by Beth Bolden
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Acknowledgements
Beth’s Books
About Beth
Copyright
Chapter One
Gray woke very slowly, his brain rousing in tiny increments. First he was aware only of a warm figure pressed against his back, and then breath tickling his neck, lifting the hairs and causing him to twitch. Then a brightness against his closed eyelids, and the sounds of rustling and hushed whispers.
He’d been waking up next to Rory for months now, and it never felt less miraculous. Each and every morning felt like the first time. Without opening his eyes, Gray turned and drew the soft, sleeping bundle closer to his own body, and his sleepy brain reveled in how perfectly Rory fit next to him. Like they’d been made for each other. Maybe they had—Evrard dropped hints aplenty, because that was Evrard; always hinting and forever evading any direct inquiry—but Gray had decided that whatever the truth was, it didn’t matter, because he knew what it felt like when he was at Rory’s side. And something so extraordinary, that gave him this much strength of purpose, had to be born of the strongest, brightest kind of magic.
The rustling departed, and for a single moment, Gray thought another kind miracle had just occurred: Rory sleeping through the servants who prepared the fires every morning.
For the last six months, Rory, with an increasing sense of kingly devotion, had risen with the dawn, and worked long past sundown. There was indeed much to learn and much to do, and even more to administer, now that Rory was the ruler of Fontaine, but even though Gray knew how much his responsibilities encompassed, he still selfishly wished, every once in awhile, that he could keep Rory all to himself.
This morning … maybe. Gray held his breath, and carefully tightened his grip around Rory’s waist. He sighed, still asleep, and snuggled closer. But then, just when Gray was trying to decide if it was better to let Rory continue to sleep, or to wake him for much more pleasurable activities, Rory jerked awake.
“What time is it?’ he asked groggily, and Gray, who had long since learned that beginning their morning with an argument was a counterproductive waste of time, moved his arm, releasing Rory. Gray finally opened his eyes and took in Rory’s sleep-mussed curly hair as he stretched his arms upwards, his limbs milky white in the dawn sunlight.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been unattractive or even ugly, Gray still would have thought him the most beautiful man in the world. So much of his beauty radiated from within: kindness and cleverness and an indomitable strength that nothing could ever dim.
Gray chuckled tiredly, and rolled over onto his back.
“The fire’s already going,” Rory said, and Gray heard his feet hit the floor. “I’m going to miss my lesson with the Mecant elders.” He paused, turning back to Gray. “What’s so funny?” he asked, and Gray would have to be a lot sleepier to miss the aching tone in Rory’s voice. He didn’t want to leave their bed, even though he knew he needed to. Maybe it should have helped, but even that particular fact didn’t really make Gray feel any better.
“I was remembering the first time I met you, and how naive and silly I thought you were,” Gray confessed.
“And that was amusing because?” Rory arched an eyebrow as he reached for a shirt, pulling it over his head.
Their gazes caught and held. “Because it’s very far from how I feel about you now.”
Rory smiled, the sight nearly as bright as the sun shining through the windows of their shared bedroom. “Well,” he said, bending over and giving Gray a tantalizing little glimpse of his pale, peach-shaped arse, glorious and muscled from all the riding he did, “it’s very far from how I feel about you, too.”
Laughing in spite of himself, Gray found his grumpy mood dispelled by just how much he loved the man in front of him—all the parts of him, including the annoyingly responsible part who wanted desperately to care for his kingdom and make sure it was ushered into a new age of enlightenment and prosperity. “You are going to be late now,” Gray said. “But first, before you leave, come give me a kiss.”
Rory did, leaning down over the bed, his mouth moving confidently and passionately against Gray’s own. It was a good kiss, because all their kisses were. This one, however, felt anticipatory, like a dry pile of kindling, desperately waiting for a spark. It didn’t take more than a second to light, and Gray’s fingers were tightening on Rory’s hips, and even as he tried to ignore his hardening cock, it seemed to demand a much different response.
