Nudging Fate

by E. J. Russell

  He snapped his mouth shut because seriously? Speech was pretty much beyond him anyway.

  “Please convey Enchanted Occasions’ apologies to His Highness for Mr. Skuldsson’s attire—unfortunately, his luggage was destroyed in a freak… uh… salamander conflagration.”

  “Ah,” Talus said. “Most unfortunate indeed.”

  “Yes,” Andy said with a fulminating glance at his soon-to-be-erstwhile assistant. “Wasn’t it?”

  By pretending to smooth Andy’s hair, Brooke palmed his earpiece. “You needn’t worry… uh…. Sir Anders. We’ll have replacement garments for you shortly.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  Talus gestured down the hallway. “The prince awaits, Sir Anders.”

  “Andy, please. Just Andy.”

  “Very well. Allow me to escort you.” Talus bowed in a creak of metal. “Lady Brooke, your servant.”

  Andy grabbed Brooke’s elbow. “You and I need to speak. Immediately.”

  “I’ll be at your service, of course, Sir Anders, after your dinner with His Highness. Please enjoy your meal. Chef has planned something truly spectacular for you.” She pulled out of his grasp and disappeared into the antechamber just as a team of brownies in resort housekeeping uniforms appeared. By the time Andy followed Talus down the hall, the tiles were sparkling again, as if no disaster had occurred.

  He should put them on retainer, because dinner with the prince, Mr. Mercurial? It was bound to be an epic catastrophe, and somebody would need to clear away the aftermath.

  Oh, stop with the drama. He straightened his shoulders and lengthened his stride. I’m a senior Enchanted Occasions event coordinator, the personal choice of the Faerie Queen. I’ll face this challenge—and either return with my shield… or on it.

  CON wandered onto the balcony and stared down into the courtyard, his mood far darker than the lovely view deserved. The resort was charming, he had to admit. A fountain played in the center of a garden that was cleverly designed yet retained an appealing fey wildness. Instead of the clipped hedges and tortured topiaries typical of medieval estates, the line of trees edging the clearing merely suggested the shape of fantastical creatures—and only if you looked at them from a particular angle. If you moved, changed your point of view, they resembled another creature entirely.

  The flowering dogwood, for instance. If he stood at the west end of the balcony, it was a rearing unicorn. But as he moved to the east, it morphed into a phoenix in flight. They were all like that—a beautiful land-bound creature and an equally lovely denizen of the air or sea.

  And the fountain. It was fed by a natural stream, a statue of a nymph parting the waterfall with one delicately raised palm. Water spilled over a dip in the marble edge, to meander under a frivolous (and entirely unnecessary) bridge and loop through the rest of the garden.

  He caught a brief movement out of the corner of his eye and his gaze snapped to the fountain pool. Were those eyes beneath the surface? Rey had dallied with undines in the past. Perhaps one of them was on the candidate roster. I probably should look at the damned list.

  He sighed, peering through the windows. The intimate room was softly lit by a dozen candelabra, the table set for two, the champagne chilling in the arms of a flower fairy sculpted in ice. Royal privilege indeed. Rey would have eaten it up with a golden spoon. Con simply wanted to hide under the vast bed in the neighboring chamber. If Rey were here, no doubt he’d take advantage of the bed’s proximity—by the terms of their contracts, all the candidates were willing to allow their “interviews” to continue in the bedroom.

  Con hoped Rey didn’t expect him to try out the candidates that far. Rey might have no trouble flitting from one partner to the next, but that wasn’t in Con’s nature. He had no desire to repeat the mistakes his parents had made in their unprincipled pursuit of love.

  Still, Con didn’t hold it against Rey—not his selfishness, and not his attempts at freedom. After all, didn’t Con want to be free of the burden of his birth as well? Despite his treatment at court, his parents’ actions, their fate at Gloriana’s hands, Con craved nothing so much as a true place of his own in Faerie, the realm he loved with all his heart.

  Well, he could do without the posturing courtiers, always scheming for favor, but the rank and file of ordinary fae, trying to survive in a world that seemed to be shrinking around them every day? For them, he’d do anything.

