Vale had made no promise to keep an eye on Devi, as his mother wished, yet he knew he would. Now that he knew the chit could be in real danger, he was left with no other choice.

He hid it well, but he felt like trapped prey, circled by wolves. Helpless. He'd played right into Shea's hand, he was sure of it. His mother had set her trap, and he’d run right into it, like a bug taken in a spider web.

Devi Star Rivers. A very appealing spider web. Chemistry aside, the female was fun. A lot of fun. How long had it been since anyone had treated him that way? Like someone normal. Someone she could insult, brush off, and belittle.

And yes, he realized that these weren’t characteristics one should value quite so much, but it did beat the horde of spineless drones that fell at his feet. Although, she’d technically done that. Vale found himself smiling again at the memory. She’d seemed so shocked and lost, like it was the first time she’d ever lost her balance. And it might have been.

After leaving the girl in the square, Vale headed back to the castle, needing to clear his mind. Kal joined him on the way, and they walked in companionable silence.

“Tell me we’re not staying long,” were the first words out of Kallan’s mouth as soon as they walked back in his apartment.

They were settled as far as possible from his mother’s place, atop the west tower, whereas the queen lived on the first floor. He’d chosen his rooms at court long ago, to ensure he never, ever heard his mother fuck. That strategy had failed half a dozen times over his long existence—six occasions forever branded in his mind.

“Why, Kal, not enjoying my mother’s attention, the fine ambrosia, the scantily dressed women throwing themselves at you, and the—” Vale stopped his list when his companion threw a knife his way.

Vale laughed as he caught it between two fingers and started playing with it, twirling it around his hand. Truth was, he knew how uncomfortable Kal was with the queen’s attention. He had no reason to be; it wasn’t his fault that Shea preferred him to Valerius, and Vale wasn’t about to begrudge his friend, who’d never known any other parental attention. They were now all quite old enough to accept these facts. Just not mature enough to stop teasing each other.

“You know you’re supposed to be my second, right?” Vale reminded Kal. “Pretty sure attempting to kill me isn’t part of the job description.”

“It is when you drag me to court. Shea wanted me to talk about my life and aspirations, dammit. You owe me.”

Vale sighed. The male had a point. “I’m sorry. It’s been sixteen years though. Even if the damn seelie hadn’t seen fit to screw with us, I would have had to show my face within the next two seasons. You know what would have happened if I hadn’t come. And Shea would have had reasons to think something may be amiss had you not accompanied me.”

Kallan would have had to be reasonable if he had said anything at all, so he remained silent and brooding. If it was possible, his friend hated the court more than Vale. But there was a price to pay for their freedom.

If Vale never showed his face, his mother would pack her court up and head over to see him. The queen considered it a duty to ensure that her heir was well from time to time. She’d done it once, four hundred years ago. Hiding what he was up to in Carvenstone had taken a lot of fucking effort.

People had called his domain the court of sin long before he was ever born, because the duke who owned it had settled his mistress there. They imagined the deepest depravity every day and night, and he needed them to carry on believing exactly that.

When the queen had come to him in 3179, he had to evacuate entire villages, empty most of the city, and create what she expected to see in less than six hours. His people still recalled that ordeal. Never again. Now he was playing by the rules, like the dutiful son he wasn’t, and ensuring mummy dearest wasn’t paying him any mind.

“I know. Still sucks. We're only staying a few days, right?”

Vale made a noncommittal sound that somewhat resembled a yes. That was the plan in theory, but in practice….

Kallan sighed. “Now what?”

“Nothing. I want to get back as soon as possible. The seelie delegation will likely be gone right after the solstice, and we'll go after they've returned to their land.”

“Don't bullshit me, I know all your tricks. What's making you evade a direct answer?” Then comprehension hit, and Kal just laughed. “The girl. The one who wore a blue dress. I saw you stop in front of her. She got under your skin three nights ago.”

One of the problems with hanging out with someone he'd known since childhood was that he couldn't get away with lies.

“No,” he lied. A technicality allowed him to do that. The girl in the blue dress hadn’t gotten under his skin three nights ago; she’d done that the following dusk, dressed in a plain brown leather tunic and breeches that did wonderful things for her long legs. And she’d retained his attention because of the words that came out when she opened her sensual mouth.

“I know you too well. You want to find out what's up the girl's skirts. Can't say I blame you. I don't think I've seen anyone half as exquisite since we went to Corantius. And man, what I'd do to her ass—”

Vale didn't even think. The next second, the knife was sailing back through the air at Kal, aiming for between his eyes. It was only seven hundred years of rigorous training that allowed his friend to evade it in time.

Fuck.

A silence stretched between them. Just as Vale opened his mouth to apologize, Kal started to laugh. Hard.

“Damn. This is going to be fucking epic.”

“Disastrous,” Vale corrected. “Disastrous is the word you're looking for.”

Kallan simply laughed harder. Then he managed to stop long enough to say, “You remember your girl in 2867? The one you kept for seven years before your mother found out.”

Teria. She'd been good fun, but Vale had had no intention to make their little affair a permanent thing, hence why they'd parted ways once Shea had started pressing the issue.

“Of course I’d remember one of my former partners. Do you have a point?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I do. How many times did you let me play with pretty Teria’s shapely ass, Valerius?”

Right now, Vale wished he had another knife at hand. As there was no weapon in the vicinity, he settled for glaring.

He'd had no issue sharing Teria. Sharing was quite the norm for his kind, in any case—definitely before forming a permanent union, and sometimes after. Statistically, there were about three males for every high fae female born. No wonder that their race had a natural inclination for pansexual and polyamorous relationships.

