What Lavinia didn’t understand was, Surah had given up on the research long ago. Dumped it in the lap of her lab assistant and walked away. She put on a good face whenever Malin came by for an injection and refill of his pills–but Surah could no longer bear to do the research herself. She felt like a failure; and now she felt like a coward. It seemed as if her assistant was about to save them all.

Surah swirled the wine in her glass as she sprawled on a plush, leather couch big enough for three. She still refused to buy a car, preferring to utilize Seattle’s public airtran and avoid the hefty fines for traveling solo in ground transportation, so the trip to the Palace had lasted long enough for her to zone out to her newest audiobook download. The walk up the base of the steep hill–because no airtran was cleared to land within a quarter mile of gargoyle territory–served to ensure she was awake by the time she reached the stony gates.

Geza’s great-grandfather had usurped entire human neighborhood blocks decades ago, tearing out housing and leaving only the native trees, replacing them with the three cloud-piercing towers connected on the ground floor to create a stone complex worthy of any gargoyle ruler. A small, private market and large kitchen garden, as well as fields for training on foot, and a park for royal relatives were laid out over the years. The Palace was, in reality, a small city within a larger one. Gargoyles rarely had to leave the complex if they made it their home.

The structures made the humans uneasy, but over time, they’d realized gargoyles had no interest in wingless culture–and everyone left everyone else alone. For the most part.

No one tried to sit next to her once she arrived. She might be a half-human runt, but she was still half-sister to the Prince, and that meant something. A little something, anyway. So she was given space to sit alone if she so chose.

Geza held court in the epicenter of a hub of carnal activity, with the bored cynicism of someone who’d seen it all before. Male, female, human, gargoyle, and any combination thereof found succor in the Prince’s welcoming arms. Women offered to her brother, in exchange for some possible favor, draped themselves around Geza in an effort to gain more permanent attention than a night’s play.

A cool evening breeze, scented with rain, caressed the back of her neck. Geza’s suite was the highest in the tower, the ceiling of domed glass showing a moon hiding behind thick grey clouds. Dozens of flameless candles of various sizes were scattered about the open-air room, and gargoyles lounged on the railingless balcony, nearly blending in with the black marble. She wasn’t afraid of heights, but she stayed away from the edge. Drunk creatures who could fly–many of whom held several childhood grudges against her–might be inclined to push her off for a giggle, and claim intoxication in the morning, while everyone stared sadly at her broken body.

She ignored the phantom itch in her wingless back and rose to peruse the offerings on the buffet table hovering in the center of the room, saw nothing but bloody meat and sugar and tapped a few buttons on the digital menu to send a request to the kitchen for actual food. Something green, with nutrients, and a healthy carb. Returning to her couch, a warrior stepped into her path. Not completely–Surah’s temper was as uncertain as Geza’s and she wasn’t beneath doing her damnedest to drop someone to the floor.

“Petru,” she said, stopping.

He was tall–well, they all were–and more serious than most. The seriousness hid a self-indulgent, nastily arrogant attitude she’d seen him use to verbally slice both male and female members of the court who approached him. He chose his lovers, not the other way around.

“I’ve asked Geza for you,” he said.

She appreciated his bluntness, though she often wondered if blunt speech was indicated a lack of complex thinking skills. “Why would you do that?”

He stared at her, brows drawing down. She supposed he was handsome, a striking face and well-toned body. Shorter hair than she liked, and more of a dark ash-brown than the typical gargoyle black. It was probably because there was human in his veins somewhere, though he’d deny it. Vehemently.

Petru was very sensitive about his hair color. So why he’d want her made no sense–she’d just foul his bloodline with human genes.

“You’re the only living Ioveanu princess.”

“What? I’m not Ioveanu. Why do people keep forgetting that?”

He shrugged a shoulder. “Not by birth–but by adoption is good enough. Your status will not shame my family.”

“Well, yippee for me. But I’m not in the market, brah. And I don’t like you anyway.”

His stoic expression didn’t change. “You’ll learn to like me–and you must obey Geza. He is happy a warrior of good family has offered to marry you, rather than just take you as a concubine.”

She didn’t have the energy to even get mad. Surah sighed, and walked around him. “Right. Happy, happy.”

Her mother had been one of those girls, a concubine, bearing Surah at the tender age of sixteen. Legal in their culture, but what was legal and what was right were two different things. The former Prince, Ciodaru, father of Geza and Malin, had given Adagia to a human dignitary one night, and Surah had been the result. She didn’t know her father–had never seen him and had no interest in doing so. If she ever saw the man, she might just smash his face in. Surprisingly, when her mother fell pregnant, the Prince allowed Adagia to remain in the palace under his protection, and to raise her half-human daughter alongside her full-blooded gargoyle son born to him two years later–who was now Prince.