“Sorry, sorry,” Rory said, hastily breaking away, mouth wet and red, panting a little. He wanted it too—Gray could see the hard line of his own cock in his breeches. Maybe it should have helped Gray feel better that Rory was suffering just as much as he was with how little alone time they had together anymore, but it didn’t. Not even a little. “Tonight,” Rory promised.
Gray made a face. “Tonight is that banquet that Evrard has been rattling on about for weeks.” And that I’ve spent the last month of my life planning.
“After the banquet?” Rory said hopefully, and Gray didn’t have the heart to remind him that after the protracted formality of a banquet and a few glasses of wine, he’d absolutely come back to their room and fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. His schedule was so brutal and exhausting that Gray couldn’t even be angry about it.
Gray wanted to help ease his burden—desperately, in fact—but whenever Gray brought it up, Rory changed the subject or brushed his concerns away. Gray had been trying a more subtle method up until now, but with his frustration and worry mounting, maybe he needed to be more direct.
While I’m planning banquets and deciding on seating arrangements, you’re running a country.
“Sure, after the banquet,” Gray said with a reassuring smile. Maybe if by some miracle, Rory wasn’t completely exhausted, they could even have a conversation about it. But before that, it would almost certainly be worth his while to consult Evrard on how he could demand to help without being too forceful or accidentally offending Rory, because that was the very last thing he wanted.
Gray knew he’d been meant for more than tending the farm in the Valley of Lost Things, and he knew he could absolutely do more than physically protect Rory’s back. And not only that, he wanted to do more, if only because that might mean the enormous burden currently resting on Rory’s slim shoulders was lessened.
“I love you,” Rory said, and while the gaze in his eyes was dimmed from exhaustion, the bright happiness in them hit Gray square in the chest, leaving him breathless for a moment.
He’d never expected to have this, not for the rest of his life, and even though it wasn’t perfect right now, it was still so much more than anything Gray could have dreamt, when he’d been so alone in the Valley.
We’re going to figure this out, Gray swore to himself as he smiled at his lover. “I love you too,” he said.
———
It was not quite as easy to be that optimistic a few hours later, when Gray, who’d been looking for Evrard, had ended up being cornered by a handful of courtiers instead.
Evrard, in the form of Rhys, had spent the first eleven years of Gray’s life attempting to burn courtly manners and formal etiquette into his brain. Evrard had been resigned, but not surprised to discover that they hadn’t imprinted quite as well as he’d imagined, as the informal years in the Valley had eradicated most of this knowledge and every single bit of the diplomacy Gray had once learned. Since then, Gray had been trying to regain the lost language, but truthfully, he still found
it difficult to bother. If it had been anybody else’s kingdom, even his own, he wouldn’t have even made an effort, but for Rory he knew he needed to make peace with the nobles. They were understandably rather perturbed by the Autumn Prince’s new consort, whose manners seemed more suited to a stable than a throne room.
“It is imperative that you deliver this message to His Majesty,” Count Aplin said stiffly. “The rooms assigned to my party for the banquet are hardly acceptable.”
Gray, who was having difficulty refraining from rolling his eyes, counted to five—a technique Evrard had suggested to help deal with frustrating situations—and then counted to five again. He desperately wanted to remind Count Aplin, who knew this particular fact, that it had not been Rory who’d assigned the rooms, but Gray himself. And, as there were only so many rooms available in Beaulieu and apparently a multitude of nobles who wanted them, facts were not on Count Aplin’s side.
He turned to Anya, who had pledged her sword to him, even as Gray had pledged his to Rory. He did not have much need for a personal guard, a job which Anya was greatly overqualified for anyway, and so she had appointed herself as both a reminder to Gray that he couldn’t tell off the nobles, and also the person he turned to when he wanted to work off his frustration in the practice ring.
