Page 25 of A House of Fangs & Deceit

Tentatively, I pivoted left. It seemed unlikely that the roomI thought of would be available because despite it being a small space, it had the best view on this floor.

But when I saw that the door was open, my steps quickened. I peeked inside and, to my delight, the study appeared to be unclaimed. It was almost half the size of Alaric’s, with a desk on the right side of the room, angled so that you could see both the door and the window.

My feet carried me to the floor-to-ceiling window of their own accord, and I rested my hands against the glass as I looked out.

From this high up, I could see over the thick stone walls that protected all of House Harker to the sandy beach beyond. The tide rolled in gently over the shore, making it glisten as the waves pulled back before pushing inward again.

When we were growing up, this was where Kieran and I would work on our studies or just hang out. Occasionally, Rynn and Cali would come visit me, and we would use this space as well. It had never officially been mine, but looking back, Carmilla must have told everyone to leave it unoccupied so that we could use it.

Glancing around, I noticed that it was very clean, despite not being in use.

I wasn’t surprised by the lack of clutter, but why would the staff bother dusting a room that no one was using? Even the rich wood of the desk shone like it had been polished recently.

“Thought you might claim this one.”

I smiled over my shoulder at where Kieran was leaning against the doorframe. His loose blond hair fell around his face in soft curls, and his eyes shone with pleased satisfaction.

“Are you the reason this one is still free?” I tossed the marriage dissolution draft onto the desk as I hopped up onto it.

He shrugged. “No one has ever officially claimed it. It’s mostly been used by visiting nobles and representatives from other Houses. One of the studies down the hall was free, so Ihelped the most recent occupant move to that one this morning.”

“Thank you,” I said honestly as I leaned back onto my palms and studied my new space.

The wall opposite the desk was mostly filled with bookshelves, but there was still some wall area left. Maybe I could get a miniature version of the map from Marvina’s office and hang it there.

Thinking back to my encounter with Alaric, I grimaced. “My morning had a bit of a rough start, so this was a pleasant surprise.”

Kieran pushed off the doorframe and took a seat in one of the chairs facing the desk. Then he swung his long legs over the arm of the chair so that he was sitting sideways and let his head hang back. It didn’t look comfortable at all, but it was such a Kieran move that it tugged another smile out of me.

Kieran was as good at cheering me up as Alaric was at pissing me off. It was a cruel joke of fate that they were best friends.

“You were in Alaric’s office for less than fifteen minutes, and you already pissed him off.” He smirked. “Impressive.”

“He’s the one who pissed me off!” I seethed as flickers of the anger I’d felt at Alaric earlier caused my body to tense up again. “Whatever. Glad to see that you’re still taking his side.”

“Did you do that thing where you flash unnecessary amounts of skin just to make him uncomfortable?” He looked pointedly at the bare thigh I was now showing. When I glowered at him, he just laughed. “I thought so.”

“Fine,” I admitted, my shoulders slumping a bit. “I’ve already acknowledged to myself that I could have behaved better, and I will do so in the future, but we both know it won’t make a difference. He’s never going to change his mind about me, and I don’t care.”

“Hmm,” Kieran mused but didn’t deny my statement.

“Anyway,” I drawled, “I’m going to review the draft that he wrote up for dissolving the marriage between me and Demetri. I promised to bring all the changes to his office tomorrow morning.”

I leaned over and started flipping through the paperwork. Despite Alaric claiming to have just pulled together the basics, he appeared to have done a thorough job. I chewed on my bottom lip as guilt began to set in. Carmilla had no doubt ordered him to do this, but he still obviously put a lot of effort into it.

“You really going to go through with it?” Kieran’s tone was curious with a touch of something else that I couldn’t quite place.

“They’d have to work very hard to change my mind,” I said simply, already half-focused on a particularly tricky wording I’d stumbled onto in the third paragraph. “I spent the last three years trying to make not only my marriage work but also demonstrate that I was an asset to House Laurent. They put zero effort in. If anything, they worked against me. I realize that this marriage was arranged to better our relations with that house of vipers, but it just wasn’t working.”

I blinked several times when I realized I’d just been reading the same sentence over and over again. With a sigh, I dropped the document back onto the desk and focused on Kieran once more. He’d repositioned himself so that he was slouching against the back of the chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, giving the impression of languid ease.

“I wasn’t happy.” I tried to keep my tone even, but a little of the pain I’d felt leaked through, and Kieran’s expression hardened.

“What did he do?” His eyes scoured my face as if he would find the answer he sought there.

Seeing Kieran’s protectiveness over me helped ease some of the pain left over from my time at House Laurent. I’d beenalone there, but here I had the full support of my aunt. And I had Kieran.

“Nothing I shouldn’t have expected.” I let out a mirthless laugh. “I knew that our marriage was a political one. There was never anything romantic about it. We didn’t exchange love letters, we exchanged updates about our Houses. Updates that were carefully reviewed by others because, despite the impending marriage between our Houses, information is still something that should be tightly controlled.”

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