Page 50 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

Wren’s full mouth turned down in a pout. “But I’m not finished with it yet.”

“Give itback.”

He glanced towards the High King, and I copied the gesture to find that Lucais was watching us with an unreadable expression on his face. It was as if we were children, and he was an estranged uncle only in town for a funeral. He looked damn near offended that I was leaning so close to the sauceboat. When he caught my eye, he cleared his throat.

Lucais did his best to look like he cared as he faced his companion and nodded his head towards me. “Give it back,” he encouraged with a grimace, his voice much quieter than I would have expected.

“Fine.” Wren rolled his eyes melodramatically and slammed the book closed, giving me a pointed look. “But you’re not invited to book club anymore.”

“What?” I blinked at him.Is he drunk?“You don’t have a book club.”

“Sure I do.” He threw a glance over his shoulder towards the bookcases in the far corner of the room. “Those are all mine. I meet with other book lovers in the Court as often as I can to discuss what we’re all reading. You work in a bookstore. Surely, you’re familiar with the concept?”

I stared beyond him, over the top of his head, at the enormous shelves and couches—at thereading nook.

Those are all Wren’s books?

There had to have been hundreds of them. And the reading pattern… With the way he’d discarded so many of them, he was either in such a hurry to get to the next one or he was ina major DNF slump where nothing he opened quite hit the right spot.

Or he was lying. But…he couldn’t lie.

I turned my deadpan gaze back onto his face. “You haven’t invited me to any book club.”

“True,” he agreed thoughtfully. “I might have, but then you got snippy with me, so now I won’t. Either way,” he went on with a shrug, “I’m not going to judge you for reading smut, bookworm.” He passed my spicy hockey romance novel across the spread of food and sauces, and I snatched it off him, quickly hiding it on my lap beneath the table. “You’re welcome, too.”

I was too overwhelmed to ask what he thought I should be thanking him for, but the effort was rendered unnecessary as Wren reached down and lifted my handbag into the air. It levitated to me over the table, and I caught it right before it fell into that infernal sauceboat. I couldn’t remember where I’d left it in the human world, and I had no idea why he’d thought to retrieve it for me or why he hadn’t bothered to say anything about it until then.

Wren stared at me expectantly, and I stared right back.

“If you are finished flirting with each other,” Lucais said at last, clearing his throat again. “I would like to begin the meal sometime soon.”

“Why would I flirt with her when I have your handsome face to make those—what are they called again, Aura?—thosefuck-meeyes at?” Wren waggled both eyebrows at his High King, who exhaled a long-suffering sigh in reply. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?” he continued, swinging his attention back to me.

I bit my tongue. Truthfully, I couldn’t care less if Wren was Lucais’s lover, but I couldn’t come up with a better explanation for his initial description of the High King. Especially when it turned out to be so accurate.

Ignoring his probing gaze, I turned towards Lucais. “Your companion informed me very early on that the High King of Faerie was the most handsome and creative man I would ever meet,” I informed him pleasantly. “I can assure you that he and I have not been flirting.”

The High King rested an elbow on the table, his mouth forming a hard line. He looked at me as if he didn’t believe me. “That’s what he told you?” he asked. He didn’t wait for me to respond before he turned his head towards Wren and said with depthless disbelief, “High Mother spare you, my friend.”

“Oh, enough.” Wren waved a hand at us and began piling food onto his plate. “You’re not in the least bit creative. I used the wordclever, but I must’ve been thinking of some other handsome man.”

Lucais huffed a laugh as he waited for Wren to finish plating up his food.

Until a moment before, I hadn’t actually thought about either of their sexualities or preferences. I hadn’t given a thought as to what their relationship might be at all. But watching the High King of Faerie patiently waiting for Wren, who had to be some kind of courtier at best, to select the largest cuts of meat and the nicest vegetables for himself had me absolutely stumped.

Kings and Queens were at the top of the food chain. Amongst any human aristocracy, behaviour like that would be considered disrespectful. Was it really so different in Faerie?

Lucais, noticing my observation of them, coughed loudly. Wren paused with his fork, loaded with roasted bean shoots, halfway to his open mouth. Slowly, he lowered his cutlery back to his plate and stared down at the pile of steaming food like he could become invisible at will.

“It is only the three of us tonight,” Lucais explained, reaching for the platter of roasted meats. “I would not be so cruelas to throw you into one of our typical dinner parties on your very first night here.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I surveyed the spread of food that spanned all the way to the other end of the table. There was enough food for an entire army laid out for us, and every chair had a gold place mat in front of it, so the decision to exclude everyone else must have been made very last minute.

“We’re old friends,” he went on, pouring some kind of black sauce all over the meat on his plate.

“Close friends,” Wren added suggestively, though his tone was lacking its usual humour, and the implication didn’t quite make its mark. I glanced over at him to find that he was still staring down at his untouched food.

“Not that close,” Lucais muttered. He offered me a small, forced smile—one that didn’t reach his eyes, which were guarded by that same hard, chestnut wall I’d seen on him upstairs. My stomach turned anxiously at the sight of it. “He’s my right-hand man. Please, eat.”

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