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Foe. Friend. Liar. Lover. Murderer. You will find them all on the first night of autumn.
She’s part of the prophecy, that much is clear. For that reason alone, I need to keep her right here next to me, to give it a chance to unfold.
Besides, the fact that she tried to murder me and will likely try again is one of the many reasons why I’m so entertained. I ceased to find pandering appealing a long time ago.
For all that, she ought to spend one night where she belongs. How else was I going to learn what she and her little friends wanted to do next?
Silver appeared a few minutes after I left the prisoners to report their conversation. They’re planning to stay put to try to kill me again, as I expected.
“Can I convince you to see reason where that thing is concerned?” Vess checks.
He really isn’t fond of Rhea.
I don’t voice what we both have realized by now: his annoyance isn’t just due to the fact that she tried to kill me. He’s also envious. Vess is smarter than me, and fully aware of his own flaws. He would have seen it too.
The two of us had our thing, about nine hundred years ago, when we were but a few decades old. Then I grew tired of it first. Not only did I no longer desire him, I was also painfully aware that our friendship would be better served if we stopped fucking each other. Vess didn’t see it the same way, but in time, he got over me. Then we started to find a balance that suited both of us, sharing our lovers. And about three hundred years ago, I stopped taking anyone to my bed. Plenty of women emptied my cock on a daily basis anyway.
Vessorian hasn’t shown anything close to jealousy in centuries, but no one else mattered. He suspects, rightly, that Rhea is here to stay.
I’m not going to insult a friendship spun for nine hundred and seventy years by pointing it out aloud. Unless he makes me.
“Not one chance in all the seven hells,” I quip, amused. “I can handle that thing. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”
Her kind didn’t originate in our world. They came in the days of the old gods, when portals used to link this world and many others, thousands of years ago. Wars were waged, cities destroyed, entire lines obliterated in their names. So my grandfather hunted and murdered whichever ones he could get his hands on, mostly for sport. A similar chase decimated their numbers in the south. To survive, they had to hide.
In all honesty, their kind was bound to dwindle eventually. They don’t reproduce with ease. They spawn children easily enough, but not among themselves, and when mixed with another race, their issue tends to take after the other parent. They’re beautiful and charming, of course, but lack the magnetism specific to the race. To reproduce, one of their kind need to breed with someone much weaker—a mortal, or a powerless, common immortal. As they’re built to attract and capture the jealous attention of gods, they rarely ever get a chance to spread their race in this world.
Where did you come from, sweet murderess?
I’m too practical to let her go simply because she wants to kill me. I have to father an heir. For one, if I died tomorrow—which isn’t unlikely, given how many people try to dispose of me—the realm would implode, each local lord fighting over crumbs. The fact that I became king the day I was conceived proves that a child bearing my blood, if protected, would be enough to hold this land together. My circle would protect my heir, I have no doubt of it.
There are other reasons I ought to have a child. Selfish reasons.
I’ve never found a womb more worthy of bearing it than Rhea’s. The primal part of me that turned up its metaphorical nose at every woman I’ve ever touched is licking its lips at her. I know she’s the one. Our children will take all the blood of my ancestor, and some of her charm, ensuring my legacy. The fact that I can’t trust their mother not to shove a pointy thing inside me every now and then is irrelevant. Lucyan is as much of a viper—more so, perhaps, though she hasn’t yet managed to stab me in the chest—and I’ve learned to live with it.
I need Rhea, even ignoring the prophecy. So long as I have no children, no consort, and no queen, it is the noblemen’s privilege to offer up their women like cattle to be bred, and refusing them isn’t an option. I technically could, but it would mean great offense, and suggest that I’m incapable of taking care of a woman, which in turn may lead to an insurrection. My own father had to squash two such uprisings in his thousands of years of ruling, when he grew weary of the endless parade of women he had to satisfy. So they come every day, morning, noon, and night.
I’d do just about anything to end the parade of cunts I have to spray with my seed on a daily basis. Nyxar is a kingdom of many wondrous traditions. This one needs to die a slow and painful death.
I straighten my spine at the discreet knock at my door. Just in time. My jaw tightens.
Vess sighs and gives the order I can’t bring myself to get out. “Come in.”
Voress Lief, a tall, slender noble in the blue and silver of our coastal land to the east, the Shallows, enters and bows deep. “My king. I am proud to present my youngest daughter, Odina.”
The girl seems a year or two younger than Rhea, barely over the minimum age to be brought here. I conceal my disdain and disgust. I’d never send a daughter of twenty to be fucked by a king. But he’s introduced his wife, and his elder daughter in the last few years.
“Odina.” I incline my head in salute. “Welcome to Starfall. I do hope the journey wasn’t too straining.”
I’m pleasant out of habit.
“Not at all, my king.” She grins, thrilled to be here.
At least there’s that. Some of them are forced here by their families, their hands as tied as mine.
Odina’s father remains here, as many opt to, in order to ensure that this meeting goes as planned. Vess offers him a drink, and he sits close to my fireplace as his daughter gets to her knees in front of me.
I itch to make her stop, but I don’t want to embarrass the poor thing. There are a half a dozen footmen, servants, and guards in my chamber at any given time. What occurs behind closed doors rarely remains secret for long. If I stop her from sucking me off, it’ll be the talk of the court tomorrow, even with the upcoming trial of spies and murderers. She’ll be seen as defective, unworthy, simply because she was rejected by the king. I’ve seen it happen exactly once. I’ve not declined any advances since.