“Anya,” Gray said, his calm voice deceptive, “as the King’s consort, do I not have the task of assigning various rooms in Beaulieu?”
Her gray eyes were glimmering with amusement. “You do, my prince.”
At first, he had wanted her to stop referring to his lineage—especially since after the death of his father, the kingship of Ardglass had been disbanded entirely—but then Evrard had intervened and claimed that it was good for the Fontaine nobles to remember that while Gray might have very little patience with niceties, he did in fact outrank them.
“Ah,” Gray said, still calm, but his gaze now pinning Count Aplin to the floor. He squirmed, visibly. “I thought so.”
“But, Prince Graham, the rooms are truly unacceptable. Only four! And so small! And terribly located, very far away from the throne room and the great hall. I served the King’s aunt loyally, and that loyalty should not be repaid with such poor lodgings.” Count Aplin was clearly not going to give up without a fight.
“The King’s aunt?” Gray prowled a step closer to Count Aplin. “The sorceress who sold her soul for dark magic? Who threatened the King’s life? Who threatened my life? Three times?”
Count Aplin stared at Gray. “Three times?”
Gray stared back, hard. Maybe later, much later, he would feel guilty about how harsh he was being with Aplin. It would almost definitely happen when Evrard inevitably cornered and lectured him about diplomacy and using honey instead of vinegar. But right now, playing nice with one of Sabrina’s ex-supporters felt impossible.
“Three times,” Gray confirmed.
Aplin flushed. “I … Just please pass on my complaint to the King.”
Nodding sharply, Gray didn’t say he would—because he wasn’t going to and he definitely wasn’t going to lie and pretend like he was going to bother Rory with such a silly request.
Finally, the Count seemed to understand and turned away. Gray let out the unsteady breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Anger and frustration were still coursing through him, the indignity making his blood boil. Maybe if Rory finally let him do something important, he wouldn’t have the time to listen to the sort of petty complaints Count Aplin and many others had.
Gray was just about to go find Evrard so he could ask for advice on how to convince Rory to help share some of his burden, when a sound stopped him short.
Slow, arrogant clapping.
Turning, Gray saw one of Sabrina’s other supporters, the Duke of Rinald, approaching. While Count Aplin was annoying, he was ultimately harmless—like the complaint he’d just made about a bad suite of rooms. But the Duke was an entirely different problem; he was clearly disgruntled and intelligent enough to actually do something dangerous about it. Out of all of Sabrina’s old supporters who still lurked in the Fontaine aristocracy, the Duke of Rinald was by far the most worrisome.
Gray felt his anger congeal into ice. He’d stupidly lost his temper with Aplin, and the Duke of Rinald had witnessed the entire exchange—and likely would find a way to use it against him.
“You certainly have no love for Count Aplin,” the Duke drawled. He had dark hair, and even darker eyes. Beady, unforgiving eyes that brought to mind dark deeds and even darker purpose. Gray could very well imagine him standing next to Sabrina as she cast her spells, dooming Gray’s father, and then Rory’s parents. Aplin might have enjoyed Sabrina’s influence in the court at Beaulieu, but the Duke of Rinald had run it with her. Had been so influential, in fact, that Evrard initially had been concerned about leaving him free to continue plotting. But Rory had insisted that without any actual proof of his misdeeds, the Duke and any other of Sabrina’s supporters, would remain free. It had been a calculated risk, and Gray still wasn’t sure it had been the right path to take.
“Sir,” Gray said, acknowledging his presence without actually saying anything of substance. Because what else could he say? He certainly had no love lost for the Count and his whining, and he certainly felt even less kindly inclined towards the Duke.
“Highness,” the Duke said icily, inclining his head. “You certainly have made your influence felt here at court.”
