Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
While the separation doesn’t last, even Varic’s return won’t stave off the wicked plotting of others, and Jason soon finds himself—again—fighting for his life while navigating ancient betrayals and revenge put in motion before he was even born. And he must prevail because his prince needs him to bring a place without honor back into his realm.
But what festers in rage and bitterness is something Jason never expected, and nothing he’s experienced in his human life, or in the decadent court of the king, could’ve prepared him for the wrath that’s about to be unleashed.
Varic needs both his crown and his consort to be the king he’s always wanted to be, and it’s up to Jason to make sure their bond never breaks.
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ONE
As prince consort, I was betting that those who didn’t know me thought I led a life of leisure. They would be wrong. In fact, leisure, or more accurately, rest, had not been a part of my life since I met Varic Maedoc, Prince of the Noreia, of the vampyrs, two years ago.
Most days, I barely had time to breathe, especially lately, completely entrenched in my role of cadeyrn, or majordomo, both ancient titles that meant the same thing: that I basically wrangled cats for the king. I oversaw all the work that had to be done in the palace and on the palace, as in construction and restoration. Since the bones of the king’s home, most notably the hypogea and catacombs beneath it, dated between late third century and early seventh century, to say that it needed updating was an understatement. There was still damage from bombs dropped in the Second World War that had destroyed underground areas of the palace that no one had ever attempted repairing. Clearly, what was cosmetic, what could be seen of the palace, had been the main concern. That was all well and good, but without reinforced support, the whole thing could, someday, drop into the catacombs. At the moment I was in charge of shoring up the foundation, making sure everything remained standing. I was responsible for vampyr history that most of humankind had no idea existed. The irony was not lost on me.
Having been placed in my new post a little over a year ago, working seven days a week, twelve to sixteen hours a day, with spotty time off, I was beat. And now I was mere hours away from leaving on a well-deserved vacation. Just the fact that under my leadership the palace was no longer going to slide into the sea deserved at least a celebratory lunch. Not that vampyrs ate lunch. They ate nothing at all, only drank. This was a lot of the issue.
I got tired after spending the better part of twenty-four hours on my feet. Not them. I got the feeling that many of the people who worked for me thought I was a slacker when I was asleep on my feet at one in the morning. But that didn’t matter right now, nothing did, because the following morning I was flying back to New Orleans for a much-needed visit with my best friend Ode and to check in with her about the state of our business in the French Quarter. I could barely wait. To shed all my responsibilities and simply be myself, just Jason Thorpe, a nobody in a sea of humans, was something I’d been looking forward to for the last month. I needed to recharge, and without Varic here, without the man I loved, the loneliness, coupled with all that was expected of my station, had been slowly strangling the life out of me.
Not that I was complaining, merely fading. Quietly. Because along with work, there was being a member of the royal family. From the outside looking in, being prince consort would appear to be endless parties and being surrounded by beautiful people, but that wasn’t all there was. There was so much to know—etiquette that could mean the difference between life and death, and ancient grudges that made no sense to a human in the world of vampyrs. After the events of the previous year when the king lost his most trusted adviser, Gideon, his rajan, he looked to me to take on the position of adviser as well, which I now knew meant fixer more than anything else. Being the man who cleared the road for the king was not a small task. Looking back at all the nefarious plotting Gideon had done, I had to wonder when the man had the time. Keeping the king on task was a full-time job in and of itself.
If His Majesty decided to waste away the day in bed with his courtiers instead of receiving visitors—and there were always visitors—it fell to me to make excuses for him not being in attendance. If the king was supposed to spend time with the children of one of his courtesans but got caught up with another, literally, that was also up to me to convey his apologies. I had a lot of gifts delivered to the palace and sent in his stead. This was on top of my regular duties, which included settling disputes between lords, new titles to approve or decline, courtesan contracts to manage, funds to transfer, who was allowed to travel and where, and overseeing the security of the palace.
When I was first given my new title, I had joked with Varic: who told him, or the king, that I wanted to work? Didn’t being engaged to a prince entitle you to days of doing nothing but walking on the beach? Really, though, I had to work. I would have gone crazy doing nothing. But there was working, and then there was the never-ending to-do list from hell. Between the administrative tasks and pageantry, I fell into bed in the wee hours of every morning. Facedown. From a standing position.