#aris?

When they weren’t at the Forest Estate, they were in the city of Velaris. Arina had never been and thought she never would. Her mother, the housekeeper of the estate, oversaw the female staff and managed the Vanserra’s home down to the cent, ensuring nothing was ever out of place or fell to ruin. It was an exhausting job, to Arina’s mind anyway.

I work so hard so you will not have to, her mother would remind Arina, collapsing into the little room they shared. They were lucky to have the space at all given the tight quarters most of the serving staff lived in. At least this room did not share a bathroom with anyone else.

Her mothers status gave Arina status. Lady Vanserra paid for Arina’s education, accidentally introducing her to the Archeron sisters. Their family estate buttressed against the Vanserras and, unlike the Duke and his sons, lived there year round for the most part. Lady Vanserra had paid Arina’s tuition so she could study alongside the highborn Archeron’s. 

Unlike Lucien and Eris, who rarely interacted with the staff, the Archeron girls did not seem to mind so much that Arina lacked their soft mannerisms and lilting speech. Elain, in particular, took an immediate liking to Arina, perhaps because Arina encouraged Elain to get her fine skirts muddy on occasion. When they were hunched over books, the four took to the woods from dusk until dawn, screaming and laughing, lost in games of imagination in the enchanted woodland. 

And in the summer, Arina was always called back, shoved in a too-tight, itchy dress, and forced to greet the Vanserra’s on the front drive. She liked Lady Vanserra best, who was like another mother. Amera, she’d once whispered to Arina with a wink. She was younger than her husband by at least ten years and so beautiful Arina understood why the Duke had wanted her so badly. Too much, her mother had once murmured though Arina didn’t understand what that meant at all. She was everything Arina’s mother was trying to turn Arina into. Each year, Arina studied her when she stepped from the carriage, placing a delicate, fair hand into her husbands. She wore her auburn hair off her face, twisted and combed without a stray hair out of place. Russet eyes always swept over them and when she smiled, Arina sometimes pretended it was because she was happy to Arina, and Arina only.

Beron Vanserra was a humorless man in comparison to his beautiful wife. Handsome enough, with muddy brown hair and eyes, Arina wondered what the lady liked about him. He didn’t seem to know they existed at all and spoke only to the steward.  She supposed he must be kind, and he was handsome enough—more handsome than the men in the village, at any rate. He always placed a gloved hand on his wifes back and led her in, his sons trailing just behind.

Lucien would grin when he saw her, his hair a match for his mothers though it was never tidy. His skin was perpetually tanned, even after a winter in the city where Arina was sure he saw very little sun. He grew only darker in the summer when he was left to run wild and the Duke paid very little attention to him. It was for the best—Lucien would join in with the Archeron’s, causing all sorts of mischief with the youngest, Feyre.

Eris was the oldest and his fathers man as far as Arina could tell. Though he shared his mothers coloring, her auburn hair, her russet eyes, Eris held himself like his father even as a boy. He looked down his nose at them if he acknowledged the help at all. He didn’t play games, not even when Lucien cajoled. He holed himself up in the library, her favorite room, and focused on his studies and his fathers other lessons. 

Eris was mean. Two years older than her, Eris already considered himself lord and never let any of them forget it. Tramping home one day, happy and coated in dirt, Lucien and Arina had the misfortune of running into Eris on the grounds just outside the garden. 

“You’re filthy,” he sneered, looking her up and down. “Mother says you’re going to be a great lady but no lady I’ve ever seen takes such joy in mud.”

“What would you know about ladies?” Arina had snapped. Eris’s outrage was not imagined. 

“You can’t speak to me like that,” he’d told her. “Apologize.”

And Arina, foolish and young, had shoved him so hard he’d fallen in the dirt. Eris had his revenge, she supposed, when he told his father. Arina had been marched into the drawing room, trembling like a leaf before the Duke and his wife while Eris smirked from the sofa.

“Tell him you’re sorry,” her mother had whispered, hands on her shoulders.

“Sorry,” Arina muttered petulantly. Eris merely turned up his nose but it was Beron who was determined it would never happen again.

“Put your hands on the table,” he’d ordered and Arina had no choice but to comply. Eris had turned, then, eyes wide when he realized his father meant to strike her. Beron Vanserra took his cane, rapping hard over her knuckles, twice for each side. Arina hadn’t dared to look at Eris, to see if he was still satisfied and instead swallowed her urge to cry. 

When she saw him next, Eris said nothing at all, nose still pointed in the air and when he walked passed her, he shoved his shoulder hard against her body, shoving something into her bruised, still swollen hands. Arina hadn’t dared say a word, instead darting for the woods, for a tree she liked to hide in. She’d unwrapped the little napkin, revealing the prettiest cake she’d ever seen in her entire life.

It was an apology of sorts.

It took another year for Arina to learn she was not the only one who suffered Beron’s particular form of punishment. She woke in the night to a woman screaming. Bolting upright, Arina crept from her bedroom, certain someone must be dying. She made it up the stairs, fumbling in the dark, before a hand gripped her wrist and yanked her backwards.

“Don’t,” Eris whispered, his entire body shaking. “Go back to bed.”

“But–”

“Go back to bed,” he ordered, only eleven years old and somehow the most authoritative voice she’d ever heard in her entire life. Arina did as he said, though she could not sleep. When she woke, Lady Vanserra greeted her at breakfast with a bright smile and swollen eyes. 

“Allergies,” she explained to Arina’s mother, who brought ice without another word. Across the table, neither Eris nor Lucien dared to look at their mother and for the first time in her life, Arina felt badly for the Vanserras. What was it like to live with so much fear?

Arina was always a little too relieved when the first of September arrived and Beron packed his family back into their golden carriage. She was a little sorry to see Lucien go but grateful to have the refuge of the library returned to her. The moment the carriage vanished, the mood in the house lifted as if everyone collectively took a breath. Every year, without fail, until that last one, the year Arina turned thirteen.

The last year Eris Vanserra lived with his family. 

They’d arrived a day earlier than planned. Arina had been holed up in the library, hair unwound in only a braid despite her promise that she would prove to Lady Vanserra the lessons were paying off and Arina could, in fact, act the part of lady. It wasn’t that she couldn’t—it was that the corsets were miserable and the hair pins made Arina’s headache. How Elain stood it, Arina would never know. When she was on her own, no one cared if she wore simple, unstructured dresses or if her hair fell about her shoulders. Apparently men lost their ability to be rational at the sight of a lady’s natural body or her undone hair. Arina thought it was pretty excuses for men to act abominably, though she didn’t dare voice those opinions out loud to anyone but Elain.

The problem was Arina’s face, which had become lovely to look upon, at least if the men in the village were any indication. It made her mother nervous—Arina was the product of pretty promises made by one of those villagers, though who her mother had never said. Though her mother had never outright said it, Arina knew her mother wanted to see her make a better match to a middle-class sort of man. A merchant, perhaps, or banker or judge. Someone who could take care of her, could offer her a nicer life. 

At the house, Arina was safe. The serving men didn’t dare look twice, unwilling to risk the wrath of her mother and the Vanserra’s were never around to notice. It gave Arina leave to lounge about, utterly spoiled when she felt like it.

She hadn’t expected a frustrated fifteen year old Eris Vanserra to stroll in a day early, halting when he saw her draped in a large chair, her legs dangling over the arm, in a plain blue dress better suited for a child. Eris, as always, was still in his jacket and breeches. He paused, gloved hands fisting at his sides.

Arina scrambled upwards, dropping her book to the cushion behind her. “Lord,” she murmured, sinking into a bow as was proper. He only stared, blinking twice before waving a dismissive hand. 

“Don’t get up on my account.” She reached for the book behind her, offering him a thin lipped smile. “I didn’t realize you’d be home today.”

“My apologies for the intrusion,” he replied, not sounding very sorry at all. Arina didn’t stick around to see why he was in such a mood. There were rumors Eris was supposed to go to university that year, halted because his father had changed his mind. Whether that was true or not, Arina felt a prick of sadness for Eris. Beron’s control was absolute and unrelenting. He could wreck his son’s future should he choose. 

Arina and Lucien ran wild, just as they always did, playing the part of Lord and Lady only when it was required of them. Arina pretended she didn’t notice the way Lucien watched Elain, as if he’d only just realized she existed, and Arina knew Lucien pretended he did not see how she studied Eris when she thought no one else was watching. He’d changed since she’d last seen him—become taller, more muscular, handsome, even. The features that had once seemed so sharp and ugly to her had shifted, or perhaps he’d merely grown into them. Eris seemed chiseled, suddenly, beautiful in a way a man should not.

And he wasn’t a man, she reminded herself. He was still a boy but all the pieces were there and for the first time, Arina thought a boy was pleasing to look at. He was no longer his fathers man, at least, not entirely. Eris was prone to outbursts, snapping when Beron demanded too much and putting himself between his mother and his brother. 

Arina felt sick the first time she saw the bruise upon his cheek. Eris didn’t acknowledge it though Arina could look at nothing else but the purple mark against his high cheekbones, marring an otherwise lovely face. It was not the first.

It would not be the last. 

It was raining that day, the moody violence foreshadowing what was to come. Arina had been in the library, slowly reclaiming it from Eris who was packing to leave. He’d been given leave for university and things had settled in the house. He would go in the fall and next summer she knew when Lucien returned, his elder brother would not. She was happy for Eris, she supposed, and confused for herself. She didn’t want to like him, after all. Eris Vanserra was off-limits to people like her. 

She heard the shouting and ignored it, making herself small in the chair.

“Beron, please don’t—”“He needs to learn to take his punishments like a man.”

Those words drew Arina from the library, creeping through the house despite the hour of day, until she’d made it to the stables where she knew Lucien would be watching. He was sheet white, mouth grim, as he watched his brother and father march towards the woods.

“Is that a…” she trailed off, noting the horse whip slung over Beron’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Lucien agreed. “Father is angry Eris got his way. I think he means to show Eris who is still lord.” They all heard the first crack of the whip. Arina counted thirty in total, each one more horrible than the last. Lucien stood stock still while she counted softly between them, eyes fluttering shut each time they heard the air ripple. Eris made no noise at all, or none that carried, at any rate. And when Beron returned, he looked at his youngest son, sweat dripping from his nose. 

“You are not to help him,” Beron ordered, panting as he said it. “Eris will return on his own.” Lucien nodded tightly, satisfying his father. Arina was never part of that agreement–Beron did not acknowledge she stood there at all.

“Are you really going to leave him?” she’d asked as night approached with no sign of Eris at all.

“I have to,” Lucien had replied with a note of regret. Arina couldn’t accept that. Eris would have gone for Lucien. Who would come for him?

She waited until all the lights in the estate winked out before she took off running, ignoring the way the rain pelted against her skin, unusually cold for the end of August. There was no moon, no starlight to guide her way and foolishly, Arina had not thought to light a torch. She plunged into the woods with little more than her memory to guide her.

She practically tripped over his body. “Eris,” she whispered, reaching for him in the dark. She hadn’t meant to touch his wounds, her hands pressed against hot, sticky flesh. He groaned, jerking involuntarily at her touch. He turned his head, letting her press her palm to his forehead.

“Mama?” he whispered, his voice so broken, so sad. 

“No,” she answered, tugging at his bare arm. “Only me. Come on. Will you stand?”

“Leave me,” he moaned, turning his head away from her. Arina tugged again, more insistent this time.

“You’ll die out here,” she explained, managing to get him on his feet. She slung his arm over her shoulders, trying so hard to brace the weight of him without toppling over. 

“If he finds out you helped…” Eris did not finish his sentence and Arina didn’t answer. If Beron found out she’d disobeyed, she supposed he could whip her, too. It was better than doing nothing at all.

It was a long, miserable walk back to the house. She had to set him down multiple times to catch her breath, laying him face down in the grass as carefully as she could. Eris did not complain, perhaps grateful for the help at all.

“To your room,” she’d tried once they reached the stables. Eris had only shook his head.

“No,” he gasped, leaning against an empty horse stall. “Too many steps. Just…you’ve done enough. Go to bed.”

