Claimed by the Summer King

CHAPTER 5

Kael POV

He was dreaming of blue light again when the fist hit the door.

It wasn't a gentle dream. It never was anymore six months of the same fractured images returning every time he closed his eyes, moonflowers curling black at the edges, a spark of electric heat racing up through his palm and detonating somewhere behind his ribs. He woke from it the same way he always did, gasping faintly, one hand already reaching for something that wasn't there.

"My Lord!" Maximus's reedy voice sawed straight through the last of the dream. "Your Majesty, you must rise at once!"

Kael groaned and rolled toward warmth instead of real warmth, bare skin pressed against his side, considerably more pleasant than whatever his subconscious kept dragging him back to.

"Does that man ever tire of his own voice?" The husky complaint came from somewhere near his collarbone. "He's been at it for an age."

Flicker burrowed deeper beneath the silk, and behind him Flower stirred as well, her breath warm against the back of his neck. The previous night came back to him in pieces. wine, laughter, a determined effort to think of absolutely nothing at all and for one indulgent moment he allowed himself to smile at the memory instead of the dream that had replaced it.

"Come in, Maxi," he called, resigned, even as he hooked an arm around Flicker's waist and pulled her back against him.

The door opened. Kael did not stop what he was doing.

"Well, good morning to you too, My Lord," Flicker purred, entirely unbothered by their audience, her hand finding him beneath the sheets with practiced ease. If Maximus's presence troubled her in the slightest, she gave no sign of it.

"What is it, Maxi?" Kael growled, only half paying attention to the advisor now standing rigidly just inside the doorway, cheeks already flushing that particular shade of scandalized pink that Kael found endlessly satisfying to provoke.

Maximus was, by any reasonable measure, a repulsive sight to wake to ancient by fae standards, silver threading through hair that had clearly once been dark and handsome, the kind of longevity that only came from either ice-faced blood or decades of surviving palace politics through sheer stubbornness. Kael knew for a fact it wasn't the former. It was, apparently, his advisor's sworn duty to know everything happening in the kingdom before Kael did, and by the look on the old man's face this morning, something had gone wrong enough to warrant an early interruption.

"Which noble caused chaos this time?" Kael asked, only half joking, one eyebrow raised.

Maximus's mouth pinched tight with something between offense and disbelief. "Your Grace. Please tell me you have not forgotten what today is."

"I can forget precisely whatever I please," Kael said lazily. "That is what advisors are for."

He caught the small, exasperated exhale Maximus tried and failed to suppress, and felt an entirely unroyal flicker of satisfaction at having provoked it.

"Ladies. Leave us. Your king and I have matters of state to discuss."

Neither girl so much as twitched toward the edge of the bed. Kael bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing outright. Irritating as the man could be, Maximus had crossed the sea from the mainland with him, had steered him through a hundred decisions Kael would have botched entirely on his own, and if pressed which he never would be Kael would have admitted he had no idea how to rule without him.

"Ignore him," Flicker whispered against his ear, her grip tightening just enough to make his breath catch.

"My Lord, we are short on time," Maximus pressed on, undeterred, his voice climbing into the particular register he reserved for moments of genuine urgency.

"Fine." Kael dragged himself upright against the bare headboard, pillows scattered across the floor in the wreckage of the previous night. "Ladies. Out."

"We are a great many things," Flicker sniffed, clearly wounded by Maximus's earlier choice of address, "but ladies is not among them."

Flower, entirely unbothered by her own nudity, sat up and shot the advisor a look sharp enough to draw blood, clearly hoping to catch him staring. Maximus had already turned smartly toward the wall, hands clasped behind his back around a small sheaf of papers, spine rigid with practiced propriety.

Kael exhaled and nodded them toward the door before he could talk himself into changing his mind. They went, unhurried, gathering scraps of silk that barely qualified as clothing, both throwing him looks over their bare shoulders that promised this was far from finished.

The door clicked shut behind them, bare feet slapping away down the marble corridor, and Kael turned his glare on his advisor.

"You know the rule, Maximus."

The old man had the decency to look genuinely apologetic, bowing his head. "I do, Your Majesty, and I would not have disturbed you otherwise. But today is the day."

Something cold settled low in Kael's stomach, though he kept his face carefully blank.

"What day. It's Monday. I'm aware it's Monday."

"It is Monday, Your Majesty." Maximus's voice remained infuriatingly measured. "It is also the day Lady Seraphine arrives at court. You are expected to receive her and her household when they land."

"Last I heard, they'd barely left the mainland docks." Kael's jaw tightened. He remRivened the letter clearly carried ahead by Pegasus' courier, announcing the departure, nothing more.

He did not let himself think too hard about who else might be sailing with her. He'd spent six months burying that particular thought under an impressive quantity of wine and considerably more willing company than any king strictly needed, and he had no intention of letting it surface now.

"That letter is a week old, Your Majesty." Maximus held out the second, newer paper. "This arrived at dawn. Their ship has already docked. They'll be on the King's Road within the hour."

Kael took the letter without reading it, his eyes fixed instead on some middle distance past his advisor's shoulder.