13. Florian

Chapter 13

Florian

He kissed me.

Cove fucking Moonstriker kissed me.

And then I straddled his lap on my father’s desk in his stodgy dark office and kissed him again and again. His cock pressed up into me as we kissed, and mine was as hard as a rock, straining in my underwear. Part of me wanted to rub up against him like a desperate teenager, thinking of nothing but impending orgasm, but that wasn’t what we needed.

No. We needed to think about things, slow and logical, and go into whatever this was with our eyes wide open.

I pulled back, taller than him for the first time in our acquaintance, since I was practically sitting on his lap. Looking down at him, my breath caught. The image was even better than I’d imagined—his hair falling loose, strands unfurled around his face. Pupils dilated, making his pale gray eyes dark. Lips swollen and pink, hanging open as he gasped for breath. Alabaster cheeks flushed with more color than I’d seen in them before.

I’d done that. Mussed that serene perfection. Made him want.

“If you’re going to teach me how to run the family, I still have to be the one in charge. I can’t even seem to be taking orders from you, let alone do so.”

He took a deep breath, planting his hands on my hips and nodding. “I entirely agree. The Dawnchaser look for weakness and exploit it. How are you at handling your cousins?”

I winced and shrugged. “Mostly, I ignore them. I beat Adger in a duel once, so they don’t try to fight me anymore, but it didn’t change that they all think they should be the ones in charge of the whole family. They’re asses. They think they’re better than me. So I walk away.”

For some reason, that made him smile. “We can work with that. It’s not the best starting point, but it’s a starting point. And if you can beat the most arrogant one in a duel, that already says something.”

“It’s Navia,” I corrected, reaching up to touch where she was hanging on a chain at my neck. “She makes me graceful. I don’t like to fight, but I can do it.”

The smile grew, and he leaned in, cupping my cheeks in his palms. “How do you even exist here? You’re like a hothouse flower growing in the desert.”

And then he kissed me again.

I wasn’t sure how long we kissed, but just as I was girding my strength to suggest we go up to my room, there was a sharp knock behind me.

Cove jerked back, his eyes going wide, and I slid down off the desk, turning to look at who was there.

I was a fucking mess, of course, hard cock not at all camouflaged by my clothing. I’d never thought I’d be jealous of the super-formal Moonstriker clothing, but Cove somehow managed to look almost cool and unaffected, while I was sure I looked like a damned teenager interrupted while making out in their car.

In the office doorway stood the vassal who had arrived with Cove. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her much since their arrival. What had she been doing?

She...well, now she was giving me a look that might have terrified me, were I not used to my father’s fits of rage. Her eyes were narrowed, fists clenched at her sides, and her whole body was tense, like she wanted to leap into action. Action that would probably include beating the crap out of me.

“Coral?” Cove’s voice cut the tension, and she turned to look at him. “You’ve returned rather earlier than I expected.”

She didn’t immediately answer, but strode across the room, almost shoving her way between me and Cove.

Oh hells, were they lovers?

But she didn’t kiss him. No, she lifted his chin and stared into his eyes a moment. Then she took his pulse.

“Coral,” he said again, voice soft. Soothing. His eyes were filled with concern. “I’m fine. I”—he looked up at me, and a soft smile played across his lips—“I promise. Florian isn’t doing anything untoward.”

Untoward? That was...well hells, if I’d imagined anyone was going to accuse one of us of impropriety, it would have been him, since he was quite a lot older than me. But the look Coral shot me was pure suspicion.

“Maybe I should go, so you two can talk,” I suggested.

Cove waved a dismissive hand. “I sent Coral out to look at your father’s other holdings to search for signs of habitation. You want him found as much as anyone, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t know if she’s found something.”

“I haven’t,” she dismissed. “I just had to come back this way to get to the next one, so I came to check on how things were going.” Then she turned another suspicious look on me. “And maybe it’s a good thing I did. The last thing you need is?—”

“Have a care, Coral,” Cove said. His tone wasn’t sharp, or angry, but almost...tired. “You don’t know Florian.”

“He’s a Dawnchaser,” she shot back, eyes still narrowed at me.

“I am.” I stepped forward, back into Cove’s space. “And I’m also going to leave this to you, since I don’t feel like my presence is going to help. I’m going to go check on Fawn, since I left the staff guarding her from the cousins. I’ll be upstairs.” I leaned in and brushed my lips against his cheek, just briefly, before turning to leave.

Coral continued to watch me with suspicion, and I wondered where a thing like that had been born. Why would me kissing Cove be so very suspicious? But either way, it wasn’t my issue. I had to trust in Cove to handle it.

“Thank you, Florian,” he said, voice so soft I might have missed it if I hadn’t been listening for anything as I left the room.

I let out a shaky breath when I got into the hallway, trying to ignore the low hissed voices behind me. Coral had reason not to trust Dawnchasers, didn’t she? I didn’t trust Dawnchasers. My father was a killer. She was like Olivier, possibly; concerned about her charge’s health and wellbeing, but also not able to stand between him and the world of other powerful people.

