5
MALICE
Laying eyes on Aerin Tolvare for the first time was a cruel and unusual punishment. Like she was the only creature in the room, Malice’s eyes met hers as she shed the disguise she wore, a curtain rising, and he was thrust into her warm glow. Even from across a crowded club, Malice knew he was well and truly fucked.
When he’d accepted the assignment as Aerin Tolvare’s personal guard two weeks ago, he’d been reluctant to drag himself down from his small cottage on the outskirts of Iron Spine, in the Hannan Mountains North of Zeneith.
Malice had been told Princess Aerin Tolvare is a firecracker: fiercely independent, unapologetically willful, and deceitfully cunning. Wildly unpredictable should also be on that list of attributes. Malice rubs absently at the tender skin on his neck. The gash is healing, though he’d spent about an hour on the street, choking on his own blood until the artery closed.
Fucking embarrassing. Malice tightens his muscles indiscernibly. He stands in the hallway outside of her penthouse apartment. The short walkway contains two doors: the elevator he rode up twenty-two floors and the one to her apartment. He’sbeen in this hallway a few hours, the sunrise come and gone, waiting for Aerin to appear, questioning whether he should report back to the Royal Village if she doesn’t. Or if he should say ‘fuck it’ and slink away back to his home.
The elevator at the end of the hall dings, the first movement Malice has seen since settling against the wall. A Spider Shifter jumps when he spots Malice, yanking the headphones from his ears with one hand, the other holding a large paper bag. Malice smells grease.
The Spider Shifter eyes Malice warily, sticking close to the opposite wall as he scurries past. He places the bag at the apartment door before turning and going back the way he came. Only once the elevator is rising again does the Spider say, “Are you…?” his voice wavers with nerves.
Dragon-Fae scare even the strongest of creatures. The small Spider is right to be nervous.
He clears his throat and tries again, “Do they know you are up here?”
Malice reaches into his jacket pocket, and the Spider visibly relaxes when he spots the Valtara Royal Guard badge.
“Oh.” He laughs awkwardly. “Sorry to bother you then.” The elevator dings and the Spider can’t get inside fast enough, pushing the down button multiple times even as the doors slide shut.
As the elevator sinks away, the door at the other end of the hall swings open.
At first, the Princess doesn’t seem to notice Malice. He uses this moment to examine her. Aerin Tolvare is like an intricate piece of art; every time Malice looks at her, he notices something new.
Exactly as every tabloid has described her, she is beautiful. Though beautiful doesn’t exactly do her justice. Malice has seen her before, splashed across every newsstand in Novhelm underthe wordsParty Princess,but seeing Aerin Tolvare in person is entirely different.
The Princess reaches down to grab the bag of food, her golden hair piled haphazardly on the top of her head, before noticing Malice. Her eyes trail from his feet to the tips of his wings. Malice’s muscles spasm under her glare, his control on them lost as he fights the urge to move closer.
Aerin Tolvare is the sun, and everyone around her hapless in orbit.
Wrapping her hand around the bag of food, Aerin’s spine snaps straight, her eyes narrowing.
“Hello again, Princess,” Malice says, arms tight across his chest, wings tight to his back. Aerin’s face is clean of make-up, betraying the fact that she’s barely into Fae adulthood at only thirty-eight. She wears a large t-shirt, and Malice doesn’t let himself wonder what’s under it. Doesn’t let himself wonder who the shirt belongs to.
Aerin is doing her own assessment of him, eyes dragging up and down his body so intensely he can practically feel her gaze scraping against his skin. She looks at him like a predator, trying to decide if she should devour him or only play with him a little.
Head tilted, Aerin’s gold eyes gleam as a small smile pulls at her features. “At least they sent me the hottest guard they could find,” she declares flippantly.
After last night, Malice expects the door to be slammed in his face. Instead, the Princess turns on her heel, retreating into the apartment, food in hand.
Catching the door before it closes, Malice slips inside. The apartment smells like Aerin, a scent he caught for the first time last night, now amplified. Like the crispness of brisk morning air, hints of spiced tea, and the dampness of layers of leaves, already dead and scattered over the ground. AerinTolvare smells like the month of September in the mountains. Something too close to home for Malice’s comfort.
Grease splits the other smells in the apartment as Aerin unpacks the food on the table to Malice’s left. Though he saw the blueprints to the apartment a few days ago, taking in the massive expanse still shocks him. The apartment takes up an entire floor. Across from him is a seating area with a large couch and chairs framed by an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows. To his left is the kitchen and dining area, to his right the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.
The Princess continues to ignore Malice as she collects various items from the kitchen. As she reaches for something, her shirt rides up her backside, revealing to Malice she is, in fact, naked beneath it. Malice stares for a moment before forcing himself to avert his gaze.
It’s well known that the Tolvare’s are beautiful, said to be the most beautiful of the Fae. Despite being a powerful and cunning line of fire-Fae, their beauty is their legacy and ultimately what gave them the crown all those years ago. Despite having multiple partners, as most Fae do, the last Valtara Queen was so entranced by the wiles of a Tolvare that when she died without producing a True Heir, she named the new line of succession Tolvare. The crown has been in their family ever since.
Aerin is no exception to this rule, all long legs, strong thighs, and objectively attractive curves. Her round ass glides into a narrow waist before curving outward to accommodate her stunning breasts. She has strong shoulders and toned arms. Her facial features are both soft and sharp, depending on the lighting, depending on her mood. Aerin can look both enticing and severe, both warm and cold, flicking back and forth with frequency and ease.
Aerin plops down at the table unceremoniously, folding one leg underneath her before opening each of the containers laid out before her. The smell becomes more pungent.
“I hope you have a protein bar somewhere in there,” Aerin says, mouth full, gesturing to Malice’s dark clothes with her fork. “Because I’m not sharing.”
Actively working not to bristle, Malice turns away. Some part of him wants to give the Princess the benefit of doubt, wants to find someone different from the tabloids’ depictions: vapid, self-centered, and a blatant mar on the otherwise pristine Tolvare family tapestry. Yet, as grease drips over her fingers and overdone moans of enjoyment fall from her lips, he thinks the tabloids must be right.