He managed to unlatch the wooden door, tumbling inside without preamble, like he was little more than trash. It felt so wrong to see him that way. Arina wasn’t leaving him. She went into the house, exhausted and wet from sweat and the rain. She changed her clothes and gathered supplies—cloth for his wounds and clean water, ointment to help with the pain and the swelling and something for him to wear, too. She dug out blankets and pillows no one would miss and dragged it all down to that stall where Eris lay, face down in the straw. He was passed out when she returned which made cleaning the criss-crossed slashes over his back all the easier. Arina refilled her bowl of water a total of four times before she finally slathered on the paste and carefully dressed them as best she could. He was heavier than her, impossible to truly move around. Once she’d managed that, Arina slid a pillow beneath his head and tucked a blanket over his body. She meant to leave him like that, to return at dawn and take it all back just in case Beron came looking.

Eris reached out for her, grabbing her by the waist and pulling against him. It was awkward and clumsy, a scared boy looking for comfort.

“Mama?” he asked again, his voice smaller this time. Arina brushed a piece of auburn hair off his sweaty forehead.

“No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I can get her–”

“Don’t,” he replied, opening one eye as if it pained him. “Thank you.”

Eris pressed his forehead against her own, lapsing back into sleep. Arina let him hold her, too tired to actually sleep. She was afraid if she did she’d wake up tucked against a corpse. He was so hot and somehow clammy and shivering. She kept pressing her hand against his cheek, if only to reassure herself.

As dawn broke, Eris began to rouse himself. “Lay back down,” Arina insisted as his shaking arms tried to raise him to his feet. “I’ll hide you here.”

Eris had never looked so young to her. Had she once thought he was a man? The eyes that peered back at her were those of a boy, terrified and alone, not daring to believe anyone would help him at all. Arina wished she could hug him. “I’ll take care of you,” she added. Eris put his head on her shoulder, his tears dripping down his nose and soaking her ruined dress. She didn’t dare move despite the ache of her body as carefully as she could, brought an arm around his back, fingers sliding reassuringly through his hair. It was what her mother had done for her when she was scared, nails gliding over the scalp as she hummed a nonsense song.

The house came to live with the first breath of dawn, and so too, did Eris. Sucking in a breath, he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of her dress. “Look at me,” he whispered, his face drawn, eyes flickering with an ember of defiance. Shuddering, and fingers trembling, Eris held her face in his hands. She thought he might kiss her and Arina found she wanted him to. She didn’t dare move, swallowing hard at the half naked boy covered in his own blood, his skin still too warm to the touch. “Swear to me something.” “Anything,” she agreed foolishly.

“Leave this place,” he whispered, his eyes searching her face as though he’d know if she wasn’t honest with him. “The first chance you get, turn your back and do not come back.”

Arina nodded, her disappointment strange and heavy. “And you?”

Eris’s face was hard. “This is my last summer here. Make it yours, too. Swear.”

“I swear.”

Eris lifted himself to his feet after that, staggering forward without her assistance. She didn’t dare help this time. He needed to show his father he could do what was demanded of him no matter how cruel. Arina merely cleaned up the stall and considered the promise he’d exacted from her. It was the opposite of what she wanted. Not an ask to stay or be faithful or wait, but to go and never look back. To never think of him again.

Arina was certain she would never think of anything but him.

Eris Vanserra upheld his word. Arina never saw him again, though she didn’t leave like he asked her to. That was the winter Eris Vanserra went to university across the channel and the year Arina’s mother became ill. She’d written to Lady Vanserra, begging for any kind of help. Arina’s mother had very little money despite her prestigious position in the house.

The week after Christmas, Beron Vanserra came himself to see her, his wife trotting just behind him. He gestured for her to sit in the drawing room, still only thirteen years old.

“My wife says you are asking for a physician,” he began, sitting across from her, hands folded in his lap. “One you cannot afford.” Arina nodded numbly, hiding her fear as best she could. “Yes, sir.”

“I will provide one,” he told her, leaning forward to examine her carefully. “But it will not be free. You will have to work off the cost.”

“I will,” she promised, ignoring the guilt she felt. Eris was stupid, she told herself. He was gone. She couldn’t abandon her mother to death simply to uphold an impulsive promise between a near stranger, no matter what he thought. Beron had drawn up a contract for her to sign while his wife watched with disapproving eyes. Beron, to his credit, did send a physician from the city and her mother got better…for a time. 

It was a vicious cycle over those next three years. Her mother would recover just enough to send the doctor away only to immediately fall ill with the same coughing spell and Beron would send the physician back. Arina continued her classes as she worked, picking up the shifts in the kitchen without a word about it. Her mother, unaware of the deal she’d made with Beron, thought Arina was merely growing up. She spoke of asking the Archeron’s if Arina could participate in the season with them, as if Arina was not already pledged to Beron Vanserra, likely for the rest of her life.

It didn’t matter. Arina was sixteen when her mother finally passed quietly in the night. The Vanserra’s had just arrived, their first year without either of their sons at all. Lucien, too, had been sent away, leaving just the two of them to flit about the house, avoiding each other the best they could.

Beron paid for a funeral that his wife arranged. He never spoke of the arrangement at all, never rubbed it in her face like a villain might. Arina knew he merely added it all to her ledger, the balance an impossible sum given what she earned. 

Elain Archeron was the only one who knew, outside of Lady and Lord Vanserra. Arina had confessed it all one night when Elain asked if Arina would like to borrow some of her dresses. “Lucien will help.”

“He cannot know,” Arian whispered, thinking he might say something to Eris, who in turn would be furious she’d disobeyed him. “This is the way of things.”

Girls like Elain had pretty, easy lives.

And girls like Arina worked.

Present day- 10 years.

Eris Vanserra didn’t know what was wrong with him. If there was one thing he truly enjoyed, it was fucking. He could have done it every day for the rest of his life in the exact same position and never tired of it. That day he had the finest woman he’d ever seen bent over his desk, her ass poised so perfectly as his cock slid in and out. He couldn’t figure out why he was struggling to enjoy himself. He slapped her ass cheek, earning a loud, theatrical moan.

Right. She was one of those, faking her enjoyment a little too much, cunt clenched around him as she did most of the work. Heir to the Vanserra empire, too many women saw only the title of Duchess when they looked at him. This woman, with her pretty chestnut hair, looked over her shoulder.

“Do you like this?” she asked, her voice smooth and sultry. Eris was surprised to find he didn’t. He was still hard, still moving, still appreciative of the glide of her body against his own…but he had stalled. It was as if his brain could no longer crest that hill. Eris reached for her hips, fingers digging in the skin, and slammed her against him over and over and over until he felt her release quiver around him. 

Come, he demanded of himself but his cock was stubborn. Even wrapped, it did not want to spill in another gold digging lady no matter how lovely her body looked wrapped around his own. Eris pulled himself out her with a growl of frustration, turning his back to force himself to breathe. It wasn’t as if his cock would settle. It would remain half hard in his pants until he was forced to finish himself, leaving Eris more frustrated than before. “Are you well, Lord Vanserra?” she asked him, turning from her desk. Eris felt her hands on his still clothed back, lips pressed against the fabric. 

“I am distracted,” he admitted, sliding the condom from his cock and discarding it in the wastebasket beside his desk. Her eyes flickered when she saw it, as if the entire day had been for nothing. “I’m afraid even you can do little to fix that.”

He pulled his pants back over his hips, having only ever left them at his ankles. 

“I could get on my knees?” she suggested, blue eyes twinkling with mischief. It was too late. The moment passed when Eris pulled his pants on. Instead of outright rejecting her like he ought to, he merely pressed his palm to her pretty cheek.

“Next time,” he said before stepping around her for the door. “Get dressed. I have a meeting I will be late for if you do not hurry.”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth and Eris considered she was not used to her advances being turned down. Get in line, he wanted to say. She was hardly the only woman who thought a pretty pussy and a willing mouth would give her whatever she liked. Women had been falling to their knees for him since he’d been seventeen years old. The longer he remained unmarried, the more desperate some women became.

He hurried her out just in time for his mother to arrive, eyes rich with disapproval. “Mama,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“I hope you rinsed out your mouth, Eris,” she chided. Her disapproval of his activities was well-known. Had he been a better son, like Lucien, he would have gotten married to a wholly appropriate woman and immediately impregnated her. Eris wasn’t Lucien nor was he a particularly good son though he liked to think that, as far as heirs went, he was not as disappointing as he could have been.

He ushered his mother into his town house, taking her to the familiar parlor where tea and sandwiches were laid out just as they always were. Eris had lunch with her once a week, allowing her to moan his status as a bachelor while telling him every little piece of gossip he missed because he was too busy drinking and fucking to participate in polite society. 

“Are you well?” he asked, noting the black dress she wore. It was nearly summer, far too warm for the long sleeves and high collar. 

She sighed. “There is no good way to tell you this. Your father had an accident returning from the continent. It’s unclear if he fell from his horse due to exertion or perhaps a heart attack…he passed this morning.” The world stilled for a moment. Beron Vanserra, the villain of Eris’s childhood, was dead. “What?” He didn’t dare believe it. Beron would live forever, his presence the dark shadow clouding Eris’s life, making him feel as if he were perpetually eight years old.

“There’s no need to pretend,” she said crisply, pouring a cup of tea from the floral patterned pot Elain had given him a mere four months earlier. “Your brother broke into laughter when I informed him–”

“I knew Lucien was your favorite,” he grumbled. “You told him first?”

“He has been staying with me,” she reminded Eris, her russet eyes sharpening. 

“Only because his wife is still cavorting about the countryside–” “Convalescing, I think you mean to say,” she interrupted primly. “Which brings me to several other matters. Lucien wants the Forest Estate–”

“Done,” Eris said easily. “He can have it in perpetuity, can sell it, light it on fire—” “Will you stop?” she asked, pushing a cup of steaming tea towards him. “That home was a gift from the royal family. You cannot sell it even if you wanted to. It is yours, Eris. You are Duke Vanserra now.”

Duke Vanserra. The title rang crisply in his ears, the long promised ascension he’d always wanted. By virtue of blood and birth, Eris had always known and still, had assumed it would take an act of God to kill Beron. He’d only ever be his fathers right hand man, exacting his bidding while trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

“If you expect me to live in that house–”

“I do not,” she replied, reaching her hand over the small, rounded table to hold his own. There were too many ugly memories for Eris. Not just at the country estate but their home in the city as well. He should have been staying with mother instead of Lucien, who had picked up all the responsibilities Eris shrugged off when he moved into his own home. 

“Give it to Lucien…allow his children to inherit it. I think that is a fine plan,” she assured him. “But Beron wanted to be buried out there…and you will need to oversee it.” He’d have to go back. 

“I trust you are handling the arrangements?” he asked, squeezing her thin hand in his own. Beron was dead. Beyond the title and the wealth Eris would inherit, his mother, after thirty-five miserable years, was finally free. She nodded.

“I think, once the mourning period has passed, I will remain with Lucien and Elain. She will need help with the new babe and I do not care for Velaris, if we are being honest. The manor will become yours.” “Yes, alright,” he managed. “I will handle things. Is there anything else or can we discuss the gossip I heard yesterday in the market?”

Her eyes sparkled. “One more thing, I promise. You remember Agatha, our housekeeper?”

No, he thought too quickly, his mind flashing a pair of green eyes set in a golden face. “Of course.”

“She passed away ten years ago,” Amera Vanserra told him, stirring more sugar into her cup. “Her daughter signed a contract with Beron to work as repayment for the debt his mother incurred with a physician he provided.” Eris could hear nothing for a moment. Only a rushing, roaring of blood filled his mind. He remembered very little of Agatha, of that terrible estate he loathed so much he would have danced around the flames should it ever catch fire. He did, however, occasionally think of her daughter Arina. Eris had very few regrets in his life and had always counted not figuring out what happened to her as one of them. He had hoped she’d left, just as she promised she would, and married some decent gentleman far, far away from the Vanserras.

Eris frowned. “Surely her debt is repaid?”

“I have asked Beron about it over the years. I promised her mother I would look after her, I would ensure her future. Beron has been tight-lipped and would not tell me what was left—” “Forgive it,” Eris said quickly. He owed Arina far more than his life. She’d been kind when it would have been easier to not be. She was the only person who had seen him cry. 

“She’ll need papers,” his mother protested. “And I think she would not like thinking this is an act of charity. Elain Archeron wants to see her married and is hoping to use this summer to create a little season for Arina. Will you dredge those old documents up for me? Beron kept meticulous records…I know they must be somewhere in his office.”