How odd, to think of myself as a powerful person, but to a family vassal, I was just that.

In fact, I was a single step removed from being the Dawnchaser, to most people.

A shiver went through me, making me grab the banister tight as I mounted the staircase.

If I was ever going to take that responsibility on myself, the mantle of the Dawnchaser, something was going to have to give. I wasn’t going to be my father or grandfather, both of whom had reputations for cruelty in all things.

I wasn’t going to let this change who I was.

That meant Dawnchaser itself had to change.

Another shiver hit me, but then, oddly, I felt lighter, more buoyant, as I reached the top of the stairs. I could do this. I was me, and I wasn’t going to let Dawnchaser change that. So I had to change the world around me instead. I didn’t know how I was going to convince my cousins to stop stabbing everyone in the back, but dammit, I’d figure something out.

I was halfway down the hallway to Fawn’s room when my phone rang. Not beeped or vibrated with an incoming text, but rang, like someone was actually calling me.

Odd.

I pulled it out of my pocket to find an unfamiliar number. It was local, so maybe someone I knew had gotten a new number. I didn’t usually answer the phone, but it wasn’t like I had anything better to do.

“Hello?”

“That’s certainly one way to manipulate the Moonstriker’s schemes,” the cold, dead voice of my father came across the line, creeping down my spine and making me shiver again, this time in a less pleasant way.

“What are you talking about?” I searched the hall with my eyes, like I could find somewhere to hide there. Or find somewhere my father was hiding inside the house already.

He scoffed loudly. “Fucking the arrogant prig, of course. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s always had a weakness for twenty-ish Dawnchasers. It’s good. We can use this.”

A weakness for...was Father saying that Cove had been with other Dawnchasers? Other people like me?

Was it . . . did he just like the way I looked, and not care about . . .

No. No, that didn’t make sense at all. If anything, Cove seemed to hate Dawnchaser lands as a whole. He hadn’t cared to flirt with my cousins but tossed them out on their ears. And from what Olivier had told me, he’d given the entire staff permission to ignore Adger and Courtney and their demands.

Cove didn’t have some kind of Dawnchaser fetish.

“You might have to fuck him, of course,” Father was saying on the other end of the line as I tried to work through my worries. “But that’s fine. You’ll manage that. For the good of the family.”

For the good of the family.

I’d never imagined anything quite so unappealing in my life as fucking someone for the good of the family. Particularly not when it was someone I actually wanted to have sex with for myself.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I insisted.

“I saw you kissing the Moonstriker,” Father said, voice as dry and dusty as Sunrunner lands. “And unless you’ve betrayed your family for that self-righteous prick, it means you’re working an angle. Get him into bed and keep his anger off you, yes? Well, we’re going to use it to even better effect. Soften him up, then when we need the advantage, hit him where it hurts most and finish him once and for all.”

Finish him. Father was talking about killing Cove. Did he still think he could manage this ridiculous plan of killing the family leaders and taking all the stones, when he’d already failed to resonate with Verelle?

It was almost funny, if it hadn’t been so fucking ridiculous.

I’d known Cove less than a week, and I knew without a doubt I would never betray him on Father’s behalf. No wonder Kit Emrys had said that nothing would change his course. Even if he did have some reason to be angry with Cove, I didn’t think there was reason enough in the whole world to side with Father over him. It simply wasn’t possible for a sane person to side with Father. He was a liar, a user, and a monster.

That some of my cousins would no doubt side with him was incomprehensible to me, even though I knew it would happen.

I knew my father too well. I knew once you were at his side, you had a fifty-fifty shot at being the next person he’d attack. The cousins would be shocked when he turned on them too. Indignant and offended, as though putting a monster back in power meant you alone were immune to his monstrosity.

On the phone, Father was still droning on. “...that hard to slip into his bed. You’ll have to avoid that guard dog of his, Coral. She knows our tricks too well, and she’ll be watching you.”

Our tricks? What tricks?

Hells, I wished I had some trick that was going to land me squarely in Cove’s bed, but I didn’t. I could only hope I would end up there because he wanted me there, and I definitely wanted to be there.

It was good that Father had spent years training me to be a perfect little lapdog. Not because it made me any more likely to do what he wished and betray Cove, but because he thought it did. Because he didn’t pay attention to my silence and kept on about his plan.

His plan for me to sneak my way into Cove’s circle of trust by bending over for him. I wasn’t sure if the whole thing best illustrated his lack of respect for me or for Cove.

I hardly even noticed when the line went dead, Father apparently having finished giving orders. He hadn’t even asked me to confirm his demands or agree with him. It was assumed. I was his dog, I would be loyal.

Me? I just kept wondering what the hell it had meant, that Cove had a weakness for young Dawnchasers.

I wanted to be the only one, I realized. Oh yes, Cove could care about Fawn—it wasn’t possible for me to fall for someone who didn’t care about Fawn. But if it was only about pretty young golden-haired people with green eyes?

I had no idea what I’d do with that.

Instead of going to check on Fawn, I went to my own room, collapsing onto the bed to brood. Fawn would be fine, maybe even better off, without me for a while.