  A knock sounded at the door and Con flinched. Time to meet the first candidate, and if Rey couldn’t stand to face them, they must be truly dreadful.

  He tugged his tunic straight, smoothed his hands down the velvet in Rey’s favorite red. The knock sounded again, louder this time and with a faint metal clang. “Enter.”

  The door swung open, and Talus paced into the room, moving even slower than he had earlier. Con’s belly tightened. Talus had been functional since long before that miserable weasel Edmund Spenser had immortalized him in that interminable poem, yet now he seemed to be deteriorating before Con’s eyes. Maybe Con should—

  The notion—indeed, all rational thought—flitted out of his head when he caught sight of the man at Talus’s back. Goddess preserve me, I am in such deep trouble.

  Because the man was exactly Con’s type. Oak and thorn, that face should be glorified in marble. The sharp cheekbones, the wide brow under a tumble of white-blond curls, the mouth—gods, the mouth. Perhaps too wide for most people’s notion of beauty, but most people were idiots. The lower lip was plump and rosy, the upper beautifully curved and—

  “Highness?” Talus’s rusty voice snapped Con out of his fugue.

  Con blinked. “I beg your pardon. What?”

  “May I present to you Sir Anders Skuldsson, the first of your prospective consorts.”

  A smile curved Sir Anders’s delicious mouth. “Please, it’s Andy. Just Andy.” He bowed, holding the position in the precise angle due a prince. “Your Highness. It is a true honor to meet you.”

  “Thank you… uh…. Andy.” Goddess, could he sound any more imbecilic? Con cleared his throat. “But it is you who honor me with your presence.”

  Andy straightened, and Con got lost in a pair of eyes the blue of the midsummer sky. “I must apologize for my attire.” His graceful hand-wave took in Con’s velvet tunic and suede breeches, and his own gray jacket, the Enchanted Occasions logo on its breast pocket. “My… er… belongings are—”

  “No need to apologize.” In fact, if Con were to see Andy in clothing suitable to court—a tight pair of leather leggings, say, and a thin, well-fitted linen shirt, Con might lose the ability to speak altogether. Con took a moment to grant Gloriana credit for picking someone that Rey would at least be attracted to.

  Rey. Right. This wasn’t for Con’s benefit—Andy wasn’t for Con’s benefit, nor was he anyone Con could aspire to. Obviously, if he was an eligible match for the one true prince of Faerie, he was as far beyond Con’s reach as the North Star. And if Rey chose him, he’d be even further out of reach, as Rey’s magically faithful consort.

  Talus saluted, hand to his chest. “I will alert the chef that you are ready for your meal.”

  “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Andy said, then blushed adorably. “I mean, I’m sure that Brooke—That is, the Enchanted Occasions staff has everything in hand. At least, that’s what Brooke told me. Told us. The candidates. Earlier. When we…. So. Um.” He flashed a brilliant smile, then fumbled the bottle from the ice fairy’s arms and held it out. “Champagne?”

  Chapter Four

  ODIN’S beard, could I possibly be more awkward? But the prince was just so… so… princely. And tall. And beautiful.

  And was looking at him as if Andy was wearing his clothes upside down and backward while riding a manticore down the Frost Giants’ football pitch.

  It didn’t help that the three EO staff who arrived to serve the meal were all staring at Andy with wide, startled eyes. Since one of them was a sylph, with eyes bigger than Andy’s fist, that made an impression. Luckil
y, the prince didn’t seem to be paying a lot of attention to the staff, which was exactly what Andy expected—EO staff were trained to be competent but unobtrusive. Some of them could actually turn invisible, or fade, chameleon-like, against their surroundings.

  That’s what Andy would prefer to be doing right this very minute—sitting in the EO suite, safely behind the scenes, making sure everything ran perfectly according to the client’s wishes.

  The client. Gloriana, the Faerie Queen. Whose wishes definitely hadn’t included setting her only son up on a date with a half-norn event planner who was on Asgard’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out list.

  When Mikos finds out about this, I am so dead. Assuming Gloriana didn’t find out about it first.

  Then he’d be a newt.

