To Target the Heart

by Aldrea Alien

  Hamish settled at their chosen table. The middle had been hollowed out to set a little brass brazier inside. Darshan lit the coals with a flick of his fingers.

  Servants passed constantly, always offering up cakes and bowls of small, powdered cubes that Hamish couldn’t identify. He politely waved them away even as Darshan snaffled up several trays.

  It wasn’t too long before one of those trays bore two, small cups of dark brown liquid. Steam radiated from the contents as the servant set the tray on the table and, bowing low, left them without a word.

  “You simply must try some of this.” Darshan placed one of the cups into Hamish’s hands. “It’s a Niholian drink, very popular in most of the empires. They call it kofe.”

  Hamish lifted the cup to his lips. The sharp acrid scent assaulted his senses before he could take a sip. Nevertheless, he braved a mouthful.

  Bitterness washed over his tongue. Hamish spat the liquid back into the cup and held it far from him as his body shuddered and his eyes made a valiant attempt to roll back into his skull. “Are you trying to poison me?” He set the cup down on the tray of a passing servant. It had to be some sort of prank, the kofe tasted only of ash and dirt.

  “Hold on.” Darshan ushered a nearby serving woman closer. After a few words in hushed tones, the woman returned with another tray sporting two cups, a pot of amber syrup and a bowl piled with what looked to be sand in colour and texture.

  “I forget it can be a bit on the strong side to the uninitiated. I have been a constant consumer since my Khutani, but I am aware it can be an acquired taste.”

  Hamish eyed his husband’s hands as Darshan busied himself with preparing a cup. He wasn’t entirely sure it was a taste he wanted to acquire.

  Darshan continued, seemingly none the wiser as to Hamish’s hesitation. The kofe was poured from its pitcher into a silver cup with a long handle. From there, his husband tipped the foam into one of the two ornate porcelain cups before putting the rest onto the bed of glowing coals nestled into the brazier.

  “The current trend is to have sweet foods with it—cakes, dates, candied fruit and the like—but I’ve always rather preferred it this way,” Darshan said, his voice distant whilst his gaze remained intently on the kofe. He drizzled a generous amount of syrup into the silver cup, stirring occasionally and removing it from the coals only once the slightly paler brown liquid within had started to bubble. “Perhaps you will also find this a little more palatable.”

  Transferring the liquid to the cups that were already full of foam, Darshan set the silver cup down and lifted the porcelain cup in both hands to inhale deeply over its contents. Contentment lit his face. “Try it now,” his husband insisted, offering up the cup.

  Hamish bent over the table to take a sip without relinquishing Darshan of the cup. Bitterness still lurked in the aftertaste, but its edge had been smoothed by the familiar taste of honey and something even sweeter. Satisfied, he took the cup and tried another mouthful.

  Licking his lips, Darshan slid over a tray of small pink cubes covered in white powder. “Now these are a purely Udynean dish from the south.” He picked up a cube and popped it into his mouth, giving a decadent groan as he chewed.

  Hamish plucked one from the pile. They were springy in a sticky sort of fashion, like a more solid form of the gelatinous gloop found in the poorer pies. Arching a questioning brow at Darshan, he followed his husband’s actions by chucking the whole thing into his mouth.

  The sweetness of the powder hit him first. He shuddered, reaching for the kofe to wash away the taste. He’d barely gotten the cup to his lips before another flavour worked its way through the oversweet powder. It was subtle and slightly floral. He rolled the cube around on his tongue until the powder was gone.

  Rather than chew as Darshan had done, he let the cube dissolve, occasionally sipping at the kofe. Combined, they didn’t taste too bad.

  “Well?”

  His gaze lifted to Darshan, who still intently watched him.

  “What do you think?” An eager little gleam twinkled in his eyes. The same one Hamish had seen in his nephews when they were hoping they’d impressed him. “I did ask for them not to make the brew too strong.”

  Hamish lowered the cup and brushed at his beard to disturb any white powder that might have collected there. “It’s fine. I’ve just been thinking.” His gaze swept over their surroundings, taking in the quiet warmth of the garden. It was all very cosy and sweet. “We’ve nae places like this in Tirglas.” A pub was the closest, but he’d wager they had plenty of them here as well. To choose a place that would be entirely foreign to him, to opt for this level of solitude—

  He frowned. Food, solitude and romantic company. Hadn’t that been the stipulations of what Darshan had called a date? But they were married. By Tirglasian standards, anyway. If I get carted off by his enemies, I bloody swear…

  “ ‘Mish?” A thread of alarm wove its way through Darshan’s voice. His gaze darted to Hamish’s cup of kofe, but if he was concerned about its contents, he gave no other indication. “Is everything all right?”

  Jerked out of his musing, Hamish cleared his throat and popped another powdered cube into his mouth. “Aye,” he mumbled whilst idly chewing. “It’s just a little strange.”

  Amusement and mischief gleamed in those hazel eyes as his husband grinned at him over his own cup. “If you think all this…” He twirled a forefinger, indicating the garden. “…is strange, then I simply cannot wait until I get you home.”

  Hamish returned to sipping the kofe. A warm breeze caressed his skin, the spicy floral scent it carried mirrored in the food. “With you at me side, I’m already there.”

  THE END

  Hi, I hope you enjoyed the book. Do consider leaving a review.

  Hamish and Darshan will be returning in To Poison a Prince.

  For more stories set in the spellster realm:

  Willow: A Spellster Short Story

  The Leap to Freedom

  Someone Else’s Shoes - Found in Once Upon Another World

  In Pain and Blood

  An Unexpected Gift

  About the Author

  Mother. Animal Lover. Vampire. Fangirl.

  Aldrea Alien is a bisexual, New Zealand author of romantic speculative fiction of varying heat levels.

  She grew up on a small farm out the back blocks of a place known as Wainuiomata alongside a menagerie of animals, who are all convinced they're just as human as the next person (especially the cats). She spent a great deal of her childhood riding horses, whilst the rest of her time was consumed with reading every fantasy book she could get her hands on and concocting ideas about a little planet known as Thardrandia. This would prove to be the start of The Rogue King Saga as, come her twelfth year, she discovered there was a book inside her.

  Aldrea now lives in Upper Hutt, on yet another small farm with a less hectic, but still egotistical, group of animals (cats will be cats). She self-published the first of The Rogue King Saga in 2014. One thing she hasn't yet found is an off switch to give her an ounce of peace from the characters plaguing her mind, a list that grows bigger every year with all of them clamouring for her to tell their story first. It's a lot of people for one head.

  Read more at Aldrea Alien’s site.