He was handsome in the way that runway models were—crisp, polished, perfectly coiffed. His thick brown hair was slicked back from his face, which accentuated his sharp features, deep-set brown eyes, and dimples when he smiled. He was stunning, and had I been unattached, and passed him on the street, I would have turned to watch him walk by, without hope of ever speaking to him.
“Half brother would be correct in the human world, wouldn’t it?”
I squinted at him. “It’s true anywhere, isn’t it?”
“I’m a bastard; he is not,” he clarified, clapping me on the shoulder before he let me go. “Varic has always been very certain that I know my place.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I told him sincerely. “Hopefully, going forward, you two can remedy some of that.”
He squinted at me. “What would lead you to believe that would even be possible?”
I shrugged. “There’s always hope for change.”
After a moment of studying me, he nodded. When a server walked by with the flutes of blood, Alrek took one, and I declined.
“You don’t drink blood?”
I shook my head.
“I have to tell you that when I heard you were a matan, I had no idea what that was.”
“Hadrian and Tiago didn’t know either.”
He snorted. “Well, I’m far better educated than Varic’s rajan or the likes of the rekkr. They’re both servants, after all.”
“Aren’t we all servants of one kind or another?” I asked him pointedly.
“I—”
“He’s calling you out on your snobbery, my son.”
We both turned to a beautiful woman who appeared before us, her thick brown hair with auburn highlights falling to the middle of her back in a cascade of lush, loose curls. She had the same deep bronze coloring as Alrek, her son, and was taller than the queen, willowy where Isabella Maedoc was compact and lean muscled. Her eyes were a wonder, a lovely golden honey brown framed by long lashes. When she smiled, the lines in the corner of her eyes crinkled. I rushed to judgment, liking her immediately, and I took the hand she held out for me in both of mine.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Chione,” I told her.
“And you, my consort,” she said, and I heard the warmth in her voice. “My hope is that with you here, the ice between my son and the prince will begin to thaw. It sounds as though you want the same.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “But please, just call me Jason.”
She was startled; I could tell from her quick catch of breath and the way her eyes widened. I was worried I’d messed up, overstepped, when she suddenly smiled. “Thank you, Jason, and please call me Chione.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said playfully.
The look on her face, almost bemused, was nice. “I do hope I may call on you while you’re here. I’d love to have you meet my daughters now that you’ve met my son.”
“Are they not here?”
“No, they’re out dancing with friends at the clubs here. This is all a bit stuffy for them.”
“Well, I look forward to it,” I told her.
“Excellent,” she said, and then turned to reach her hand out for another woman. “May I introduce my son’s intended, Solveig Halverson of the line of Cillion.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said, not reaching for her because the second she got close, she clung to Alrek’s right arm with both hands, clearly wanting nothing to do with me, from the furrow of her brows and the look of distaste that twisted her features.
“I never thought Varic would take a consort,” she said, looking me up and down and apparently finding me lacking. Nothing about her was warm or friendly. “I was certain, as was the entire court, when the time came for him to claim a mate, that he would do his duty and take a queen.”
What was I supposed to say to that?
“Solveig,” Chione said quickly, as though she were aghast, but it didn’t ring true because her voice did one thing but her face another. Her outrage was clearly fake. “You overstep your bounds, child. We must not second-guess our prince, even if his choices seem ill-advised.”
Yep. Ill-advised. If I wasn’t sure before, that cleared things right up.
“Yes, but Mother, a man? What about an heir?”
“That’s not for us to concern ourselves with,” she said, smiling at me. “I’m certain that the consort would step aside for another when the time comes.”
“Well, frankly, I don’t see the point of a consort at all, then. Why not take him as a courtier and then let him go when he was done?”
“Solveig.” Chione gasped theatrically, hand over her heart. “My goodness.”
“But really, Mother, you weren’t shocked?” she asked Chione demurely, all innocence and wide eyes. “I know Alrek was.”
“I was more surprised at the lack of title, of lineage or good breeding,” Alrek said, giving me an indulgent smile. I saw him then, who he really was. It was disappointing. I’d taken him for someone I could befriend. Hard to realize that already I’d made my first wrong assumptions about him and his viperous mother.
“Forgive them, my consort,” a man said as he joined us, his deep, resonant voice utterly patronizing as he passed me a large goblet of ice water. “They’re old-world vampyrs, sadly, from an ancient time, and are utterly bereft of any real knowledge of the outside world.”
Chione gasped, and Solveig jolted like he’d struck her.
“Thank––” I began, but was cut off.
“How dare you insult my soon-to-be consort by—”
“Not consort,” the man corrected, his voice sharp as a whip. “There is, from this day forward, only the king’s consort, our dear Queen Isabella, and the prince’s intended, Jason Thorpe. You… second,” he hissed, the word that sounded soaked in revulsion, “will never have a consort, as you are a Maddox and not a Maedoc.”
I was going to try again to thank the man, because I actually wasn’t raised in a barn, but interrupting him didn’t seem like a great idea. I drank the water instead.
Chione, Alrek, and Solveig had been comfortable, confident before this man appeared out of thin air, to point out that I was both a man unable to bear children, and without a royal pedigree. In an instant, though, that had changed with his arrival.
I had mistaken Chione for a friend when really, her agenda was to put me in my place. And that was okay, because I understood the need in her. She couldn’t get at Varic; he wasn’t vulnerable, I was. Her son was the prince’s half brother, but the half was the issue. Him being illegitimate put a chasm between the two men that was hard, if not impossible, to bridge. If questioning Varic’s choice brought her son and the queen’s even a fraction closer in distinction, that was helpful. Alrek was apparently marrying up. Varic was marrying a commoner. If she could instill trepidation in me, uncertainty, then she could count that as a win. What she didn’t know was that the only part of the whole experience that was sad for me was that I got my first lesson in distrust.
Looking at Chione now, her posture rod straight, hands clenched at her sides and lips pressed in a hard, straight line, I understood that she had been ready to go for my jugular and had been brought up short by the arrival of the water-bringer. Chione, the king’s first courtesan, a woman, Tiago had told me, who wielded considerable power, stood there shaking with fury as she stared at the man.