Alucard met the king’s gaze. “I do.” He let his weight sink onto Rhy, brought his mouth to his ear. “And he’s very good in bed.”
Rhy chuckled beneath him. “Is that so?” His teeth grazed Alucard’s shoulder as his hand found the front of his trousers. Alucard’s breath caught. He bowed his head as Rhy’s hand slipped beneath the fabric.
Just then, the door burst open.
Alucard didn’t stop, didn’t think. By the time the light from the hall spilled in, he was on his feet, one hand flung out toward the drugged wine on the table, the contents rushing up out of the glass and hardening into an icy blade against his palm. Where were the guards? Why had there been no warning? No ringing steel? His thoughts rushed ahead. Someone had killed the palace guards. They had made it to the king’s chamber.
But there was no assassin.
Only a small girl in red-and-gold pajamas, who should have been asleep.
“Saints,” hissed Alucard, letting out a ragged breath. He hid the blade behind his back as the princess tumbled into the king’s chamber like a prisoner who’d just escaped her cell.
There was no sign of the rabbit, but Esa padded in behind Ren and hopped onto a nearby chair, violet eyes surveying everything.
“What’s this?” asked Rhy, retying his robe as their daughter climbed onto the giant bed and flung her small body down among the pillows. Alucard let go of the ice-made blade and it melted back into a ribbon of laced wine, then poured itself back into its glass.
“Ren Maresh,” said Alucard, who was used to being the stern one, since Rhy refused to do it. “It’s very late. You should be asleep.”
“I need a story,” said Ren, thrusting out her hands.
She was holding a book of Faroan myths. Tales of animals who could speak, but only tell the truth, or dream other people’s dreams, or hatch new worlds from eggs. The illustrations were gilded works of art, the ink worn faintly where Ren could not help but stroke a feather or pet an ear.
“Ren,” started Alucard, who was certain the girl had already had a story, or three, courtesy of her nurse, who was nowhere to be seen.
“Luca,” pleaded Ren, employing the nickname like a well-honed spell as she patted the pillows beside her.
The youngest royal had her father’s eyes—a molten gold, ringed with dark lashes—and her mother’s mouth, though it smiled far more often.
“And she has nothing of me,” Alucard had said one night, after too much wine.
But Rhy had placed his hands around his lover’s face and said, “She has your heart.”
Alucard sighed and rounded the bed, climbing in beside his daughter to study the page.
The stories in the book were all in Faroan, of course—not yet five, and Ren was already showing the king’s gift for languages, an ability to slip between them as if they were rooms in the same house, with all the doors flung open. If diplomacy failed, thought Alucard grimly, at least she would be able to speak to their enemies.
The book fell open to her current favorite, a story of a crow who could see the past and future, but had no way of knowing which was which.
The child curled between them, fingers tangling with Alucard’s hair, and he marveled at how much he loved her. Rhy took the book and began to read, was just about to turn the page when someone cleared their throat.
Alucard looked up, expecting to see a weary Sasha trailing in the princess’s wake. Instead, he found Ren’s mother. The queen.
Nadiya Loreni stood in the doorway, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. That’s where her amusement always seemed to stop, balanced, as if about to spill. Despite her curves, there was little softness in the queen, not in her keen hazel eyes or the glossy black hair that she wore chopped short and tucked behind her ears, as if it were a nuisance.
The moment she appeared, Ren dove beneath the massive covers. Alucard cast a few pillows on top for good measure.
“My queen,” said Rhy warmly.
“My king,” she answered, drifting into the chamber. Not as if it were her own—it wasn’t—but with the measured ease of a frequent guest. There had been a question, when Rhy first married. A question of where his queen would live, and sleep, whether or not the royal bed was meant to hold two, or three. But Nadiya showed no desire to share the king’s chamber, aside from the task of conceiving the princess, and even that she’d approached less with passion than focused intent. A puzzle to be solved. A means to the end that they all desired.
“I must say, Rhy,” mused Nadiya when she reached the bedpost, “I am relieved to see that you are well.” Her voice was light, but the look in her eyes made it perfectly clear she knew what had happened in the baths. She cast a glance at Alucard, her face a mirror of his own exasperation.