  Brooke sailed back into the room, a garment bag draped over her arm, and plucked the champagne bottle out of Andy’s hands. “We’ll open that in a moment, Sir Anders. But first, I have a change of clothing for you.”

  The prince bowed politely. “I’ll give you privacy to change, then.” He walked out onto the terrace, keeping his back discreetly turned.

  Andy snatched the bag off her arm. “Stop calling me Sir Anders,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t make this worse than it already is.”

  “Then roll with it. For Neptune’s sake, Andy, you’re a charming guy. All you have to do is keep the prince happy for one evening while we get a wizard in to counteract Johan’s vomit juice. Is that too much to ask?” She popped the cork on the champagne, deftly holding it over a glass as it frothed from its neck. “You can salvage this event and save us all, save Mikos, save Enchanted Occasions. All you have to do is eat dinner. How hard is that?”

  When she put it that way, he couldn’t very well refuse. Mostly. An evening in the company of a too-gorgeous fae royal with a reputation for volatility and promiscuity? Andy loved his job and was loyal to his boss, but he wasn’t about to put his ass on the line to save either one.

  On the other hand, the prince had granted Andy privacy to change into the ridiculous velvet tunic Brooke had brought. He wasn’t peeking, not even a little. Not that Andy was checking. Much. And is that a niggle of disappointment I feel? Do I want him to ogle me?

  No. Of course not. Because that would be unprofessional—or at least the hallmark of a different profession altogether.

  He rolled his shoulders, settling the tunic in place. “Fine. I can do this. But if he throws one of his notorious fits—”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got salamanders stationed in the candelabra. If you need anything, just blow out one of the candles, and I’ll call out the reinforcements.”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  She grinned and handed him two filled champagne flutes. “Now go get him.”

  She gestured to the waitstaff, who had finished laying out the dinner on the table. They all trooped out the door, along with Talus, leaving Andy alone with Prince Reyner.

  He huffed out a breath, squared his shoulders, and marched onto the terrace. Smile. Chat. Don’t spill the drinks on your pants. He could do this. “Champagne, Your Highness?”

  “Please, call me Co—Rey.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he accepted his drink. “And you’re Andy.” He clinked the edge of their glasses together. “Here’s to getting to know one another.” Something flickered across the prince’s—Rey’s—face. Was that alarm? Hard to tell in the candlelight. “I mean, getting to know one another better. In this context.” He laughed and took a healthy gulp of his wine. “Goddess, could this be any more awkward?”

  “Oh please, don’t say that. Not here. Not now.” Not in the presence of a norn. “That’s just daring Fate to step in and prove what awkward really means! We’re in an Interstitial pocket. With magic and technology side by side, both are likely to ambush us at once.”

  Rey blinked, then glanced at the TV, the tablet propped on the desk, the cell phone on the coffee table. “Are the gadgets ensorcelled too?”

  “No. It’s worse.” Andy lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The phone could actually ring, and then….”

  “Then what?”

  “We’d have to answer it.” As Andy had hoped, the prince laughed. “Or, you know, the horror of reality TV.”

  Rey’s ridiculously noble brow wrinkled. “Reality TV? Is that something I should know about?”

  “Only enough to avoid.”

  “It’s as well that technology doesn’t function in Faerie, then. Although if reality TV were like the reality I know, it would be quite boring.” He sipped his champagne. “Watching grass grow. Dust settle. Swords rust. Although events can be enlivened quite a bit by the odd dragon mating flight.”

  Andy had to shake himself to keep from being mesmerized by Rey’s voice. Mikos was a half siren, but even he couldn’t match this baritone deliciousness. Focus. This is about your job. Brooke’s job. Mikos’s company.

  “But you’ve been to tons of Interstitial clubs and parties, besides the diplomatic gigs. I suppose those are more exciting than TV anyway, right?”

  “They—” Rey blinked and gulped the last of his champagne. “Of course. But those have their own sort of tedium. I much prefer this quieter, more intimate setting.”

  Oh, Freya. If I thought that voice was devastating before…. When Rey dropped it into bedroom register, Andy was ready to drop a few things of his own, starting with his defenses and following up with his pants.