“I’ll find them,” he swore. That settled his mother, removing all traces of guilt from her countenance. Eris launched into his pathetic gossip without preamble, delighted when his mother one upped him, sharing all the messy matches being made. Eris was grateful men were not required to participate in the spectacle of courtship unless they wanted, certain he would have been married far, far sooner as he’d never had particularly good sense. He’d have been caught with his pants down over some minor noble's daughter and be halfway towards his own brood by then.

Not unlike his little brother. To Lucien’s credit, he’d only ever wanted one woman–the wife he’d married a year earlier. Lucien had never wavered in his commitment to Elain and the moment she made herself available, Lucien all but murdered the competition at the point of his sword. He’d done everything exactly by the book so there would be no room to doubt his affection and had not, at least publicly, compromised Elain’s virtue or chastity. 

Elain could give his mother a million grandchildren. Since she’d floated into their lives, his mother had brightened innumerably, and Eris’s too, though he’d never admit it. Elain’s presence was a salve, not just to Lucien, but to his mother.

To him.

Eris waited a full day before stalking towards that brick faced manor, set on the nicest street in Velaris. It sucked up an entire block, sprawling both up and out, as if Beron had meant to have seven children instead of just two. Every home Eris had grown up in had been too big, too empty. He preferred his little town house, with its three bedrooms and its tight walls. There was nowhere for ghosts to hide or shadows to lurk. 

Eris noted the mourning flowers scattered about the foyer as he jogged up the polished wood steps. Was anyone truly sad he was dead? Perhaps whichever mistress he’d taken that month was disappointed he’d died before she could sire a bastard to challenge Eris and Lucien though even then Eris had his doubts. Beron had five other children scattered across the city. He doubted Beron had left provisions for them at all. It would be up to Lucien and Eris to decide if they’d inherit anything at all. Eris was not certain he wanted five other men clamoring for the estate and challenging Elain’s new baby for the title as heir. 

Beron’s office was the second biggest room in the house, save for his own bedroom. Eris closed the door behind him, inhaling the smell of tobacco and liquor. He’d hated this room as a boy—it was where Beron chose to punish his sons for whatever wrong doing he’d imagined that day. The office was all immaculate dark wood and leather bound books all arranged around his large desk. Eris wanted to wreck it, to inject a little chaos just because he could.

Instead, he sat in that leather chair and began pulling open drawers. His mother hadn’t been wrong–Beron kept immaculate, precise records down to the cent. Eris knew exactly how much money the family possessed, having gone to the bank earlier that day to take over the accounts so there would be no disruptions but had he not, Beron accounted for it all.

Eris found Elain’s dowry, unspent and tucked away in a little file noting that Beron had not gotten her signature to transfer it from her and Lucien to himself. Eris crumpled that little note and set the file to the side. He’d give that to Lucien, who could do whatever he liked with that money.

His mothers dowry was also unspent, an absurd sum for a man who already possessed so much. All the haggling Beron had done to acquire more coins, more land, was laid out elegantly as if his mother were little more than a flock of geese. That, too, was set in a pile. He intended to give her ownership of it instead of having to rely on him to pay for her things—not that he wouldn’t. Eris dug out their trusts, dug out the information regarding his bastard brothers and the allowance his father had been paying their mothers for upkeep for those who were still babes. Beron had paid for their education and Eris begrudgingly decided he would continue, even if it rankled him. 

Night had fallen before he finally stumbled upon the folder he needed. Tucked inside neatly was a contract drawn up by a lawyer in which Arina Novak agreed to work against the debt she incurred for her mothers health expenses. Arina’s signature was signed below, dated mere months after she’d pulled him from the forest. Eris reclined in his chair, staring at her flowing penmanship. He hadn’t been in a position to help her, he reminded himself…and yet he’d never truly gone looking, either. He’d just closed that door without a backwards glance, indulging himself on occasion to wonder where she’d gone.

No where. Beron had marked the costs of her mothers funeral, tallying it neatly. Three years of physicians who charged a pittance while Beron charged Arina for the cost of his time, for horses, for having to write things in his ledger at all. Eris imagined Arina, at thirteen, had likely not understood what she was agreeing to. 

Her mother had left her a small sum of money. Not much—two years of her salary, carefully saved to provide Arina a future out of the Vanserra household. Beron had taken it, paying himself back without clearing any of Arina’s debt. She would have been freed that day if he’d been honorable. She could have joined Elain at school, could have participated in the marriage market at the same time, be married with her own children…and instead, Beron merely noted he’d promoted her to housekeeper. Eris could imagine his fathers glee at getting a skilled worker for nothing. He hadn’t given Arina a raise for her work while charging her interest each year and adding to her balance for things the household ought to have provided for. Each time a child fell sick or something broke under her watch, Beron merely tallied it up.

Pulling out a piece of paper, Eris quickly noted her account paid for and signed it without consideration. He tucked it into an envelope along with all the other things he felt needed his attention, before going home for the day, his mind racing. She’d be there when he arrived. Agatha had been a strange looking woman with the greenest eyes. Eris remembered very little about Arina.

But he’d never forgotten those green eyes. 

**

“Look at you,” Arina breathed when the carriage door opened. Lucien Vanserra hauled himself from the carriage gracefully, grinning when he saw her. Hand outstretched, he waited patiently for his very pregnant wife to scoot towards the edge. Far from letting her navigate the narrow steps herself, Lucien merely lifted her up and to her feet as if she were a feather in his hands. Elain scowled.

“I hate when you do that,” she complained, pressing a hand against the small of her back. Arina drank in the sight of Elain, eight months pregnant and glowing. She was a dream in pale blue, her stomach rounded beneath the stretchy fabric, her hair pulled neatly off her head. 

Lucien shrugged unrepentantly. “Welcome home, Lord Vanserra,” Arina told him with more than a little amusement. She still worked for him and was still responsible for overseeing this household. “I’m sorry to hear about your father.”

Elain snorted as Lucien said, “No you’re not. No one is. I have never seen so many smiling faces in the wake of a dead man. His funeral is practically a party, to hear mother talk about it.” “When will she arrive?” Arina asked, checking the mental boxes in her mind. Elain had insisted that she and Lucien preferred to share a room, that Lady Vanserra should take her old room, made exactly as she liked. 

“Tomorrow,” Lucien replied, patiently holding his wife’s hand as she maneuvered up the stone steps. “Eris was still wrapping things up when we left.” Arina pretended the sound of his name did nothing to her. She was terrified to see the new Duke. She hadn’t seen him in the years after he’d left, back straight, chin in the air as if his father hadn’t torn him to ribbons in the woods. What kind of man had he become, she wondered? 

“I’m surprised she didn’t come with you,” Arina admitted, following Elain upwards as well, hand clasped in her own.

“Eris will make an excuse not to come if she doesn’t drag him down,” Elain said sweetly even as she grimaced. “And this funeral is Amera’s attempt at matchmaking, however misguided.”

Lucien smirked, as if the thought of his brother subjected to the manipulations of his mother amused him. 

“Should I put him in the Lord's quarters, then?” Arina asked carefully. She had not let herself think of which room Eris would occupy. She didn’t wish to know where he slept, where he bathed or ate or lived at all. 

“Put him as far from his old room as you can manage,” Lucien replied, leading Elain to a chaise just inside the marble foyer where she could sit. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and retrieved an envelope while Elain caught her breath. “Speaking of Eris. Mother asked him to find the contract you signed with father all those years ago.”

Arina’s heart stopped at the sight of Eris’s elegant script, written neatly on the envelope. Just her name and nothing else. She’d inquired only once with Lady Vanserra, four years prior. The matriarch had sworn to do what she could and Arina surmised she had finally lived up to that promise. Arina pulled it up with trembling fingers. There was no note from Eris, no condemnation or polite hello. Only a notice that she had fulfilled her obligation, signed and dated a mere four days earlier. He’d also neatly folded a will, left by her mother, and check for a sum of money she’d left behind that Beron had clearly meant to keep in perpetuity. Lucien read over her shoulder, clearly just as curious.

“What a bastard,” he grumbled, snatching the check from Arina’s hands. It was written in Eris’s same calligraphy, dated the day after he’d closed her contract. “Beron hardly needed the money.”

She swallowed, letting Lucien hold the delicate piece of paper. “You’ll deposit this for me?” she asked, as if there was ever a question. She needed a man to do it on her behalf, given she was unmarried. Lucien smiled.

“I’ll handle it. All of it,” he added pointedly as Elain rose from her chair and waddled towards them. “Consider this your last day—” “Lucien,” Arina tried to protest. He raised a broad hand while Elain grinned brightly beside him. They’d conspired, she realized. 

“I can manage a couple guests in my own home,” he informed her smoothly. “If I catch you working, I will take you out back and dunk you thoroughly in the lake.”

“What Lucien means to say is you’ve done enough,” Elain said gently, looping her arms through Arina’s and forcing her to walk over the polished wood floors deeper into the house “And while no one would blame you for taking a horse and leaving, I was hoping you’d stay here with me this summer as my guest.” Arina rubbed her hands against the blue uniform of her dress. Dread crept through her stomach. All she’d known, for ten years, was working in this house. The education she’d been given felt like a distance memory, hardly useful to her at all. What good was Latin when the toilets stopped working? She licked her lips nervously as Lucien offered, “I could take you to Velaris, if you like?”

That would be worse. “No,” she insisted hastily. “No, I…” 

“Don’t you want to move on?” Elain asked her gently. “Find a family of your own?”

Arina forced a smile on her face. “Let me help you with this, at least. It will take you time to find a new housekeeper.”

“Not as long as you’re hoping,” Lucien warned. “Don’t make me force you–” “Yes, with the lake outback,” she interrupted without malice. “You are still that awful boy, you know.” Lucien’s grin was unrepentant. “I’m glad we understand each other. Let my wife make a fuss over you. It’s quite nice.” He strolled away, hands jammed in his pockets and a skip in his step. “I cannot stand how happy you have made him,” Arina told Elain, watching him walk away. “He is intolerable.”

“I know,” Elain agreed, one hand resting on her stomach. “I will endeavor to humble him.” How Elain chose to do that, Arina did not want to know. Like all of their courtship, Arina kept the pair of them at arms length. Elain and Lucien were her friends separately and, she supposed, together. However watching them fall in love, seeing how it might be between two people only made Arina feel lonlier. She knew Elain wanted that for her and once, Arina had wanted it too.

She was far too old to start. Twenty six and unmarried made it seem as if something was terribly wrong with her. Most girls wed far younger. Elain had been allowed more time than most as her proposal to Lucien was all but assured and she had wanted to travel with her sisters before settling down into motherhood. 

What man would want a wife who was not only as old as she was, but who had spent her life working as she did? Arina hardly had the gentile manners even middle class men dreamt of. She still liked to lurk in trees whenever no one was watching. Hardly wifely qualities. Arina was wild and, as she’d gotten older, had decided she didn’t want to change that. 

Elain dropped off an absurd number of dresses that evening, along with pretty shoes and haircombs. Arina had stared at them in the little room that had once belonged to her and her mother, hanging them neatly in her closet and arranging them gently on the dresser. She had so little—everything in that room belonged to her because she’d earned it. Elain was kind, and it felt bad to ignore those fine dresses and corsets for an easy cream colored dress she could slip over her head, that flowed against her frame without constricting her breathing. 

Instead of her usual bun, Arina opted for a braid over her shoulder. It was the hair of girls, not ladies and yet she decided she would not marry and so what did it matter if she dressed herself for comfort over fashion? Arina had no intention of attending Beron’s funeral though she did make her way to the servants quarters to ensure everyone knew their places. Berta was already waiting, eager eyed and hopeful. She wanted to replace Arina. 

Arina could have made the recommendation to Lucien that day and he’d have done it. She didn’t intend to make Berta wait forever. After all, housekeeper was the most prestigious job within a lord's household for a woman and Arina was sure Lucien paid far better than his father. 

Arina went to the library afterwards, avoiding the bustle around the house she would have usually participated in. She felt so idle. It was uncomfortable, not having anything to do with her time, no projects to organize, no staff to oversee. Just as she’d done when she was a girl, Arina plucked her favorite book from the shelf and fell into her favorite chair, head on the arm of the chair, legs dangling over the sides. No one but her ever came in here. The library was merely for show, for Beron to collect things with his absurd wealth that he’d never use. 