Maybe without that clutch of fear for Rory and his somewhat precarious position, Gray would have been proud of the Duke’s statement. He’d tried to do what he could to keep an eye on the men who could hurt the man he loved and the future they’d so miraculously created here. Sometimes all he could do was exercise the little influence he had to inconvenience them, like Count Aplin. Until Rory let him become more involved in the day-to-day running of Fontaine, he’d take every path available to him—even the ones that felt insignificant.
“Thank you,” Gray said. “I’m so pleased you’ve noticed.”
“Count Aplin might be satisfied with complaining about accommodations, but others will not be,” the Duke said. “I will warn you, not everyone is so pleased that King Emory has taken his aunt’s throne or brought a prince of Ardglass to Beaulieu as his consort. We must be vigilant against those who would threaten the King.”
The Duke would never be stupid enough to say it was him who was unhappy about these two events, but the message was clear enough. Watch your back. Watch Rory’s back.
“I appreciate your concern,” Gray offered stiffly.
“Of course you do,” the Duke said, his voice oily and ingratiating. “Shall I see you and the King tonight at the banquet?”
“Naturally,” Gray said. “Until tonight.”
“Tonight,” the Duke agreed.
When Gray finally found Evrard, tucked away in one of the brighter corners of the royal stable, his hands had finally stopped trembling.
“What is the matter?” Evrard asked, his tone annoyingly complacent. Gray knew when he heard what had just transpired, he would not be nearly so calm.
“The Duke of Rinald,” Gray groaned, leaning against the rough-hewn wood of the stable wall. “I think he just threatened me and Rory.” Gray paused. “Mainly Rory.”
To Gray’s surprise, Evrard’s expression remained unconcerned. “We knew that he was going to be unhappy about Rory ascending to the throne,” he said.
“Also, Aplin is complaining again,” Gray said with a resigned sigh. “This time about the bad rooms I gave him.”
“Perhaps if his focus remains on those indignities, he will not be interested in additional conspiracies,” Evrard pointed out.
Gray was secretly afraid this wasn’t true at all, and that both Evrard and Rory were frighteningly certain of their own invincibility. But Gray, who was the one somehow relegated to actually addressing their complaints, was increasingly concerned. All it took was one or two nobles grumbling, and discontent could spread like wildfire. He remembered when Sabrina
had first come to Tullamore, and when her influence on King Gideon had grown by leaps and bounds very quickly, how angry the Ardglassian clan chiefs had been. An interloper, and a beautiful woman at that, suddenly had their King’s ear. Gray remembered when he had first awoken that fateful night, how certain that the threat came not from Sabrina, but from the clans themselves. Perhaps that was why she had chosen that night to finally exercise her control over the King, forcing him to relinquish Gray—she’d known she could not continue to hold the clan chiefs off for very much longer. Of course, he would never be able to ask her, because he and Lion’s Breath had turned her into a harmless pile of ash.
But now Gray was the interloper at a foreign court, and he had strange, inexplicable magic. The people of Fontaine loved Rory, and would willingly follow him—but it was unspoken that they were not quite as thrilled that along the way, he had discovered the lost prince of Ardglass and insisted on bringing him home.
“I need to be doing something else than listening to Aplin’s petty complaints and the Duke’s veiled, ambiguous threats,” Gray said, squeezing his fists together. He’d felt this way once before, when he’d first come to the Valley, and the only thing that had kept him sane was as much useful work as he could possibly accomplish in a day. Assigning rooms and listening to the nobles’ squabbles and being available for whenever Rory had a spare moment for him—that could never be classified as useful and absolutely was not enough to keep him occupied.
Evrard cocked his head, considering. “You have, I would assume, discussed this with the King.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course I have.”
Evrard’s silence prompted him to continue. “And he keeps saying he will find more for me to do, but deep down, I don’t think he intends to find me an occupation. He wants to do it all, even if the attempt leaves him bedraggled and exhausted.”
“He feels guilty,” Evrard supplied, and then hesitated. “Perhaps that is an expected emotion. Rory let his aunt control him and his kingdom for many years, without complaint or interruption.”