No big deal, there was just the thing she needed. A small table standing next to one of the huge pillars supporting the hall, meant for drinks. At such a late hour at the reception, it was empty. She lifted her dress – I’m the beacon of modesty for sure – and climbed on top of it and looked around. Some people grinned to see her there, some applauded. She was no doubt quite a picture with her pretty yellow dress, looking over all of their heads now.
Gods, this is so embarrassing. Maybe they think I’m just looking for a stage, and since I can’t find one I’m just going to climb on a bloody table. Oh, I need to get off this thing. People I know, where are you…
There, Leiya said to herself then, stepping closer to the table’s edge to see better. She was pretty sure she saw one of Iloya’s friends and some other faces she recognized at least. Good enough. Maybe she could join them for the remainder of the night.
Just as the table vanished from under her feet, Leiya remembered that it only had legs in the middle with nothing to support the edges. Graceful as always.
At any other moment, she would have been concerned about the pain of hitting the floor face-first. At the reception, however, as she tumbled from the table like a fluttering yellow cloud, all she thought was, At least I won’t make a fool of myself before my gerion.
The intimate meeting between her face and the floor didn’t happen. Leiya the little yellow cloud found herself, against all reason, floating above the ground. It took her a moment to realize that she hadn’t suddenly gained the ability to float. Instead there was a pair of strong hands holding her in the lap of… the coldest general in all of the Brion armies.
Her blood ran as cold as Faren’s was said to be.
She was so stunned she forgot to ask him to put her down, and for some reason, he didn’t seem to be in a rush to do that either.
Then her mind went a calming, all-saying ohhhh…
It was his eyes, most certainly. Brions usually had dark blue or green eyes, but Faren’s were the flashing, stormy gray of winter storms. Right now those eyes, merciless and cold at every other time, were flashing with an emotion of a completely different kind. There was some kind of a fire in them, one Leiya had never seen in anyone’s eyes before.
She was so lost in that wild, stormy gaze that it took her almost a full minute to look away and notice she was still being held. It didn’t feel bad, not bad at all, that was not the problem. Leiya found herself blushing fiercely at the idea she didn’t mind being held in those strong, powerful arms one bit. Only at some point, she had to get down, didn’t she?
“Um,” she said, graceful as ever. “Thank you, General.”#p#分页标题#e#
Please gods, don’t let him know all the things I’ve said about warriors, and generals, and him in particular. He’ll drink blood from my skull. I don’t want to be a blood cup!
Faren seemed to wake from some kind of a dream then, placing her gently but quickly on the ground. They stood there for a moment, then the urge to flee like her life depended on it got the best of Leiya. She curtsied, as she was once taught was the polite thing to do and turned to leave. She was suddenly very eager to put some distance between herself and the general. Her treacherous body seemed intent to further betray what her mind was refusing to think.
“My lady,” Faren said from behind her.
Her head was way too overwhelmed with trying to process too many things at the same time. Where was the stage awareness to help her through this one?
One, Oh gods Faren called me a lady oh gods why – wait, I am a lady…
And two, I must be imagining it, but did his voice just shake?
“Yes,” she asked, so quietly he couldn’t possibly have heard, warrior hearing or not.
Turning back to him, she repeated,
“Yes?”
Okay, better question – why is my voice shaking? My voice doesn’t shake!
The general’s eyes caught her in their hold again.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
Good question. Alright. Yes. No. Wait, what? Of course I’m alright.
“Err…” she began, hoping it sounded fine.
“Yes,” she then added victoriously, as if it was a great feat to say a simple word.
She felt no shame though, at least she hadn’t forgotten how to speak – that often happened to people around Faren.
The general nodded, still looking at her oddly, but then he was gone and Leiya’s friends appeared seemingly from thin air.
“Was that Faren?” Aya demanded.
“No,” Iloya retorted. “It was some other huge, towering warrior with a general’s robe and valor squares up to his eye line. Did you see how they pulsed? I thought something bad was going to happen. Weren’t you scared, Leiya?”
Leiya was still watching the general go, now apparently leaving the reception altogether. That look had been so odd… Her friends were talking over each other, trying to make sure they had every detail, but she…
She wanted to see those stormy eyes again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Faren
The reception hadn’t actually been as dull as Faren had expected. Not even close.
Seeing Primen had set off an anger inside him that he thought he’d managed to bury. There was no doubt in his heart. Eren and his campaign to send the Brions back to their dark days were dead, but pieces of it lingered. As long as Primen drew breath, Faren knew some of it lived on. He would need to find a way to make it right.
At some point. A much, much more urgent matter was suddenly on his mind. One he had expected, even hoped for, but apparently was completely unprepared for.
After talking to Primen, his mood had been terrible. For some reason, the thought of an innocent creature like Leiya in the hands of that traitor was unbearable to him. Faren had been starting to think his time might be better spent elsewhere. It had seemed his binding was clearly not going to happen that night when the young starlet climbed on the table. While she was looking at the crowd buzzing beneath her, Faren looked at her.
She truly was a beauty, he couldn’t deny that. Someday she might make a man very happy – but not a man like Primen – and of course not a man like him. Simply looking at her was like being dragged along with the current that she was, Faren thought. Her eyes just never seemed to rest, her whole body taunt with bubbly, wild life. He bet she didn’t even know she was swaying on the table, somehow making it look like a weird sort of dance, but…
Yes, she stepped on the edge of table and there she went, tumbling. Almost without realizing he’d moved, which didn’t happen to Faren often, he was there where she should have fallen. He found himself suddenly with a handful of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Just as he was thinking that if was very odd for him not to be perfectly aware of everything around him, it hit.
The moment caught Faren so off guard he nearly dropped her, although he doubted she noticed. She just looked so stunned, scared and interested at the same time, staring up at him. And he, he just held her. Held on to her.
He had wanted not to feel empty, but what he was feeling was on a whole other level. All the stories he’d ever heard of the fated couples started to make sense, but with that, he made less sense to himself. All his life, he’d never had his heart beat faster as it did then. For the girl in his arms, for the look in her big, green eyes. The meaning he’d lacked in his life was now right there, in his lap, looking so scared of him. There really was nothing he could do, it was the look on almost everyone’s face who met him. He knew what he was, and so did they.#p#分页标题#e#
The only thing he knew for sure was that it had happened. He’d found her. The emptiness within him was gone, replaced with such a surge of certainty he had never experienced before. No, this was the recognition, there was nothing more certain than that.
She was his gesha. Faren had to take a breath to clear his spinning mind, for the first time ever not in complete control of himself. She… wasn’t what he had imagined, exactly. For one thing, she was a human. And a minute ago he had thought that simply looking at her being so full of life was tiring. And then he was the man she was meant to be with for all of their lives, and that was something quite different.
He took a moment to truly look at her. It had been difficult before to focus on anything else other than the long, yellow dress that stood out from all the others in the hall. Now he suddenly ached to know what every inch of her body looked like underneath it. Despite himself, he found his eyes glued to her, as was expected from a gerion seeing his fated for the first time.
Her big green eyes popped under the wild curls of her blonde, very light golden hair. The strands fell over her eyes, as she stayed as frozen in place as he was. There were dimples in her cheeks, Faren noticed almost at once, because there was now a small smile playing on her full, pink lips.
She was short, not only compared to him, but to regular Brions as well. She might have been a healer if she hadn’t chosen singing. Her body was soft and lithe under his fingers, the curve of her breasts perfect as seen from her cleavage. He had to exercise his considerable self-control not to even slightly change his stance like he wanted to, only to feel more of her body under his hands.