She knew the book in her hand like she knew her own name. Each line was memorized, imprinted on her mind, so when she read, her lips moved too, reciting the words like an actor might. It was a child's story, the kind told to make them think the world smaller and safer than it was. The hero slayed the dragon, the world united. It made her feel better, even as an adult. 

Even when the library door pulled open and a man with amber eyes stepped inside. He didn’t see her for a moment, half hidden beside the window, a table just in front of her. He turned his back, running a hand through his short, auburn hair as he exhaled a noise of frustration.

“Fuck you, father,” he snarled, his voice dark and rich. “If I could kill you myself, I would. You were an absolute…bastard…” his voice trailed off as he turned again, so slow the air seemed to still. Eris Vanserra had returned, every inch the Duke, now. The boy in her memory, with his rounded features and soft, snotty lilt had been replaced with the man standing in front of her. Tall, muscular and lean, Eris Vanserra was impeccably dressed in a silvery blue jacket cut stiffly against his angular, carved jaw. A complementary vest hugged against his chest, tapering against the fine cut of his white trousers that were swallowed at the knee by shiny black riding boots. She’d wondered how he had turned out, if he’d been as handsome as his looks had once suggested he might be.

He was absurd in his beauty, far lovelier than any man had the right to be. A lock of red hair had fallen against his forehead, unnoticed as Eris took her in. Recognition flared over his features.

“Still here, are you?” he finally asked. Arina’s heart sank. They weren’t friends, she reminded herself, and whatever attraction she felt was foolish. Arina closed her book just as she might have done years past.

“Lord Vanserra,” she murmured, dropping into a polite bow. He merely watched, his expression unreadable. She attempted to pass him but Eris was quick, pulling the book she held from her hands. He turned the spine to his face, reading the faded gold lettering with narrowed eyes.

“Still here, still reading the same books,” he stated, eyes snapping to her face. She felt like a child, embarrassed and flustered all at once. “I don’t know why that surprises me.”

He handed her back the book, fingers careful not to touch her. Arina snatched it, holding it against her chest.

“You haven’t changed at all,” she informed him, turning her back to leave.

“You have,” he called after her, his words slowing her. Her hand hesitated on the handle of the door. She dared to look over her shoulder at him, wishing she hadn’t. He seemed angry. “You were supposed to leave.”

Arina wrenched open the door, hating him just a little. “And go where, exactly?” she replied, slamming the door before he could respond. It was all well and good for Eris to uphold the promise he’d forced on her under duress. He’d been half dead, bleeding and crying. She would have promised him anything to make him feel better. That was foolish, childish nonsense and they both knew it. 

And yet, Arina thought perhaps Eris had the right idea after all.

Maybe she should leave. 

**

Eris could not breathe. Pacing the library, he held his hand against his chest and forced air through his nose and out his mouth, over and over and over. This cursed house was a nightmare. Everything held some forgotten memory made new, dragging him into the murky darkness of his mind and his fathers cruelty. The only refuge was the library–Beron had never touched this place, had likely forgotten it existed.

But she hadn’t. And in his desperation to find somewhere free of Beron, he’d strolled right into Arina Novak, the little girl who’d kept him from dying in the woods one night. He remembered so little after the first snap of the whip, had blocked most of it out. He recalled the cool rain against his back and the smell of the warm dirt pressed to his cheek.

And her, soaked in her white dress, pulling him to his feet and dragging him through the woods and over the hilly lawn where he’d collapsed into the stable. He’d passed out, his dreams fraught and had woken to pretty green eyes tucking a blanket around his body. No one but his mother touched him with such care and yet when he’d pulled her into his arms, she’d smelled of sunshine and citrus, hardly his mothers scents. 

He’d put her behind him. Even when he’d honored her mothers will, Eris had given her little thought beyond his hope she did something with her life now that she was freed from Beron’s influence. He hadn’t expected to find her still, dressed in a white dress so reminiscent of the night in the forest, her sunlit blonde hair swept in a messy braid over her shoulder. And her eyes…Eris braced his hand against the table. In his mind, she was a freckled, chubby cheeked girl. 

Not anymore. Arina could have brought Velaris to her knees if she’d ever been given permission to leave. Her beauty was overwhelming, bright like the midday light pouring through the window. Eris understood why Paris might risk his kingdom for Helen of Troy, had she been even half as lovely as Arina was. 

Arina, devoid of a corset and the fussy hairstyles the ladies in Velaris wore, her legs hanging over the side of a chair as she read a book for children. Arina, with her full, unpainted pink lips, her tanned skin, her mossy eyes. She was not for him and never had been—his first awareness of her was being shoved in the dirt by her own hands, only to watch his father bruise them unforgivably when he learned of her transgression. 

Not for him…Eris turned his eyes to the window, unsurprised to see her stalking over the lawn like a petulant child. He wanted to chase after her, to needle her until he was under her skin. Eris turned back to the library, instead going to see his obnoxious brother who had known Arina had been here all these years and said nothing at all.

“If you want the office back, you’ll have to fight me for it,” Lucien said absently, rifling through their fathers old documents. “Or the bedroom.” “I wouldn’t touch that bedroom with a ten foot pole,” Eris retorted, well aware Lucien had likely already done unspeakable things to Lady Elain. Lucien looked up, misunderstanding him. “I had everything changed.” Eris only rolled his eyes. “Did you not give Arina her inheritance?”

Lucien’s brows shot upwards. “Of course I did.”

“Then why is she still here?” Eris demanded, furious that Lucien would allow her to continue working when she ought to go. Escape. 

Lucien steepled his hands in front of his face, regarding Eris with an assessing gaze. Annoyed, Eris dropped to the blue leather chair across from Lucien’s desk, leg crossed over his knee. 

“Elain wants to find her a match,” he finally said, leaning back in his chair. “Who am I to deny my wife?”

“And Arina?” Eris asked petulantly.

“Why do you care?” Lucien shot back smoothly. 

“She…she did me a favor once,” he finally admitted, catching the interest in Lucien’s face. So Arina had never told, had she? She’d just assumed she must, that servants gossiped. What better piece of information than to spread how the lord's son wept like a child in the arms of a maid's daughter? It softened him, if only a little. “I want to see her–” “Settled, yes. We all do,” Lucien agreed. “Dont’ worry, Eris. I can manage just fine without you hovering over my shoulders.” Eris scowled. “You’ll fuck it up. You always do.”

“Reassuring words from Duke Vanserra,” Lucien retorted as Eris stood. “Don’t stay on my account, brother. Go back to Velaris and continue fucking your whores. I am sure that will fix things.”

Eris rounded on his brother, who didn’t have the decency to look scared. “Oh? And has marriage fixed you?”

“Perhaps I was not so deeply broken,” Lucien replied, leveling a cold stare. “Father cared far less for me than he did you, after all.”

“And that’s how you can stand being here? In this fucking house with–” he cut himself off, reaching for a decanter of Beron’s expensive liquor, throwing it forcefully against the wall behind him. Lucien didn’t flinch.

“Beron took too much,” Lucien finally said, drawing Eris’s attention back to Lucien’s face, to the scar from their fathers brutality. “He cannot have my peace. He is dead, and by all accounts, it was a slow, painful, and miserable death out on the road. By himself. No one to torment, to witness him.” “It’s not enough,” Eris said, panting wildly as if he’d just run a race. 

“Then you will always be angry and he will  never care. The apology you want is not coming, Eris. He is not sorry for what he did,” Lucien snarled in response. “Make your peace with it so you can move on.” Eris shook his head, stumbling from the office like a drunk man. He didn’t know where he was going until he yanked open the terrace doors. Sunlight shone around him, illuminating the beautiful grass and gardens. In the distance, Eris could see the sparkling lake juxtaposed against the cheerful green treetops of the forest. Eris pulled off his jacket as he began to walk, each step angrier than the last until he’d thrown the piece of clothing to the grass. He removed his vest, rolling his sleeves to his elbows. 

He took off in a sprint, unsure where he was going or what he was doing. It felt good to unleash himself, to stop trying so hard to be his fathers perfect son, to release the expectations that had always strangled him. Gentlemen didn’t run, they didn’t work, they didn’t care about women or love or fun. They didn’t cry or feel anything but rage and did exactly as they wished so long as it was mostly within the bounds of the law.

The problem was Eris did feel. He felt everything, bottled in his chest until he made a mockery of his very being. Eris cared too much for a Vanserra, and as a result could just barely function. He was Beron in all the ways Beron valued and when he looked at himself in the mirror, Eris hated what he saw.

He slowed after a moment, turning in a circle on the leaf strewn path. “Lost, lordling?” a mocking voice called from a tree. Eris titled his head to find Arina, sitting just above him, her leg dangling once again. He grabbed her ankle and yanked, sending her tumbling to the ground with a screech. 

“Did my mother not instruct you on the ways of being a lady?” he sneered as she rose to her feet, her hair unwound from the loosely tied ribbon. Arina pushed the hair from her face, the top of her head coming to his chin as she strode towards him.

“As well as she taught you to be a gentleman,” Arina snapped. Eris took a step towards her. 

“Apologize,” he demanded.

Arina didn’t yield, her fury only making her more lovely. “I’m sorry you’re such a bastard.”

Eris lunged and Arina took off, avoiding the path entirely to plunge into the forest unbidden, as if she were a child again. He raced after her, irritated she was so much better than he was at navigating his own ancestral lands. While he’d studied, Arina had been given leave to roam wild. Not anymore. He had paid his dues and for what? He was Duke regardless and would have been even if all he’d ever done was fuck his whores, as Lucien so crassly stated. 

He nearly caught her once, arms catching on her dress only to meet a branch to the face. She didn’t stop, not until she burst from the treeline to the dock, stopping so abruptly he slammed into her and sent them both toppling to the grass. Arina exhaled all the air in her lungs, her soft body breaking his fall. Eris was fine, though bruised, and present enough to know that when he hoisted her up over his shoulder, he was violating several fundamental truths regarding how men and women ought to act.

“Eris,” she gasped, kicking at his chest and beating against his back. “Don’t you dare—”He threw her into the lake, watching her flail against the crystal water with satisfaction. He didn’t know why he’d wanted to do any of it at all—why he’d chased after her, why he’d yanked her from the tree or even why it amused him to see her fall into the water. 

Arina didn’t surface for long enough to unsettle him. She could swim, he was certain of it. Still, Eris walked to the end of the dock, crouching on the edge to see if she was injured or drowning. Her hand shot from beneath the glassy surface, fisting in his shirt. Eris howled, tumbling into the chilly water without ceremony. She attempted to lift herself out of the lake as he went under, grabbing at her bare leg and dragging her back beneath him. Arina twisted, pulling from his grasp to surface for air.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, pushing away when he surged towards her. “Are you trying to kill me?”

Eris frowned. “No,” he finally admitted. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

“This is a poor way to talk to a woman. Surely you must know that,” she spat, swimming to the dock. He watched her hoist herself up, water sluicing off her body that was now completely visible to him. Eris’s amusement only heightened when Arina stood, her dress clinging to every inch of her skin. Nipples peeked through the sheer fabric, giving Eris the general sense of her shape, of what she might look like undressed. 

She crossed her arms over her chest as he floated. “I’m not trying to talk to you,” he admitted. “Perhaps I wanted to see you naked.”

“I’ll tell,” she threatened, drawing him back to the dock. Eris, too, lifted himself out of the frigid water, running a hand down his own sheer shirt and the toned body beneath. Arina barely glanced, as if she’d seen a million good looking men and he did not impress her. 

“I’m so afraid of Lucien,” Eris taunted, striding past her for the forest beyond. He had water in his boots and his pants were far too heavy to feel comfortable and yet Eris had the sense that if he stripped in front of her, she’d close her hands around his throat. He was so lost in his little victory he’d forgotten everything else. 

“Stop,” she whispered, freezing him in place. Eris had never let anyone see him without his shirt, opting for either utter darkness or to keep it on his body. He swore he meant to snap at her, to turn like a furious dog until she backed away. Only Arina had ever seen, by virtue of being there when it happened. Even his own mother had never looked, had kept her distance as if she could not stand it.