Vale was monogamist in his affections. Caring about more than one person at a time was quite unnatural. And besides, it sounded like too much effort. That said, sexually? He was just as open to mixing things up as any other high fae. Who was he to deny his partner an extra pair of balls if he or she felt greedy? Sex was simple.

Vale demanded a heart, mind, and soul focused on him, but when it came to flesh, he was the opposite of possessive. Watching his lovers writhe in pleasure as multiple hands, tongues, and cocks worked them over was one of his baser predilections.

So he couldn't decide what had happened to him right then. He should have been hard at the thought of Kal fucking Devi. Instead, the mental picture rendered him absolutely furious.

There was magic involved; he had no other explanation.

He wasn’t quite as put out as he should have been about that development. Vale joined in, chuckling at his own expense along with Kal, all the while feeling a little anxious.

“I have no idea where that came from, mate. Seriously. I'm sorry. I'm telling you, my mother probably slipped a spell in my drink or—”

“Or found a girl who hits every single one of your boxes and dressed her to your taste before dangling her in front of you like a carrot. Shea is no fool, and whether or not she keeps you at a distance, she knows you better than anyone.” Kal gave it a thought for a second before adding, “Except me, perhaps.”

Vale wrinkled his nose in distaste. No, that wasn't it. He hadn't attacked his closest companion because he'd met a pretty girl. There was more to it, and he'd find out before he left. Not staying on top of his mother's games was dangerous.

The Blackthorns passed their immense powers down from daughter to daughter; therefore, no one had been surprised that Vale had ended up inheriting his father’s gifts. He was redoubtable, fearsome. The name they called him, “the dark prince,” had been earned by many deeds fair folks still whispered of when they told stories meant to terrify one another around bonfires.

Yet for all that, Vale was of little use to the queen. She wanted a Blackthorn with Blackthorn magic: elemental powers.

He was her firstborn, made the very first time she’d attempted to conceive a child. But she’d failed to birth another babe for over seven hundred years, hence her insatiable thirst for grandbabies.

Vale had quite honestly believed that, given the severity of the current climate, she would set her plans aside. Then he’d talked to Devi, a youngling who didn’t shiver when she looked into his eyes.

Come to think of it, it made sense. If war was truly coming, the Blackthorns needed fresh blood in case ill befell their house. They were two now—the mother and the son. For the first time, Valerius genuinely put aside his own distaste at the notion of finding a female to bear his heir for practical reasons and admitted how pressing the matter was.

Be that as it may, he wouldn’t let his mother trick him into obedience.

“There's more to this. Shea is cunning. I think there could be a spell brewing.”

Kallan nodded before summarizing, “So, basically you're staying because of your many mommy issues and because you want to bang a new girl.”

Fair assessment, but he corrected it nonetheless. “I'm not touching the female until I know for sure what makes her get under my skin. If Shea played with magic to bind her to me, fucking her is likely to make things exponentially worse. I've seen obsession spells at work before. I won't be able to stop thinking about her. Leaving court before sorting it out would only make things worse. I need to break whatever hex my mother started.”

While saying all this, Vale frowned.

He had studied the art of spells, like any gifted high fae who’d ever attended the Royal Academy. Although he had no skills in the making or breaking of hexes, he recalled enough of his schooling to know that any such spell needed a part of him: a hair, a drop of blood—hell, some saliva. He'd been away for over a decade, and he'd come practically unannounced. How could Shea have created a spell that needed weeks of preparation in such short notice? And how could she have done it at all? The queen had earth-based elemental magic. They had a handful of mages in the Unseelie Court, but none were of a high caliber. To create a spell of that sort, the queen would have needed the services of someone infinitely more powerful and versed in the dark arts. A sorcerer. There were only three of them left in the realm, and none resided in Asra.

His theory didn't add up, but he clung to it. It still made more sense than the alternative. Because if he wasn't hexed by his damn mother, then he was simply enchanted by Devi for no reason at all. That was a frightening thought—for him and for her.

Vale was known for playing with his favorite toys until they broke. Tough as she may think she was, Devi was infinitely too young and innocent for the likes of him.

“Enough of the girl. We’re here because the seelie king is heading for the court of night, and that spells trouble. I’m going to have to mingle. Meanwhile, you can watch what’s happening in the shadows. Shea believes war is coming, and I’m not entirely certain she’s wrong.”

Shea had showed him thirteen documents to support her theory. Any one of those would have seemed innocent enough on its own, but all together, they painted an alarming picture.

The lord of Duneran wrote to inform Shea that the seelie were fortifying their borders, erecting walls of the magic and mortar variety. The spies on the coast reported merchants risking the perilous travel along the line of the Isle’s Wall, the potent energy barrier that separated their world from the monsters roaming the seas, all in order to bring cargo to the court of sunlight. The spy wrote that he would endeavor to discover what exactly was loaded on those boats. No other missive bore his distinctive handwriting. Then there was talk of seelie friends in the court leaving the unseelie realm. Reports told of food provisions being amassed throughout the entire seelie realm and being brought to their court. Seelie lords posted outside their borders were being ordered back. And so on.

The court of sunlight and the court of night had been on opposite sides of every single war. If the seelie were preparing, Shea was right to be wary.

Twelve of these reports were various shades of disquieting, but Valerius could have brushed them off, concluding that the seelie had probably heard the winter would be biting this year. They were known to dislike the cold.

The thirteenth was incontestably daunting. There was no way to dismiss it.

It said that the elves had sent more troops to their borders. If Vale knew one thing for certain about elves, it was that they never did a thing without cause.