly, I’m surprised you don’t twist your ankle more often,” Rhett said.
I sighed.
“Easy for you to say. You tower over everyone,” I said.
I came by my shorter stature naturally. I inherited it from the lesser fae half of my blood.
“I don’t know. There was just something different about him. I couldn’t pin where his accent was from either,” I said.
“What did he look like? Maybe I know him,” Rhett asked.
“Light hazel eyes, spiky blue hair, shorter than you but taller than me,” I answered.
“Almost everyone falls into that last category, Al,” he teased. “Look, he was probably someone new from up north. We have a lot of new faces around now,” Rhett said. “But if you think something was off with this fellow, then I’ll send for someone to search him out now.” He rose from the seat he’d taken.
Rhett could have a quick chat with one of the guards stationed at the manor, and the odd man would be found. But that was just it… He was odd, perhaps unsettling, but I didn’t feel that he had done anything to deserve guards hunting him down. That seemed too harsh for the man who had been nice enough to stop and save me from taking a fall.
“No. I don’t think that’s necessary, Rhett,” I said, calling him off.
Rhett eyed me wearily. “Okay but point him out to me next time you see him,” Rhett followed up cautiously. With suspicions of traitors around, we all had to be careful. “I’m sure we’ll see him around again.”
“That’s what he said,” I whispered, dismissing the odd interaction from my mind.“Speaking of run-ins, she was too far away for me to say ‘hi’, but I saw James on my way here.”
James and Rhett had a bit of an on-again-off-again relationship in the past. But they had been “on” for a while. So much so that I had not seen Rhett with another woman for months. In Rhett-time, that was likeyearsof monogamy.
“How’s that going?” I asked nebulously.