Arina’s fingers slid beneath the wet shirt covering him. Impulsively, Eris pulled his shirt over his head, barring himself to this stranger, to a woman he barely knew. She sucked in a breath and, angry, Eris demanded, “Don’t pity me.” She traced the thin, pink lines over his otherwise taut back. “I don’t pity you, Eris,” she murmured, so close he could feel her breath on his skin. Her hand pressed along his spine before he felt her lips graze the skin.

“I would kill him, if I could.”

Eris spun so abruptly Arina skittered backwards, stumbling back to the wooden dock. Standing over her, half naked and exposed, Eris felt vulnerable and it scared him. “He's' dead.”

Arina drew her knees against her chest. “Maybe it’s not enough.” 

Reality washed over him, returning his sense of decency. He’d chased a woman through the woods and thrown her in the lake. For what purpose, other than she frustrated him? Haunted him, he decided, staring into the golden green eyes he still saw in his nightmares. Far from a monster, Arina was an angel. No one had ever come for him, had cared, had seen him. She had.

And Eris couldn’t explain it.

“He’s gone,” she murmured, face hidden beneath a black veil. Ever the grieving widow, as if they hadn’t been up all night drinking their way through all of Beron’s best wine in the cellar. That veil kept the world from knowing just how hungover she was. Eris envied her. Eris didn’t move from his place beside his mother, Lucien on the other, as the world's longest, most gleeful line of mourners came to peer into his casket.  The sermon was altogether too long and too poetic for a man who’d been mired in as much shit as Beron and yet Eris suffered through it because at the end, Beron was locked in a box and all but dumped in the ground.

While the rest of the guests filed inside, Eris waited at the edge of the property where every Vanserrra man had been buried in perpetuity, for the grave to be filled. He was sweating in his black coat and top hat by the time they finished, though it was well worth it. Hidden by scattered, ancient trees and the hilly lawn, the only witness to this final fuck you would be God himself. Eris pulled his cock from pants and pissed on his fathers grave.

“Shameless, Vanserra,” a woman’s voice crooned from behind him. 

“Any excuse to look at me naked, huh?” he replied, well aware Arina could not see from her angle. He didn’t stop, moving his hips to consecrate the dirt in his urine, peeing the wine he’d drunk, the same Beron had been saving for a special occasion, all over his fathers resting place. 

Eris buttoned himself back into his pants to jog after Arina, dressed in the prettiest yellow dress he’d ever seen. He pulled the book tucked from beneath her arm, tsking when he found more fairy tales. 

“Do you read anything but nonsense?”

“At least I can read, Lord,” she replied with sugary sweetness. It was as if the day before had not happened. Eris could admit it was hardly a good look for him, dumping her in the lake only to snatch his shirt up and leave her alone in the forest, not bothering to look back as he’d stalked towards the house. He forgot that Arina was not one of the many simpering ladies waiting inside, the kind who would bend over his desk if it meant one day becoming Duchess.

He pressed the book back against her chest and resisted the urge to tug on her braid as though he were a little boy with a schoolyard crush. “I heard you were fired this morning,” he said instead, enjoying the look of pure outrage on her beautiful face.

“I was not fired.” “Sounded like firing to me. Lucien said you were—” “He is being a good friend, something you know nothing about,” Arina reminded him. Eris nudged her with his arm, rolling his eyes. 

“I didn’t know good friends left each other unemployed and homeless–”

“I’m not homeless, Eris,” she snapped, their game over. “And what would you know about employment, anyway? You’ve never worked a day in your life.”

She stormed off, leaving Eris to amuse himself. He meandered back to the cellar, pulling a cork out of a wine bottle with his teeth before settling against the cool earth and pouring it down his throat.

“Must you antagonize Arina?” Lucien’s voice floated into his awareness. “You are stressing out my wife.”

“Join me,” Eris replied, gesturing for her sit beside him. Lucien did, taking the drink from Eris’s hand for a sip. 

“Did you see his other sons?” Lucien asked after a moment. “They look…” “Just like him,” Eris agreed, eyes cutting to his younger brother. Eris was too aware that he was the only full-blooded son of both his mother and his father. How Lucien had never pieced together he had another father would always puzzle Eris, though he was grateful all the same. Lucien’s belief united them.

Made Eris feel less alone. 

“It’s mother who made us lovely,” Eris added when Lucien took another long, contemplative drink. “Just as it is Elain who will make your son lovely, too.”

Lucien smiled warmly. “And you? Do you intend to let mother pair you with one of the available ladies all hoping to take a shot at Duke Vanserra?”

“Do I seem like marriage and father material?” Eris asked, stretching out one of his legs. Lucien turned his head, his long hair tied off his face, as though truly accessing him.

“I think you do not believe you deserve to be happy,” Lucien finally told him. “Which is why you have your whores.”

“Do not let Lady Scott hear you call her such,” Eris joked, hearing a well-deserved swat to the chest. 

“Someone’s father is going to come after you with a gun,” Lucien reminded him. “Force you into marriage by pain of death.”

“What fun I will have had, though,” Eris replied, his mind drifting not to Lady Scott and her perfect set of breasts but Arina and her scowling, angry face. She vexed him and he did not like it.

“Send Arina away,” he said after a moment. “Far from this place.”

“I might have a riot on my hands,” Lucien, still joking, didn’t notice the way Eris’s mood immediately darkened. “More than a few gentlemen have inquired after her eligibility. It seems her age is less of a hindrance than she believed it to be. Arina is lovely, she is amusing and she is practical. What man wouldn’t want a wife who can balance his accounts just as easily as he?”

“Our father, for one,” Eris reminded Lucien with alarm. “You cannot be seriously considering jus handing her off to one of the bastards of Velaris?”

“Perhaps one of our brothers—” Eris lunged for Lucien, spilling wine over the pair of them. “I knew it,” he hissed, clambering to his feet. “If anyone needs to stay away, it’s you.”“I’m not–”

“You are going to scare off all her potential suitors and for what, Eris?” Lucien demanded. Eris stood, too, arms crossed over his chest. “You don’t want a wife. Why would you begrudge that of her?’ “Does she want to be someone's wife?”

“She would have been, had father not meddled. Now you’re meddling because you’re jealous. Leave her alone. She has done enough.” “I have done nothing at all!” Eris snarled furiously. “I am merely saying you assume she must want what you and Elain have–” “Who would not?!” Lucien bit back, daring Eris to contradict him. “What are her other options? She can clean this house forever or she can get married. That is it, Eris. If you want to champion equality among the sexes, please,” he gestured for the cellar door. “Be my guest. Otherwise you may court her or you may leave.”

Eris crossed his arms over his chest, running his tongue over his teeth. “So I can court her?”

“No, of course–” “You just said my options were courting or going home. So I can court her.” Lucien gripped the bridge of his nose “We both know you do not want her. Don’t play this game. Go back home.”

Lucien left Eris there with nothing but his thoughts. Of course Eris didn’t want Arina. Outside of all the obvious problems, he could hardly bring a serving woman home to Velaris and announce her as Duchess. It was not done, would have cause a huge scandal and alienated Eris from more than one family that hoped he might one day marry one of their terrible daughters.

Upstairs, Eris tried. Trapped on the terrace, he made endless small talk with some of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, a few of whom he’d even personally tasted. He ate his little sandwiches and drank until his vision swam and still, when the chatter died down and Eris was alone with his thoughts, they turned back to Arina. 

He knew she was back in that tree, book in hand, so utterly oblivious to his brother's machinations. What kind of gentleman wanted a wild woman for a wife? Eris shed himself of his jacket and his vest, just as he’d done the day before, though this time he knew exactly where he was going. He sidestepped the eager mothers hoping to turn tragedy into romance, swearing there was something on the grounds that required his attention while noting who turned appreciative eyes to his form.

Arina did not look at him with appreciation when he found her, still in the pretty yellow from before. Eris lifted himself easily onto the lowest branch, balancing carefully. “Go away, Eris.”

“Come swim with me,” he said, resting his head against the trunk of the tree.

“Is there no one else you could ask?” “No,” he agreed, noting the way her eyes snagged on his chest for only a moment. She didn’t want him, which, in turn, made him want her. “C’mon. I promise, not throwing this time.” “Your word is worth nothing,” Arina replied, closing her book all the same. Eris smiled, pleased she was going to join him. He didn’t bother helping her down, relishing the lack of propriety between them. It hardly seemed to bother Arina, who only tucked her book under her arm and began walking at his side instead of sighing loudly, disappointed he had not participated in the absurd theater of courting. 

Eris could just be. He didn’t think he even knew who lurked beneath the veneer of Duke and felt almost giddy at the prospect. She looked over at him, her loose braid tumbling over her shoulders. Eris licked his lips. “Bored already?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “No one talks of anything but gossip.”

“You don’t like gossip?” she questioned, a mocking slant to her words. “Is the lordling above us mere peasants that he cannot engage in a little poor talk?”

“It is all they talk of,” Eris complained, ignoring the way his body responded to being called lordling. “Perhaps I have thoughts on the weather.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t,” he admitted, earning a smile as they waded through the brush towards the dock of the lake. “But no one asks.”“Are you going to share the gossip?” she teased, elbowing him in the ribs.

He scoffed. “Desperate to know which lords are rumored to be kissing which ladies?”

Arina shrugged, slipping her shoes off her feet in the grass. Eris was quick to pull off his boots, jumping on one leg to prevent himself from falling over. Arina quickly untied her hair, raking her fingers through the long, blond tresses. Eris could only stare, a hand rubbing his jaw as though she’d hit him.

“It would make courting so much easier. Do you know how many of your well-bred compatriots have asked to come calling on me?A nobody?” she taunted as she walked backwards to the edge of the dock.

“You’re not nobody. You’re the help. There is a difference,” he replied, his jealous burning hot all the same. 

“Of course not,” she agreed. “And yet you’ll be forced to see me at your fancy parties for the rest of your life, just the same.” Eris shoved, pushing her backwards into the water. Arina screeched, splashing hard in the sparkling water and Eris, far too amused, hopped in after her after tossing his shirt over his head to flutter in the grass.

His feet just barely touched the silty bottom when he surfaced. Arina splashed water violently into his face. “You promised.”“My word is worth nothing, remember?” he asked, swimming towards her all the same. “Tell me your prospects so I might dash your hopes before you fall in love.”

“Oh, but of course since we are such good friends,” she shot back sarcastically.

“I have seen you naked,” he reminded her, suddenly well aware of how her dress was clinging to her body. He could see all of her, illuminated in the late afternoon sun, though not the way he might have liked. 

“I imagine you have seen most of the ladies naked,” Arina replied, floating on her back, face warmed by the sun. “I do not imagine myself special.” He swam towards her, running his hand through her halo of golden hair. She was special, though he’d never admit it. “Tell me,” he insisted, if only to hurt his own feelings.

Arina sighed, exasperated. “Okay. Only one, though.” Eris could convince her from the rest later. “Fine,” he agreed, pleased when she righted herself in the water, her eyes back on his bare chest.

“Have you heard of the Duke of Vanserra?”

Eris pushed her head beneath the water as she laughed, too amused to be irritated. She reached for his wrist, twisting and with ease, Eris brought her back to the surface. 

“He is the worst of the lot,” he informed her when she poked him hard in the ribs. “I have heard he routinely throws ladies into ponds.” “Yes, he is quite the rake. It is all the other women speak of. Eris Vanserra,” she added, adopting a giggling, high pitched tone. “Is the most incredible kisser–”

“That is true,” he insisted, annoyed by how she continued to laugh. Arina rolled her eyes. 

“All men think so.”

“What do you know about kissing?” he demanded, jealous all over again. Arina smiled and Eris, unable to stop himself, reached for the back of her neck and pulled her up against his body. “Who have you been kissing?”

Arina’s laughter died, her hand against his chest. She didn’t flinch, eyes holding his gaze. “When I was eleven, I kissed the butcher's son.”

“And since then?” Eris asked roughly, his other arm wrapped tight around her waist. He could feel the slide her legs between his own, her fluttering dress brushing against his too warm skin. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she whispered, her fingers tracing the outline of his jaw. 

“How will I punish them for touching you?” he murmured, his mouth nearly touching her own. 

“You won’t,” she replied, nuzzling her nose against his. “Because this never happened.”

He tightened his grip in her hair until she’d arched her neck. Arina’s eyes fluttered closed, lips parted and Eris could not help himself. He wanted to taste the woman who would swear on her life she’d never kissed him, who would deny him entirely when any other would have bragged, would have schemed to take more. 