Throughout the suite, Geza’s friends and favored warriors cavorted with their picks from the available men and women. Surah refused to deliberate on the nasty quirk of fate that had made Geza Prince instead of his elder half-brother Malin, the son of Ciodaru’s only legal Consort. Refused to dwell on the fact that she’d be better off in her lab, working on the solution to that quirk of fate rather than here, intoxicated and idly watching her brother fuck. Dimly, she realized she was as tainted as he by this court–humans would think them mad, maybe even a little twisted. Surah took another long sip of wine, chest tight. She couldn’t dwell on the feeling. Here, she must always walk a tightrope, and Geza could sense discontent in a watermelon.

“Lady Surah, bring me a bottle,” Prince Geza called, not bothering to push aside the mass of bodies to actually make eye contact.

“Get it yourself,” Surah said, unmoving. “I’m not your handmaid. You have employed servants for that.”

“Disrespectful runt,” one of the warriors muttered. “Like to see that mouth out on the training yard.”

Surah sniffed. As if. She’d trained with Kausar, as a royal child, growing up. She could defend herself just fine. But these days, she was more interested in work and her collection of rare vintages.

She smoothed a hand over her curves. “Does it look like I’m going out on the training yard anytime soon?”

A smatter of laughter. Some at her, some with her. A few at court enjoyed her snark, at ease around a pseudo royal, who didn’t take herself seriously and appeared to have no ambition. They were wrong–she had plenty of ambition. It was just all tied up in getting Malin better. If it weren’t for him, who knew what she might have become? Probably something like Lavinia, twisted with frustrated desires, stymied by being female in an unapologetically patriarchal society.

Geza laughed. Surah knew her brother was drunk enough to find the defiance amusing rather than insulting. If it were the clear light of day, Surah might have had a fight on her hands.

“Maybe I should marry her off, eh?” Geza called. “No unmarried female is manageable. Then her husband could beat her.”

“Why beat a woman when you can fuck her into submission?”

She met Petru’s eyes–he must be pissed off she’d walked away from him to use that kind of language–and lifted her glass in an ironic salute.

“Sure, Petru asked me to marry you two,” Geza said. “I don’t think he understands the lifetime sentence that is, but I’m inclined to say yes because it would be funny, at least. His children would likely be shiftless, but he’d be brother to the Prince.”

“An honor,” Petru said. “And she isn’t stupid, or ugly, so there is hope for my children.”

“But would there be hope for mine?” Surah asked, staring into her wineglass, annoyed.

“I think that insult went over his head,” Geza said. “You should take the offer. It’s easier to manage a stupid male, and all he wants is status. He’d never get you if you were actually my father’s daughter. But he’s good enough for a concubine’s offspring.” He nudged one of the naked females lounging near him. “Get a bottle of wine, girl.”

“All of you are pigs,” Surah said, watching as the girl rose to her feet obediently; her long dark hair brushing slender shoulders as she pulled on a silk robe to cover her nudity.

“I didn’t say you could cover yourself,” Geza snapped, pinching a rosy nipple. “Go like this.” Her bottom lip trembled and she lowered her eyes, but she bowed, saying nothing.

As the young woman passed, Surah grabbed her wrist. “Sit down,” she said. “He doesn’t mean it–he’s drunk. I’ll go.”

Geza snorted. “She chose to be here. She knows what that means.”

“She’s a person,” Surah said. “Considering the original status of our mother, I would think you’d have a bit more respect for the one who serves you.”

Geza surged to his feet, shoving people off him. Drunk or not, he was all a Prince should be. Tall and strong, even in human form, years of training with traditional steel weapons and in hand-to-hand combat honing his edge and physique. Though it was night, he wore his human form; the characteristic dark eyes and olive-gold skin of the race. Others in the suite were shifted to gargoyle, silky pearlescent-gray skin over muscles dense enough to feel like stone. Claw-tipped fingers held wineglasses and beer bottles with the grace of practice. The occasional fang flashing in laughter–or a snarl, satin rustle of membranous wings in every shade from pale gray, to night sky blue, to deep black underscoring their otherness.

Geza’s wings unfurled, one of the few who could hold human form and manifest wings at the same time. Gargoyle historians insisted this rare ability was the seed of human belief in angels. Surah's brother didn’t look very angelic, though, knocking over at least one person near him, skin deepening to gray in his anger.

Surah turned her back and walked away knowing it was beneath her brother’s dignity to attack when her back was turned. Most days, anyway. She corralled a paid servant–that’s what they were for, after all—and then returned to the party, mentally gathering herself to take her leave. She’d come for the wine and to make sure her face was shown around the palace often enough that brother dearest didn’t start to get paranoid about plots and stupidity. Councilor Sajal, a colleague of Lavinia Mogren, was always trying to stir up drama.

“Where’s the wine?” Geza demanded.

Surah sat back down, picking up her abandoned glass, and chugged down the contents. “Unless your servants have some magic I don’t know about, they have to actually walk down to the cellar, pick up the bottle, and walk it back up here. It’s gonna take a few minutes.”

