Page 13 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

I slid off the saddle and returned her friendly smile.

“Hello, Denisa. Aren’t you supposed to be retired?” I teased. “That’s what you claimed you were finally doing when I visited two years ago.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled as her smile widened. “I tried the whole retirement thing, but honestly, it was really boring. For a while I helped out in the garden, but the other workers got tired of me killing all the plants, so I volunteered to help train the next generation.”

She jerked her head towards the other guard who appeared to be a few years younger than me. He was tall but still in that awkward gangly stage where he hadn’t grown into his body yet.My lips twitched in amusement as he tried very hard not to check me out, but his gaze kept dropping down to my chest. I winked at him when I caught him looking, and the tips of his ears burned red.

Denisa chuckled. “This is Jesper. It’s only his second day on the job and he already gets to meet our long-lost Heir.”

“I wasn’t lost, Denisa,” I said dryly before holding my hand out to the young guard in training. “Hello, Jesper."

He grasped my hand and shook it a little too eagerly. Color stained his cheeks when he realized what he was doing, and he quickly released my hand before running his own through his hair as he blustered through an apology.

“It’s fine,” I said with a laugh and then pointed to my bag. “Would you mind getting that for me?”

Thrilled to have something to do, he leapt at the chance and quickly untied my pack from the saddle, all awkwardness from before forgotten.

I turned to Denisa. “Thank you. Would you mind seeing Zosa to the stable? I’d like to check—”

“Sam?” a deep, masculine voice called out from above me. I looked up towards the balcony across the main courtyard, smiling more broadly than I had in three years.

“Hello, Kieran.” I laughed as the golden-haired man leapt off the balcony, landing on his feet like the twenty-foot drop was nothing, and raced towards me. He crushed me in a hug and spun me around, sending my black hair flaring around us. “You’re making me dizzy,” I complained, and he finally set me down after one more twirl.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming for a visit!” He looked over my shoulder toward the gate, eyebrows bunching together as he saw no House Laurent rangers behind me. “Where is your escort?”

“Well…” I started, reaching for my bag that one of the guards still held, but Kieran snatched it from him first.

“Where is your escort, Sam?” He narrowed his eyes at me. I’d spent a significant portion of my childhood lusting after those deep brown eyes that were flecked with gold.

Moroi’s had multi-colored eyes. We had one dominant color and then another secondary color that weaved through our irises like thin little cracks. Most of the time, the secondary color was only faint, but the lines would widen whenever our bloodlust rose until it completely dominated our eye color. Strong emotions brought on the color change as well.

Kieran’s eyes were currently blazing gold.

Rynn and Cali were my best friends, but Kieran and I were just as close, only in a different way. He’d been my first serious crush, and while we’d always just been friends, there was a part of me that had desperately always wanted more.

I wasn’t entirely sure he had felt the same back then because he was a notorious flirt and regularly practiced his skills on me.

We’d also always known that I was going to marry Demetri, so there had been a line we didn’t want to cross. Leading up to my marriage, I had few regrets. Not being able to explore things with Kieran had definitely been one of them.

Given how quickly my body came to attention at his presence, my crush clearly hadn’t faded over the years.

“My trip was unplanned,” I said smoothly.

Kieran was usually pretty easygoing, but he could be obnoxiously protective of me sometimes. I needed to keep my explanation short and simple and then distract him with something else.

I continued, “An escort wasn’t a possibility, but it was daytime, and you know it’s a relatively short trip between House Laurent and here. Besides, I mostly stuck to the main road.”

Shit. I shouldn’t have said that last bit.

“Mostly?” His nostrils flared as he kept his gaze trained on me.

I raised my chin and tried my best to look down on him, which was a little hard to do because he had several inches on my five-and-a-half-foot frame. “You’re not the boss of me, Kieran.”

The annoyance slipped off his face as he gave me a charming grin. That same damn grin was what had the ladies in court taking off their panties and throwing them at him. Or just throwing themselves at him in general. It had driven me insane when we were younger.

Thanks to my marriage agreement, Kieran had always been off-limits to me, so I had to stand by while he flirted with every girl who caught his eye.

“You’re right. I’m not the boss of you.”

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