The kiss was an instant mistake. Arina gasped softly, lips slotted between his own and Eris was suddenly hyper aware that they were wet, pressed against each other as if they were totally naked. He could not kiss her soft, could not even pretend he was a gentleman as his lips claimed her, hot and wild, wholly desperate in a way he’d never been in his entire life. He’d been bored of the women in Velaris, unable to finish even when he imagined them with his own skilled hand.

Now he thought he could finish with nothing but this, but her legs squeezed around his bare torso, her arms around his neck. Eris groaned, the sound swallowed by the nature surrounding them. She was something new, something wild and free. Arina was free, and Eris wanted that. He grasped her, sliding his tongue against her lips until she opened for him and let him have a taste.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, kissing her again and again when he knew he ought to stop. He couldn’t, not when her hand slid over his shoulder, palm running the length of his back over the thin scars.

He turned his face to look but Arina pulled at his face, drawing him nearly under the water as he kissed her desperately, arching his hips into her body until she gasped desperately, moaning softly at the contact. It should have been wrong—she was not for him, he reminded himself and yet Eris felt right, like he was supposed to be there under that setting sun, kissing her and only her.

A better man would have stopped while he was ahead. There was no favor to be gained like this, his toes curled in silt as he supported her body weight. Eris knew nothing good would come from touching her any more than he already was, that he’d only want more until he’d taken everything she had to offer only to discard it later. He knew it and still his hand, the one that wasn’t holding her against him, slid down her own, unmarked back, to caress her bare thigh clenched around his waist. He wanted to feel her naked skin against his own so badly he nearly abandoned his plan in favor of stripping down. The only thing that stopped him was knowing he’d never not be able to fuck her if he exposed himself and she kept kissing him like she was. 

He didn’t bother taking her clothes off. Eris never did, not when he could help it. Ladies would undress themselves, wiggling their bodies for his examination as if they were the first beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He had some sense left, hand gliding between her things, that whatever lurked beneath Arina’s clothes would wreck him in some unknowable, fundamental way. 

Arina gasped at the feel of him, forehead pressed to his own. She looked between them, as if she could see his hand beneath the rippling surface looking for that heat Proof, his mind all but begged her. You want this too.

“Oh, thank God,” he whispered without meaning to the moment he found what he was looking for. Everything was wet in water and yet when Eris slid his finger into her body, he found a silkier, smoother sort of wet waiting for him, coating his skin in a mockery of what she might do if he ever put his cock there. Arina closed her eyes and Eris kissed her again, adjusting his hold as she tightened around both his waist and his hand. 

Hair unbound, lips bright pink, Eris was certain he’d never seen anything as beautiful than Arina in the lake riding his hand. He was kissing her with his eyes open, addicted to the sight of her. He wished he could remove himself from his body entirely and watch like a ghost, committing the moment to memory if only to replay it later. She was obscene and holy all at once. He had no right to touch her. She did not belong to him. 

Pad brushing her clit, Eris considered this was the only way he could have her. Arina would open her eyes and see him, realize he was wretched and ugly and broken. What value could he offer other than pleasure? He could keep her around, could draw her back even when she abandoned her simple life hiding in books and trees for the life of some lord's wife. He’d always have her his way, he thought, groaning at both the fantasy and her soft tongue stroking against his own. 

She was quiet, her panting gasps a mere hitch in her throat. It wasn’t a show, a performance meant to bolster his ego or manipulate his affections. When her hips rolled over him, when she whined softly, it was pure, undiluted desire that drove her. Eris swallowed them all, stealing each one for himself. He was greedy and he didn’t care. Everything she had, he wanted. It was as if touching her could cleanse him, could fix whatever was wrong. 

Arina came softly, her whole body convulsing around his one finger, so tight he could feel it on his cock. Eris groaned as her kiss slowed, her hips frantic. Arina pulled her hands from the nape of his neck, sliding them down his bare chest for the buttons on his trousers.

“Yes,” he whispered, desperate to feel her touch him—all of him. A snapping branch in the distance shattered the silence like a gunshot. Arina jerked out of his arms, floundering in the water. There was no mistaking what had happened between them, not with her glassy eyes and pink, swollen lips. Arina swam for the edge of the dock, hauling herself upward. He watched, his disappointment swirling dark and angry in the air around him. 

“This…it never happened,” she told him before scooping up her shoes and all but running back for the trees.

Only, it had happened.

And Eris would not forget.

**

“You look so pretty,” Elain said with a relish, hand resting on her rounded belly. Arina was in her new bedroom, in new clothes and a hat…Arina stared at herself in a mirror, her waist cinched within an inch of its life in a pretty blue dress, her blonde hair curled and pinned off her head. She’d admit the effect was nice enough. Under Elain’s careful attention, her eyes seemed bigger, her cheekbones sharper, her mouth poutier. Her breasts heaved beneath the top, pushed almost painfully high to her collarbone, now adorned with a lace choker. 

“I want you to meet Lord Callum,” Elain continued, unaware of Arina’s discomfort. This might have been her life, had her mother not died the way she did. No hiding in trees…no letting Eris Vanserra touch her in the middle of a lake. God, what was wrong with her? She shook that thought from her mind, suppressing the way his amber eyes had been almost black in the sunlight, so full of heat, of possession. 

“His father was Marquess of Turnton and, as a bonus, his family loathed Beron Vanserra.”

“We have so much in common,” Arina replied with only a bite of sarcasm. Elain walked to her, each step carefully measured given how her protruding stomach nearly toppled her. Elain was such a small woman, it seemed impossible anything as large as the babe in her belly could leave her body. Arina wondered if the thought kept Lucien up at night before she cleared her head of that thought, too. Elain would be fine and if she wasn’t, Arina knew Lucien would march into heaven itself and get his wife back.

It was that jealous thought that prompted her to stand. “Sorry,” she said, shamed thoroughly. “Tell me more of this Lord Callum.”

Elain poked Arina in the stomach, gesturing for her to follow. Arina took one last sweeping look at the room, so large she could have put her old room in it three times and still had space to dance around. She’d given it to Berta begrudgingly, well aware that a room with a toilet was unheard of for staff, let alone one that didn’t require a roommate. Lucien made Berta his new housekeeper because Arina had recommended her and his wife all but demanded he force Arina to step down.

To Elain, there was nothing greater than this, than courtship and marriage and babies. It was easy for her to think, but Arina had been there when they’d met, had seen the devotion with which childhood Lucien had followed her around. Elain was easily the most beautiful woman in the country, could have had any man she wanted and yet had decided on her husband when she was thirteen years old. 

Elain’s season had been dancing in ballrooms with Lucien all but threatening every other suitor away, occasionally at the point of a knife. 

The problem for Arina was double-edged. She was beautiful and she was common, and she knew what men like Lord Callum too often thought about women like her. Elain could dress her up, could present her as a lady, but well-bred men often believed lower women to be easy and loose, things to touch but not to respect. She tried to pretend that wasn’t what Eris had done…but she knew, deep in her gut, that he, too, only saw her as an amusement to pass the time.

So lost in thought, Arina didn’t hear a word Elain said as they walked slowly to the drawing room. Arina didn’t know why she’d expected emptied halls—only half the guests from the day before were departing. The rest would remain for the duration of the month until they left again, just in time for Elain to ideally have her baby. 

She stepped into the sunny space to find a man waiting. He stood, his blue eyes bright when he saw her and Arina was stunned. She hadn’t imagined what he’d look like at all and yet Lord Callum, assuming this was him, was handsome. He was blonde, like her though his temples were only just beginning to gray, and his skin was fair as though proof he had never spent more time in the sun than was necessary and still she thought God had been kind when creating him. Tall, broad, and the picture of a gentleman in his white buttoned jacket and matching pants.

“Lady Arina,” he said. It was believable, coming from his lips. He bowed and Arina, stunned, only stood there blinking. “You look…ah, you look lovely,” he amended quickly, catching sight of the Vanserra widow sitting beside the window arching an immaculate brow in his direction. “You as well, Lady Elain.”

“No need to lie,” Elain teased. “I’ll have tea sent.”

“Sit,” Callum offered, gesturing with a gloved hand. Arina did, smoothing her skirts beneath her in a near daze. He sat beside her, careful to leave a polite distance between them. Arina looked over her shoulder to Amera, who was studiously ignoring them as she penned a letter. “I ah…you look well.” He liked her. Lord Callum was wholly flustered, as if he’d never spoken to a woman at all before. Perhaps he hadn’t, she thought, though that couldn’t be true. 

“As do you,” Arina offered, smiling. He blushed—actually blushed—eyes dropping to his lap.

“You’re too kind,” he replied. “I uh…so…are you going to Velaris this summer?”

Arina glanced to Amera, who only shrugged her shoulder, pen between her lips. “I’ve never been.”

His eyes lit up. Lord Callum scooted a fraction nearer, and Amera cleared her throat loudly in warning. It didn’t deter him, though he came no closer. “Oh, but you must. The city is so alive, so vibrant. I should like to take you to the museums…I am told you like to read.” “I do,” she all but whispered, heart pounding in her throat. “What sort of museums?” “Art, of course, and history and we have a library to rival anything you’ve ever seen. You could get lost inside it.” “I should like to see it,” she confessed, wondering if it was foolish to like this man simply because he was offering her experience. He reached for her ungloved hand. 

“Join me in—”

“Lord Callum,” Eris Vanserra drawled, striding into the drawing room, hat beneath his arm. “Arina,” he added, brow furrowing as he drank in the scene. “Am I…what am I interrupting–” “Are you leaving?” his mother asked, not allowing Eris to finish his question. “I shall walk you out, give me a moment.”

She moved quickly, skirts rustling, until it was Arina alone with Callum and Eris. He was staring at Callum, his eyes practically slits. 

“Lord Vanserra,” Callum said cooly, all his shyness evaporating. There was clearly no love lost between the pair of them. “I was so sorry to hear of your fathers passing.”

Eris smoothed out his expression. “As were we all.”

Neither sounded very sorry at all. Arina knew Eris was lying and wondered what Beron had done to make Callum’s family detest him so much. 

Eris opened his mouth but his mother arrived with Elain in tow. Elain walked to Amera’s former spot at the window, providing a new chaperone in Amera’s sted. “I’ll walk you out,” his mother said, beaming up at him. “Though I wish you would stay.” “Safe travels,” Arina added, strangely sad to see him go. The memory of his shirtless body in the lake pushed to the front of her mind, of his arms grasping her, his hand beneath her skirt…Arina looked away. This was for the best. She’d become far too attached if he stayed.

“Yes,” Eris murmured, setting his hat atop his head and left the room. No other words, no promises to write or even mention that she was anything to him at all. Arina’s stomach churned, ruining her once good mood. 

“I intend to stay,” Callum told her. “He will be making many ladies incredibly sad.”

Elain’s sweet laughter floated through the room. “Lady Eliza has made plans to stay the entire month. She will be quite cross to know he’s gone.” Arina glanced to Elain, who turned her eyes to the window, her face one of apology. “Enough about Eris,” Callum said smoothly. “Tell me of you, Lady Arina.”

And she did, answering his earnest questions until her voice was sore and she was sure there was nothing else he could possibly glean from her. Elain was required to intervene far past the hour mark, when it became clear Callum had no intention of leaving. 

“Oh, hell,” Elain muttered when Lord Koschington stepped in. He was old enough to be her father and had likely once been handsome. He, like many men, waited until he had nothing but his wealth to fall back on before trying to find a wife and Arina wasn’t that desperate. She quite enjoyed solitude. 

“Lady Arina,” he began as she stood. “A moment of your time?”

“In a moment,” Arina lied. “I must…I must see to myself in the ladies room–” It was a lie, but one he could not argue with. Arina stepped around him, surprised to find more than one suitor standing just outside. What was happening? She’d assumed Lord Callum to be a one off, an anomaly but she saw now he’d merely beaten his rivals and had, to their clear irritation, also interrupted their time. 

Arina didn’t dare look any of them in the eye as she walked, practically breaking into a sprint through the ancient halls. She considered going to the forest but it seemed like a poor way to repay Elain for her kindness…and Elain would surely be cross if she was left to entertain the gentlemen all day. Instead, Arina yanked open the door to the study.

