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I wake to a smell I can’t pinpoint; it’s not familiar, but it suddenly makes my mouth water.
I blink to find a perfect stranger beaming down at me.
Tall, gorgeous, athletic, he has dark hair, warm, tawny skin, and golden eyes.The clothes he wears are even more unapologetically non-human than the pointed ears or the general dangerous air. With Ryther or Valdred's outfit, I could pretend they were just incredibly beautiful mortals playing dress-up for a ren faire—not too different from anyone I know. But there’s no such pretense here. He wears armor. There's no other word for it, though it's a little more modern than the stuff gathering dust in museums.
His is made of dark metal, and covered in leather. It seems lighter, though perhaps that's only because he seems to carry it so effortlessly.
He’s holding on to a tray, with a steaming gold cup and a plate with what looks like bread, or cake, berries, grapes, as well as an entire pot full of whipped cream.
I gasp. No one serves that much whipped cream to anyone. Typically, I have to ask for a double, or triple portion when I want to treat myself. And then people give me weird looks. But I don't care because I get cream.
“Is that for me?” I wonder reverently.
“Do you see any other pretty little queenspawn here?” His smirk widens, and he introduces himself. “Caenan. I’m at your service. Well, I’m at Ryther’s service, and he told me to deal with you, so there, princess.”
Princess. The word makes me think of Disney movies, pretty gowns and knights on horseback. So, basically, men that look like him.
They say my birth mother was queen, but no one called me a princess so far. I think I prefer queenling, for all that Ryther's tone drips with sarcasm whenever he says it.
Caenan lowers the tray, and I can’t help it. The first thing I do is dip a finger in the cream.
I shut my eyes as the taste hits my palate. What even is this?
There’s nothing in the world I love more than whipped cream, but this one tastes out of this world. So rich, not too sweet, with hints of spices I couldn’t even begin to identify.
“Straight for the cream, huh?” Caenan notes.
I’m not sure how to interpret what I hear in his tone. I have no clue whether he approves, disapprove, or just makes note of his observation without judgement.
I’m not sure I care, either. "I could kiss you right now."
"Please don't. Ryther wouldn’t approve, and I've seen him angry. Not a sight I'd like to witness ever again."
I chuckle. "He'll never know.Where is he, by the way?”
His thin lips widen in a smile which is neither kind nor sincere. “Working.”
Working? I can’t seem to reconcile that notion with what I’ve seen of this world so far. It’s a fantastical universe; I thought they danced, sang, reveled, fucked, and warred. But work? The word is a little too mundane, evoking nine-to-fives and desk jobs.
I get the feeling that pushing, when he’s so thin-lipped in the first place, will get me nowhere with Caenan, so instead I ask, “What do you do? When you don’t bring delicious breakfasts to me in bed, that is.”
On impulse, I cut the piece of bread-possibly-cake I just grabbed in two, and dip it in a little cream, before stuffing it in his hand.
He looks at it, confused, before bringing it to his mouth just as I do it.
Never mind the question of bread or cake; it’s both, and yet so much more.
“How is this all so good?” I groan, stuffing another bite in my mouth.
“That’ll be the fact that our ingredients aren’t polluted by everything humans add to their crop, or churned by metallic machines that slowly but surely kill anyone with fae blood,” Caenan says, shrugging. Then he sits at the edge of the bed. “And, you know. I’m a wonderful cook.”
“And a humble one,” I add, in the same light tone he uses.
“A factual one,” he retorts.
“For sure. If you’ve made these, you’re a genius. So, you’re a cook.”
“Hardly." He snorts. "I am Ryther’s second—his voice when he’s away from the unseelie seat. But if there’s someone to feed, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”