“You need to get laid.”

Surah sniffed. “That’s your solution to war, famine, and the Black Death. Fucking.”

Geza nudged a young man, who detangled himself from the small group and stalked towards Surah, a sultry light in his dark eyes. He was shirtless, as barefoot as Shoeless Joe Jackson, with the button of his pants undone. Surah eyed him emotionlessly, appreciating the tone of his lean frame and golden-brown hue of his skin. But felt nothing, even when the man dropped to his knees, gaze trained on Surah with a sexy smile curving his mouth.

“I’ve had my eye on you,” the male said, a purr in his throat. “Sister to the Prince–and a doctor. Delicious. I’ve always wanted to play with a doctor’s stethoscope.”

Surah had to keep from laughing at the poor child–but the amusement served a purpose as graceful fingers slid up her inner thigh teasingly. Surah's head fell back onto the couch, eyes closing. For a moment, she allowed herself to just feel, enjoy the feather light touch of fingers playing with her. And as soon as her mental barriers began to crumble, an image formed behind her eyelids–an image spurred by an unfulfilled longing for someone she couldn’t have. A harsh, chiseled face replaced the young man in front of her, cool almond eyes warming with desire and the half-smile that sometimes peeked out on good days. And the recollection of her other ‘brother’ threw Surah out of the fantasy. She came crashing back to the present time.

“That’s enough,” she said, though gently. No reason to hurt the male’s pride. “I’ve had too much wine tonight. What’s your name?”

“Austin,” the male replied. The exotic youth pulled away, hesitating for a moment. His hand brushed Surah's knee. “You drink too much, you know. I’ve watched you.”

Surah wasn’t the kind to get angry over truth. “Yeah, I know. Now, scat.” She softened the rejection, reaching out to touch a lock of mussed hair.

Austin grinned at her but rose to his feet obediently and left her alone. Surah put herself back together–and just in time. The last three people who she wanted to see her relaxed and vulnerable walked in bare moments later–three of Geza’s advisors, family heads with more decades of life under their belt than Surah and Geza combined. Their looks of disapproval were familiar.

“Prince,” Lavinia said. “Your meeting to finalize your nuptial contract is in the morning. It would offend your bride if you arrived late–or inebriated. Her father has already won concessions from us we didn’t want to give. You can’t be late.”

The only reason Lavinia got away with saying ‘can’t’ to Geza’s inflated ego was because she’d practically raised him–and she was heir of one of the more powerful families. She waded through the groups of revelers, once again pulling aside the cloth of her long skirt to avoid touching anyone, or anything. Surah wondered what poor staffer had spent the day ironing the dozens of perfectly crisped narrow pleats.

One of the males, nostrils flared in distaste, glanced at Surah. “I should have known you would be here, human.”

Surah rose, leaving the empty wineglass on the floor. “Half,” she corrected him as she walked towards the door.

“A pity the gargoyle half isn’t the stronger,” Sajal said, grey eyes as narrow as his thinned lips. The eldest of Geza’s advisors, he refused to wear his human form at night, when gargoyles ruled the skies. “As Geza’s only sister, you should set an example of modesty and grace. You shame him, the same as—”

“You can insult me all you want,” Surah said. “But don’t open your mouth to speak against Malin. I may deserve your ire. He doesn’t.”

Sajal turned his shoulder in open contempt. “Ciodaru didn’t produce even one worthy heir.”

“Don’t bait the girl,” Lavinia said, returning. “She has nothing to do with ‘Daru’s failures.”

Surah stomached the anger, swallowing emotion as she had her entire life, presenting only a blank, bored face to the outside world.

“Malin—”

“I know,” Lavinia interrupted, touching Surah's shoulder briefly. “It’s not Malin’s fault he was born as he was. But the monarchy—as antiquated as it may seem to you young people—requires a ruler without blemish.” She sighed, looking around. “It’s hard to argue that Malin wouldn’t have been the better Prince, defect or no.”

“Geza just needs to grow up,” Surah said tightly, wanting to call the woman on her double talk. In private, Lavinia wanted democracy—in public she was a supporter of crown rule. But Surah had never been one to repeat private conversations—and the councilor knew it. “Our mother spoils him, and his father tried to push him to be something he isn’t—a leader.”

“Sometimes we have to be what we don’t want to be for the good of the people,” Sajal said. “If you weren’t so focused on chasing down a dream in that lab-”

“That dream may one day eradicate the defective gene in the Princes’ bloodline.” Surah retorted. “Why fund it if you think it’s such a waste?”

“We all have hope. And your medical training brings honor to the line. We must be seen by the world as more than warriors—thugs with wings.” Lavinia smiled briefly. “Go home, Surah. You’ve been drinking, and you have to work in the morning, like the rest of us.” Her eyes slanted towards Geza. “Some don’t.”