House of Earth and Blood

It disgusted him. Always had. Along with the fact that everything he had was bankrolled by the bastard before him: the office above the dive bar, the villa in FiRo adorned with priceless antiques that his father had gifted him upon winning the Starsword during his Ordeal. Ruhn never stayed at the villa, instead choosing to live in a house he shared with his two best friends near the Old Square.

Also purchased with his father’s money.

Officially, the money came from the “salary” Ruhn received for heading up the Fae Auxiliary patrols. But his father’s signature authorized that weekly check.

The Autumn King lifted the prism device. “Did the Commander of the 33rd say anything of note?”

The meeting had been one step short of a disaster.

First, Tiberian had grilled him about Bryce’s whereabouts last night, until Ruhn was about one breath away from beating the shit out of the angel, Commander of the 33rd or no. Then Tiberian had the balls to ask about Ruhn’s whereabouts.

Ruhn had refrained from informing the commander that pummeling Maximus Tertian for grabbing Bryce’s hand had been tempting.

She’d have bitten his head off for it. And she’d been able to handle herself, sparing Ruhn the political nightmare of setting off a blood feud between their two Houses. Not just between Sky and Breath and Flame and Shadow, but between the Danaans and the Tertians. And thus every Fae and vampyr living in Valbara and Pangera. The Fae didn’t fuck around with their blood feuds. Neither did the vamps.

“No,” Ruhn said. “Though Maximus Tertian died a few hours after having a business meeting with Bryce.”

His father set down the prism, his lip curling. “I told you to warn that girl to stay quiet.”

That girl. Bryce was always that girl, or the girl, to their father. Ruhn hadn’t heard the male speak her name in twelve years. Not since her first and last visit to this villa.

Everything had changed after that visit. Bryce had come here for the first time, a coltish thirteen-year-old ready to finally meet her father and his people. To meet Ruhn, who had been intrigued at the prospect of finding he had a half sister after more than sixty years of being an only child.

The Autumn King had insisted that the visit be discreet—not saying the obvious: until the Oracle whispers of your future. What had gone down had been an unmitigated disaster not only for Bryce, but for Ruhn as well. His chest still ached when he remembered her leaving the villa in tears of rage, refusing to look back over her shoulder even once. His father’s treatment of Bryce had opened Ruhn’s eyes to the Autumn King’s true nature … and the cold Fae male before him had never forgotten this fact.

Ruhn had visited Bryce frequently at her parents’ place over the next three years. She’d been a bright spot—the brightest spot, if he felt like being honest. Until that stupid, shameful fight between them that had left things in such shambles that Bryce still hated his guts. He didn’t blame her—not with the words he’d said, that he’d immediately regretted as soon as they’d burst from him.

Now Ruhn said, “Bryce’s meeting with Maximus preceded my warning to behave. I arrived right as she was wrapping up.” When he’d gotten that call from Riso Sergatto, the butterfly shifter’s laughing voice unusually grave, he’d sprinted over to the White Raven, not giving himself time to second-guess the wisdom of it. “I’m her alibi, according to Tiberian—I told him that I walked her home, and stayed there until well after Tertian’s time of death.”

His father’s face revealed nothing. “And yet it still does not seem very flattering that the girl was at the club on both nights, and interacted with the victims hours before.”

Ruhn said tightly, “Bryce had nothing to do with the murders. Despite the alibi shit, the Governor must believe it, too, because Tiberian swore Bryce is being guarded by the 33rd.”

It might have been admirable that they bothered to do so, had all the angels not been arrogant assholes. Luckily, the most arrogant of those assholes hadn’t been the one to pay Ruhn this particular visit.

“That girl has always possessed a spectacular talent for being where she shouldn’t.”

Ruhn controlled the anger thrumming through him, his shadow magic seeking to veil him, shield him from sight. Another reason his father resented him: beyond his Starborn gifts, the bulk of his magic skewed toward his mother’s kin—the Fae who ruled Avallen, the mist-shrouded isle in the north. The sacred heart of Faedom. His father would have burned Avallen into ashes if he could. That Ruhn did not possess his father’s flames, the flames of most of the Valbaran Fae, that he instead possessed Avallen abilities—more than Ruhn ever let on—to summon and walk through shadows, had been an unforgivable insult.

Silence rippled between father and son, interrupted only by the ticking metal of the orrery at the other end of the room as the planets inched around their orbit.

His father picked up the prism, holding it up to the firstlights twinkling in one of the three crystal chandeliers.

Ruhn said tightly, “Tiberian said the Governor wants these murders kept quiet, but I’d like your permission to warn my mother.” Every word grated. I’d like your permission.

His father waved a hand. “Permission granted. She’ll heed the warning.”

Just as Ruhn’s mother had obeyed everyone her entire life.

She’d listen and lie low, and no doubt gladly accept the extra guards sent to her villa, down the block from his own, until this shit was sorted out. Maybe he’d even stay with her tonight.

She wasn’t queen—wasn’t even a consort or mate. No, his sweet, kind mother had been selected for one purpose: breeding. The Autumn King had decided, after a few centuries of ruling, that he wanted an heir. As the daughter of a prominent noble house that had defected from Avallen’s court, she’d done her duty gladly, grateful for the eternal privilege it offered. In all of Ruhn’s seventy-five years of life, he’d never heard her speak one ill word about his father. About the life she’d been conscripted to.

Even when Ember and his father had their secret, disastrous relationship, his mother had not been jealous. There had been so many other females before her, and after her. Yet none had been formally chosen, not as she was, to continue the royal bloodline. And when Bryce had come along, the few times his mother had met her, she’d been kind. Doting, even.

Ruhn couldn’t tell if he admired his mother for never questioning the gilded cage she lived in. If something was wrong with him for resenting it.

He might never understand his mother, yet it didn’t stop his fierce pride that he took after her bloodline, that his shadow-walking set him apart from the asshole in front of him, a constant, welcome reminder that he didn’t have to turn into a domineering prick. Even if most of his mother’s kin in Avallen were little better. His cousins especially.

“Perhaps you should call her,” Ruhn said, “give the warning yourself. She’d appreciate your concern.”

“I’m otherwise engaged,” his father said calmly. It had always astonished Ruhn: how cold his father was, when those flames burned in his veins. “You may inform her yourself. And you will refrain from telling me how to manage my relationship with your mother.”

“You don’t have a relationship. You bred her like a mare and sent her out to pasture.”