Sighing to himself, butterflies dancing in his stomach, Pel found the other man in the stables, where he regularly visited Melody—Pel couldn’t fault him for his care of the animal.
Pel cleared his throat and addressed his words to the horse. “It would be less disruptive to the farmers and villagers if we were to interrupt them at the same time.”
If Prince Torex no longer wanted to spend time with Pel, then he would no doubt suggest they simply ensure they never overlapped on who they visited.
Only Prince Torexdidseem to want to spend time with Pel because when Pel glanced at him, he was grinning broadly. Not even smugly, just… happy? The butterflies fluttered harder, and Pel mentally told them to give it a rest.
“Shall I meet you here tomorrow morning?” Torex suggested.
There didn’t seem to be anything to do but agree. And then leave, because the butterflies apparently didn’t take directions, and Pel didn’t know how to make them go away.
This wasnotspending time together simply because they wanted to spend time together. It wasn’t walking in the garden, listening to untold amounts of music on the pianoforte, walking in the portrait gallery, or any of the other frivolous pastimes that Bavil and Larexa were engaging in.
No, this was purely practical. Pel needed to treat it as purely practical, andthatmeant that he needed to get rid of these butterflies and treat tomorrow like a totally ordinary day.
Because it would be.
Nothing had changed.
Tor
Tor was still excited about the prospect of spending more time with Pelun and not being ignored, but the last thing he expected was to run into him in a corridor that afternoon—and be punched in the face.
It was a good blow, making Tor stagger back several steps and clap a hand to his jaw.
“What the—” he started, but Pelun was already coming after him again.
Tor didn’t hit back, since he didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on, but he blocked him, unwilling to be someone’s punching dummy.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.
Pelun just kept coming, and in exasperation, Tor finally let his magic flow out of him, bursting forth in a soft white glow until it settled into a shimmering, translucent dome that Pelun couldn’t possibly get out of. Normally, Tor would feel bad about doing this to someone Unremarkable, but Pelun wasattacking Tor for no reason.
“Oh, yes!” Pelun snarled, sending a blow at the shield anyway, even though it didn’t give and would definitely hurt his hand. “Just hide behind your magic!”
“I’m not hiding behind my magic,” Tor said through gritted teeth. “I’m trying to stop myself from beating you to a bloody pulp.”
“I’d like to see you try!” Pelun growled.
Tor sucked in a breath and then blew it out. No one said that in this situation unless they were incensed, and Tor couldn’t imagine what he’d done to merit such a reaction.
“Why don’t you tell me why you decided I needed to be attacked?” Tor suggested as reasonably as he could, given that his jaw hurt and the man that he’d pinned all his hopes of avoiding marital disaster on was currently trying to shove through his magic shield with sheer stubbornness.
Fists still banging against the shield, causing little pulses of awareness in Tor’s core, Pelun glared at him and demanded, “Do you think you can just wander around everywhere ruining people’s lives?”
“It’s not my intention to ruin any lives,” Tor assured him.
Hence this asinine plan, so that he and Terila wouldn’t wind up bonded and miserable for the rest of their lives.
“You can’t just lay your hands on whoever you want!” Pelun yelled. “Did you even think about what she wanted? Just because you’re Extraordinary and you’re the High Prince doesn’t mean that you can just take what you want!”
Tor digested this angry diatribe.
Carefully, he said, “I don’t actually disagree with anything you just said. So why don’t you tell me who ‘she’ is, and we’ll see if I have any idea of what you’re talking about.”
Pelun’s lips settled into an even tighter line, and Tor wondered if maybe this was just a response that he engendered in people, something that he hadn’t known about himself. Perhaps it was the flip side of being so charming.
“Are there so many that you can’t keep track?” Pelun demanded in disgust. “Don’t think I won’t throw you out, magic or no magic!”