“Lady–” she heard a voice floating down the hall. Heart pounding, Arina did the only thing that seemed reasonable. She strode over the immaculate wood floor and dove beneath the desk. The outside hid all traces of her well. The door creaked open and a mans boots clicked over the floor. A sigh, and then…silence and the echo of shoes back down the hall. Arina exhaled, untangling her limbs in her absurd, heavy skirts so she could crawl from beneath the unused desk and find a better place to hide. Perhaps the kitchens, she reasoned. Men never went there, not even the serving men, who believed themselves still above common women. 

The door pushed open again with another sigh and more clipped footsteps. Arina froze, praying whoever had come in would not come to the desk. Long legs in gleaming black boots appeared before her, dropping the body of Eris Vanserra into the chair. He didn’t see her for a bleak half second, dropping a stack of paperwork onto the desk with irritation. He extended his leg, kicking her softly in the stomach.

His eyes slid to her face, eyes narrowing. “Missing me?” he asked dryly.

“Hiding,” she replied, irked by how he scooted his chair forward just enough that she had to brace her hands on his thighs in order to try and crawl out. Eris watched, his expression impassive.

A knock on the door put his hand back on her head, shoving her beneath the desk for the second time that day. Eris leaned forward, fingers curling at the nape of her neck as he tugged at the hat pinned to her hair.

“Lord Koschington,” his voice stated, as though there was not a woman kneeling between his legs. “What do you need?”

“So you’re staying, then?” Koschingtons voice all but barked. “I saw your dogs on the lawn.”

“Yes, charming creatures, are they not?”

“They are certainly something,” Koschington agreed. Arina slid her hands over his thighs, marveling at the muscle just beneath. She’d been so close to touching him in the lake before their woodland interruption. Had she not been afraid someone was moment from discovering them, she knew she would have unfastened his pants. She had no intention of doing so now…but every intention of touching him anyway. Eris shifted, pushing his pelvis closer to her, his fingers pulling at her hair. 

“Lady Arina needs a husband, does she not?”

Both Eris and Arina went utterly still. “This is a matter for the other Vanserra, I am afraid,” he replied smoothly.

“Ah, but you are Duke, are you not? I assume she has no dowry–” “You should not assume such a thing,” Eris’s voice retorted in clipped tones. His thumb began to rub lazy circles over her scalp, sliding towards her cheek. She could not help but press into his touch, mimicking his own movements with her hand on his leg. “Lucien has agreed to put up a dowry for any suitor asking in good faith.”

“I do not require one—” “I would not consider that good faith,” Eris all but barked. “What protections would she have?’ “What protections does she need? She is far older than the other ladies, her mother a mere servant…I doubt she’ll receive a better offer.” “And you’ve secured the ladies' approval?” Eris asked, his voice a shade tighter than before. Arina pressed her mouth to the place her hand had been, exhaling a hot breath through the fabric as if to say do not do this, Eris. He was not her father, not even her benefactor—she would beg at Lucien’s feet if Eris gave his approval. 

“I am asking you first,” Koschington replied. Arina bit, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to communicate she would do far worse if he said yes.

“Perhaps you ought to ask her,” Eris retorted. “She has other suitors.”

Koschington snorted. “Yes, Lord Callum.”

Eris pressed his thumb against her lips and Arina licked the pad. Please, Eris.

“This is sneaky, even for you,” Eris finally said. “If you want the Lady, court her like everyone else. I do not wish to speak on this again.”

“Of course,” Koschington’s reply was bitter, as if he expected better of the new Duke. The door slammed loudly, leaving Arina still pressed between Eris’s thighs now alone in a closed room. She pushed forward only for Eris to shove her back down.

“What are you doing?” she asked when his hand left her hair, his fingers reaching for the clasps of his pants.

“Touch me,” he said, his voice no longer careful or controlled. “Please,” he added, the word groveling. Their eyes met and his hand hesitated, hiding what lurked beneath the flaps of his trousers. 

“I…” she didn’t know what she was doing though she’d heard enough talk. How difficult could it be? Eris could have offered her up, right? Perhaps…perhaps she owed him, she reasoned.

“Are you staying?” she asked him, eyes sliding down his heaving chest to the penis now exposed to the daylight around them.

“Yes,” he admitted. 

“Why?” she pressed, studying the hard length of him with no small amount of fascination. Her first penis, she thought. She’d often wondered how it might happen and who with…Lord Vanserra had never once crossed her mind. 

“Don’t ask me that,” came his rasping reply. She didn’t dare look at him, even when he took her hand in his and cupped it around his shaft. Eris sucked in a loud breath, reclining his head against the leather of his chair. It wasn’t enough, to let him drag her over him and Arina didn’t think herself so fragile and demure she couldn’t be honest about what she wanted.

It was nothing, she lied. Practice for a better man, a man who would love her instead of this man who was nothing at all to her. A childhood crush. A phantom, a ghost, little more than a memory.

She leaned forward, hand braced on his still clad thighs, and licked the length of him.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, putting his hand on the back of her neck. Grateful he didn’t mess any further with her hair, Arina treated the tip of his cock, beaded with moisture just along the slit, like she had his tongue. What did he taste like, she wondered? Eris groaned softly when she sucked him into her mouth, pushing her further until she gagged. Arina dug her nails into his legs, clenching hard so he wouldn’t do it again. He could not control everything, she decided. If he wanted her to do this, he’d take it as she offered rather than to his exact specifications. 

Eris released the pressure, hand coming around her jaw as if to help, holding her in his hand as she slowly worked back up him. It was all experimentation–the swirl of her tongue, the move of her mouth, the way she used her lips to avoid scraping her teeth against his delicate skin. She knew he liked it based on the way he breathed and how he spread his legs, arching just enough to help her without actually penetrating any further than she could take.

Arina had to use her hand to make up the difference and once she found a rhythm, it was hardly difficult. The girth of him made her jaw ache a little, and he was far too big to ever be swallowed whole, though there was room for a little give.

Eris was clearly trying his best to stay quiet and failing quite miserably. Every breath seemed as if it had been violently tugged out of him until he arched again, hips bowing off the chair. Arina went to pull away, irritated he’d done it again, but Eris held her as liquid poured into her mouth and down her throat. She shoved backwards, wiping the fluid from her chin.

“You…” He looked down at her with apology. “You should have warned me.” “I thought you’d know,” he panted, reaching for her. Arina scrambled away, falling to the floor as she stumbled over his body. 

“Why would you think that?” she demanded, the words mingling with the taste of his orgasm still musky in her mouth. “Because I am common, I must also have been easy?”

He fumbled with his pants. “That’s not what I mean–”

She grabbed her hat, jamming it back to her head as she made her way to the door. 

“Arina–” “Lord Vanserra?” Lady Eliza questioned, her face peering from the hall into the study. She glanced to Arina, brown eyes narrowing as if she knew what had happened here. “Is all well?”

“Perfectly well,” Arina lied. 

“Is there some problem with the kitchens?” Lady Eliza asked, the picture of politeness. Arina turned to look at Eris, shaking her head at how utterly bored he looked when she knew he must still be hard in his immaculate pants. “Of course. Why else would I bother such a fine lord?” she retorted, turning on her heels before the brunette could offer another barb. How stupid was she, sucking a man beneath a desk when she knew he had a low opinion of her? Arina still thought of Eris as some grand man, someone who was decent despite his terrible upbringing. She was foolish.

Stupid.

She would not make that mistake again.

**

Eris was losing his fucking mind. He was trapped in the house he loathed for no other reason than the woman he wanted still resided there. He’d much such a mess of the day beneath the desk, insinuating her common rather than just admitting he assumed Arina knew what happened when a man came. He hadn’t thought to tell her about come because surely she must know? He’d furiously burst into his brothers bedroom for Elain, who somehow was unaware of his growing obsession with her friend, demanding, “What do mothers teach their daughters about sex?”

“Nothing,” Elain replied, twisting on the cushioned bench she sat on to look at him. She set her hairpins to her vanity, eyes narrowed. “Who have you compromised now, Eris?”

“What do you mean, nothing?” he hissed. “How do you manage to have sex at all?”

“I’ll tell Lucien,” she warned. 

“Tell him. I need to know.”

Elain crossed her arm over her protruding belly. She must know now, but had she not when his brother impregnated her? Eris felt insane, as if he were truly crazy. He’d known his entire life and the ladies he’d been sleeping with didn’t seem surprised at all when they found come in their throat. How had Arina not realized?

“Some people believe if a lady were to know the…finer points…of what goes on between men and women, they would be far too curious to help themselves. We are spared the finer details to protect our modesty.”

“Clearly it worked,” Eris said dryly, gesturing at the largeness of her. He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Christ, Elain, I didn’t realize I would need to give a whole anatomy lesson–”

“You should be giving no lessons at all, considering you are unmarried,” Elain retorted. 

“That is not a requirement for me and you know it,” Eris shot back, considering for the first time that perhaps she didn’t. Lucien had waited on Elain, after all. Still, Elain wasn’t naive. He was not his younger brother. 

“Perhaps it should be. Leave the ladies alone, Eris. Lady Eliza was quite put out you didn’t call on her–” “Why should I? She bores me to tears,” Eris snapped. “They all do.”

Except, that wasn’t true. Arina was fascinating. Every time she spurned him only made him want her more. Even as he stood before his sister in law, he wondered what Arina was doing, how she was occupying her time.

He learned easily enough. Lord Callum, the bastard, had all but marked her as his own. Every morning the pair spent an hour or more speaking with animation in his drawing room. Lord Callum walked her all over his grounds, drew laughter from her lips, and had the audacity to kiss Arina on the back of her hand, sweeping into the most absurd bow. 

Eris could not tolerate it. Lucien had told him to either court Arina or leave and Eris was doing neither. He stalked off to his makeshift study and organized his fathers life, all the while wishing he’d walk in one day and find her beneath the desk again, looking up at him with sultry eyes.

She wasn’t dumb enough to make the same mistake twice. Arina avoided the lake, the forest, his study and anywhere she thought he might lurk. Eris endured a miserable week of wanting her, of fisting his own cock to the image of her mouth, before he managed to stumble upon her.

She’d gone to the stables to see his dogs. Eris froze when he saw her kneeling in another dress very clearly bought by Elain, her gloves discarded so she could slide her fingers through the metal grates. 

“Don’t-!” he started as Apollo lunged forward but it was too late. His dogs were not meant to be friendly to everyone. Only him. He expected the animal to bite or bark or snarl. Instead, Apollo sniffed her outstretched fingers before offering her an enthusiastic kiss. Arina turned to look, smug and self-satisfied. 

“I’ve been feeding them all week,” she informed him, because of course she had. Only she could see snarling, snapping beasts and find the sweetness beneath.

“They don’t like strangers,” he said, walking to her. His dogs—twelve in total—perked up at the sight of him, rushing forward with wagging tails and hopeful eyes. 

“I’m not a stranger,” Arina protested, lowering herself over the fenced in grate to scratch Athena’s ears. “No one comes to see them at night.”

“As they shouldn’t,” he agreed. “These dogs can tear a man’s arm from his sockets. They aren’t cuddly housepets.”

“To you,” Arina replied, pulling the latch to the gate. The dogs rushed out, swarming between their legs and rubbing their big, gray heads against both his and her hands. “I think they’d quite like sleeping in my bed.” “A low bar and you know it,” Eris replied, whistling quickly before she could respond. He, too, would like to curl up in her bed and lay his head in her lap. He walked from the stables to the lawn, ignoring the curious horses peering over their stalls to look at the regimented unit of dogs around him. “You’re avoiding me.”

“I see you everyday,” Arina said primly. “We have dinner together each night.”

“You don’t look at me.” “I’ve seen enough.”

“I’m sorry,” he finally ground out, his exasperation plain. They stepped into the sunlight, surrounded by identical sleek, gray dogs he hoped to use to impress her. “I was not trying to imply you were easy…I just assumed…you…ah… understood the mechanics.” 

“Do you assume that of every woman you’re with?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he retorted hotly. “Because they do.”

“Even Lady Eliza?”

Eris suppressed a smug smile. Jealous, was she? “Especially her.”

“So I am only stupid, instead of easy.”

Eris exhaled his frustration. “You are choosing to be uncharitable with my thoughts, lady. I think neither of those things–” “You threw me in a lake,” she reminded him. “And now you call me lady.”