  He forced himself to grin brightly and set down his glass. It would be far too easy to enjoy himself if he floated away on a cloud of champagne bubbles. This wasn’t supposed to be enjoyable, for sweet Fate’s sake. This was work.

  “Well, since you’re getting your own equivalent here, you don’t need to catch up on the latest episodes of The Bachelor.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This whole setup. The cast of candidates. The dates arranged for you to get to know them, for them to get to know you, so you can pick your favorite. It’s classic reality TV.”

  “And here I was thinking the whole thing was quite medieval.”

  Whoa. Was that bitterness in Rey’s tone? “Elimination contests are quite the thing. TV companies like them because they cost less in production values.”

  “We have elimination contests too.” Rey seemed to have recovered his aplomb, because there was a decided twinkle in his eyes. “We call them jousting tourneys.”

  Andy laughed. “These eliminations aren’t quite so threatening to life and limb. Just to pride, dignity, and sometimes pocketbook, depending on the prize.”

  “And if the prize is a prince? A place on Faerie’s throne?”

  Andy shrugged. “You tell me. Why do you think this is medieval?”

  “It was common in those days—”

  “The days of Arthur, you mean?”

  “Exactly. It was common, even expected, for a family, usually the patriarch, to arrange advantageous matches for their children. And by ‘advantageous’ I mean advantageous for the patriarch. What were children for, anyway, but to extend your political reach?”

  Now that was definitely bitterness, and Andy could so relate. “Sometimes children are just a byproduct of a giant mistake.” If his mother hadn’t taken one night off in countless millennia, and spent it getting snockered with a Viking—“But that doesn’t mean they should be the ones to pay the price for the parents’ regret.”

  “Very true. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Rey picked up the bottle, refilled his glass and Andy’s. “You seem to know a lot about the human realm. You almost sound like someone who’s lived there.”

  Oops. Andy snatched up his abandoned champagne and took several sips—tiny sips—to give himself time to think. If he’d truly been a Pure, someone eligible to be the prince’s consort, his time in the human realm would have been limited by dislocation syndrome. “No. I’ve just spent some time in the Interstices. You know how it is. Family gatherings.” Not that he’d ever been allowed at any of his. His aunts
had never acknowledged his existence. “You have to have something to do to get away from all the togetherness.”

  “I understand completely.” He offered a plate of tiny canapés to Andy. “Tell me about some of these reality shows. How does one get eliminated if not knocked sideways off a horse?”

  WHEN Sir Anders—no, Andy. That suited him so much better. When Andy accepted the tidbit from the plate, Con was a trifle too fascinated by the way his lips closed over the morsel, his eyes fluttering closed.

  “Mmmm. Odin’s beard, that’s amazing.” He opened his eyes and nudged the plate toward Con. “You have to try it. Chef invented it just for you.”

  “Really?” Con selected his own morsel. He had to admit they were beautifully presented, like tiny flowers, with paper-thin slivers—was that fish as the petals? Cucumber as the leaves? “You know far more about these festivities than I do.”

  Andy’s eyes widened, and if Con weren’t overwhelmed by the delicate flavors bursting on his tongue, he’d have asked what the problem was, but Goddess. This food was incredible.

  “Oh.” Andy gulped his champagne as if he were dying of thirst. Con topped up his glass again. “All the candidates—I mean we were given a lot of information about the week’s events. What we’d be doing when we weren’t with you, the menus, other amenities.” He grinned and gestured to the television. “TV schedules and unlimited movie rentals.”

  “Movies?”

  “You don’t have movies in Faerie?”

  “What can I tell you? This process isn’t the only thing that’s medieval.” Con dropped his gaze to the flatware, gleaming softly in the candlelight. “Faerie’s feet are planted firmly in the distant past. We fae are… well… resistant to change, I suppose you could say. At one time, we were the apex predators, the pinnacle of power, able to cross to the human realm at will—and bring anything back that we chose. But over time, the human realm… outgrew us, I suppose you could say.”

  “The Industrial Revolution did that to a lot of people.”