He shrugged. “I am a complicated man.”

She rolled her eyes but the air between them lightened and Eris thought he was forgiven, at least a little. She was drawn to him just as he was to her, united in a shared moment neither could forget. Eris still thought she was the only person who had ever seen him without the mask and part of him wanted to drop it, at least a little. She’d only been a girl, then. She might not have even known he wore one, might not have cared at the ugliness that lurked just beneath. Now, though, Eris was certain no one could love what they found if they dug.

And still he wanted to show her. “Watch,” he said, strangely pleased that his dogs didn’t hate her. Eris whistled a series of commands and his dogs moved in synchrony, drawing a delighted gasp from her lips.

“You trained them?”

He shrugged. “I like to hunt,” he replied, though the Vanserra’s had always maintained dogs in the countryside given the vast expanse of forest that covered their land. Dogs kept poachers away, if nothing else. Eris loved them, though he’d never admit it. He didn’t think he had to. Arina surged forward, dropping to her knees despite the fine cloth of her dress, to let Achilles bounce into her lap, licking her face as though he were little more than a puppy again. Perhaps it was good for them to have this kind of fun.

Arina reached into her pocket for a treat, drawing the attention of the other eleven. “You’re spoiling them!” he complained, watching as she let them eat straight from her hand.

“They’re babies,” she replied, kissing Zeus right between the eyes. “Aren’t you? Just a little baby, yes you are. A sweet baby.” Eris went to her, pulling her to her feet by her arm. Apollo snapped a warning bark, the first Eris had ever received from any of his dogs. Arina arched an eyebrow. “They know who the boss is,” she whispered, unaware of how her words went straight to his cock. “Get your hands off me, Eris Vanserra.”

“Or what?” he demanded, well aware anyone might be watching them from the window. He wanted to give in to his baser urges, wanted to throw her to the ground and fuck her senseless, until she could think of no one but him, wanted no one but him. 

“Your dogs might rip your arm out,” she taunted. Eris let her go all the same, drawing a deep breath of air into his lungs. 

“Let me see you tonight,” he murmured.

“No.”

“Are you going to make me beg?” he called after her retreating body. Arina paused, twisting to look back at him.

“I can’t imagine Duke Vanserra begging for anything.”

Eris frowned. He’d begged her to suck his cock only a week earlier. He couldn’t exactly shout that at her without compromising her virtue. He had to let her go, surrounded by his dogs on the lawn. Aching. How did she not see what was happening with him? He glanced down at Hera, plopped at his feet as she panted against the heat.

“We need to work harder. You were not cute enough,” he added, as if the dog understood him at all. It should have alarmed him that his animals were so easily persuaded and yet when Lady Eliza and her gaggle of friends flounced into the yard, all twelve dogs went snarling after her to Eris’s private delight. Their screams sustained Eris through another wretched dinner in which Lord Callum continued his courtship of Arina while both his mother and Elain watched, clearly delighted at the match. 

It was only a matter of time before Callum asked her to accompany him to the city and proposed. Arina was certain to accept and Eris…Eris would have to drown himself in the lake. The thought of Arina marrying the rival to his family's shipping business irked him. There was nothing wrong with Callum, other than he was constantly touching the only woman Eris trusted. It would erode the inroads Eris and Callum had made if they feuded over Arina…and yet Eris knew if Callum married her, he’d see her constantly. Callums ring on her finger, his children in her body, his girl living with the wrong man.

It should have been easy to make a choice. All he had to do was court her. Lucien had said as much. And yet, when night fell and everyone was sent to bed, Eris prowled through the house like a beast. He couldn’t offer Arina any of the things she wanted. He was not that kind of man, would never be his brother. There was too much broken to fix now. Part of Eris wanted to ask her to say no and be his mistress instead, knowing full-well he’d have to one day take a wife. Why shouldn’t he be able to have her?

Eris shook the thought as he pushed open her bedroom door. What would have happened if she’d lived here when he’d been growing up, he wondered? If he’d seen her walking the hall a mere four doors from his own with those eyes, that hair—

The window to her room was thrown open, her bed sheets tangled against the footboard, but no Arina. He could practically trace her steps around the room, pacing anxiously, unable to sleep. What plagued her, he wondered, as he stepped back into the hall. Hoping it was him, Eris went to the one place he knew he’d find her. 

Arina was tucked in her chair, the white shift of her nightgown hidden beneath a silky purple night dress. Her hair was blessedly unbound, falling thick around her face and shoulders. Eris locked the door behind him, drawing her eyes from her book to him.

“You found me,” she whispered with no small amount of exasperation. 

“Always will,” he replied easily, walking to her. He dropped to one knee, carefully pulling the book from her hands. “More fairytales?”

“More fairytales,” she agreed, swallowing hard in the candlelight. “Why are you here, Eris?”

“I can offer you nothing,” he murmured, noting the way she didn’t move, didn’t recoil the way another woman would. Arina remained still, her eyes on his face. “I won’t get in your way.” “Why are you here, then?” she whispered, her words practically inaudible as he lifted her leg so he might drag his mouth over the smooth skin of his calves.

“I want you,” he admitted. “I want to taste you–” “I won’t sleep with you,” she told him, pulling her leg away. Eris held tighter, drawing closer until her knee draped over his shoulder. She’d change her mind, he decided. If he showed her what he could do with his mouth and hands, she’d want the rest. 

“Fine,” he agreed, fingers crossed in his mind. “There are other things, other ways, to have someone. Let me show you.”

“What if I say no?” Her breath caught in her throat when he put his mouth against her inner thigh. 

“You won’t.” Eris chanced a look, eyes finding hers. 

“Is this begging, Eris?”

He pushed apart her legs, revealing the nakedness just beneath her dress. Arina gasped, utterly exposed in a way he now knew she’d never been. This was his. She might marry another man, might be his little wife, but Eris would always have this moment. He’d have her first. He lowered his mouth. “I’m on my knees, aren’t I?”

He didn’t do this for just anyone, though she didn’t have to know that. Eris didn’t like to feel powerless and too often took his willingness to go down as submission. He couldn’t stand that feeling, couldn’t abide having Beron’s boot on his neck no matter how absurd he was being. It was different with her. Arina had already seen the worst and instead of looking at him with pity, she disregarded him altogether as if he were no better or worse than any other man.

Perhaps that was what made him want her the way he did. In truth, Eris didn’t know. He didn’t care as he took that first taste, dragging his tongue through the parted folds of her body. She gasped again, her fingers carding through his hair. 

“What was that?” she all but panted. “Don’t stop.”

As if he could. He’d never wanted anything more than to eat between her legs. She was sweet and musky in all the best ways, her body impossibly soft. He couldn’t help himself. He wanted her to come hard, wanted to feel her clenched around his hand again. Eris slid his finger back into her wet heat, fucking her with his hand and his mouth. He’d made a mistake though he was far too gone to rectify it, his tongue sliding over her clit over and over until her hips ground against him, moving in time with the fingers he was working into her. All he could think was how good she’d feel around the straining cock in his pants and how there was no way he could ever honor his promise not to have sex with her. 

Begging her for anything had been a joke but now, Eris would have crawled at her feet if she demanded it. She was exquisite, the finest thing he’d ever tasted in his entire life. He wanted to live and die between her legs. 

More, his mind screamed, well aware she was burning close, her thighs shaking around his face. He should have drawn her out, taken his time but Eris was forever greedy. He wanted everything at once, including her. Arina came with a breathless gasp, ankles crossed behind his neck, hands tugging at his hair. “Eris,” she whispered, her breathy, desperate moans hardly faked. “Eris, it's too much.”

It wasn’t, though, and he wasn’t going to stop. “Eris,” she pleaded, his name the sexiest thing he’d ever heard anyone say. “Eris—oh, God—” she came again, pushing at his face to relieve the overwhelming sensitivity he knew she felt. He let her, falling back on his ass panting, half wild and barely a man. They looked at the other, lunging for the other before he had a chance to even ask her what she wanted. Arina’s mouth was on his own, her body pinned between the rug and his chest. It was too easy to pull the shift over her head and discard it, tossing it into the darkness. Arina, insatiable and lovely, clawed at his shirt, tearing the fabric in her urgency. Eris liked it, was certain it was the pull between them that made her just as wild with need. 

How he ever managed to rid himself of his trousers, he’d never know. He was determined not to stop, dragging his tongue into her mouth until she could taste nothing but her own arousal. Naked just as he’d dreamt of, Eris rubbed his swollen, aching erection against her slick cunt. He was bare, unprotected and so utterly gone that he couldn’t have pulled himself away to be responsible. Not when it came to her. He was too possessive, besides, at the thought of taking root in her, of seeing her swell until the infuriating group of suitors so infatuated with her could no longer deny his claim. 

Mine, she is mine–

“We can’t,” Arina gasped when he lined himself up against her.

“We have to,” he disagreed, pushing ever so slightly. They groaned in time, their pleasure a singular entity. “Please,” he added. He hadn’t lied about begging her. Eris was not above it, not when he had an inch of his cock buried in her body. Arina gripped his neck, pulling him back for a kiss so bruising Eris was certain he could taste blood. He couldn’t go slow, not with her teeth nipping at his lip, her nails raking down his arms. Eris thrusted swiftly, deciding it would be better to get the worst over all at once rather than drag her out. Arina gasped, shoving at his chest.

“Eris,” she protested as he shushed her gently, pressing soft, soothing kisses over her neck. His hands kneaded at her breasts, tugging the peaked nipples gently until her breathing steadied. 

“That’s the worst of it,” he murmured, kissing her again and again and again, not moving at all as she adjusted herself to the stretch. She caressed his face, palm moving down the back of his back and over the scars he knew she could feel. 

“You can move,” she whispered, scratching his skin gently, reassuringly. “Tell me if I hurt you again,” he groaned, sliding himself backwards, his face buried in the crook of her neck. “It’s not supposed to.”

She nodded, kissing his shoulder like she’d once kissed the wet skin of his back. Eris felt special, in that moment. Cherished. He buried those feelings before they overwhelmed him and forced promises from his lips he knew he could not uphold. Eris gave himself over wholly to pleasure, reveling in the tight, wet glide of her body and the way it burned the bare skin of his cock. There would be no grand, drawn out night between them. Not now, maybe not ever. It was all Eris could do to kiss her and fuck her, overloaded by the sensations all pooling in his sac. He needed her to come first, to squeeze so tight he had no choice even as his mind demanded he remove himself before he made a mistake.

Eris reached for her oversensitive clit, rubbing circles until she was panting again, body flushed and glowing in the dying candlelight around them. “That’s it,” he crooned softly, his other arm bracing his sweaty body on the hard floor. “You’re my good girl, Arina, aren’t you?”

She whined a needy yes, her cunt squeezing tightly around him. She was so close—so was he. 

“Come for me, darling,” he whispered, nipping at her neck. “Let me feel you come.” Eris thanked God when she did, her body tightening around him so hard it was literal torture to pull himself out and finish in his hand. The memory was imprinted not just in his mind, but in his furious cock now spilling all over his hand and the rug beneath them. She watched, lips parted, eyes so dark he could barely see any green at all.

He meant to pull her into his lap and hold her, to say something, though he didn’t know what. All he knew was he needed the comfort of her body against his own, some reassurance he wasn’t the only person feeling…whatever it was coursing through him. Arina reached between her legs, smearing the smallest amount of blood with wide, horrified eyes. She grabbed her shift, holding it against her chest.

“Arina,” he whispered miserably, knowing what was about to happen. She shook her head back and forth.

“We shouldn’t…that…you need to stay away from me, Eris,” she finally whispered, yanking the night dress over her head. “I mean it. This…it can’t happen again.” “You wanted it,” he reminded her, angry she was rejecting him again. He didn’t bother dressing, letting her see the nakedness of him as he walked towards her. Fury flashed over her features. “You want me.”

“And what about you, Eris? Do you want me, or do you want the girl who was nice to you once?” she hissed. “Do you want me or do you just not want anyone else to?”

He didn’t answer, his silence condemning him.

“That’s what I thought. Stay away from me.” She grabbed her robe and her candle, leaving him in utter silence. Eris was forced to reconcile the lonely, terrible truth.

He wanted her to the point of madness.

Duty would never let him.