Dain looked up into the stands, his eyes landing on me, one ear turning forward to face me. I couldn't read his expression from where I was, but he didn't look happy, precisely; I thought maybe he didn't know how to react to me being there. He hadn't so much as looked in my direction the other times I'd come and watched, nor mentioned my presence when I saw him later.

I smiled and gave him two thumbs up, which probably didn't translate at all.

His tails lashed moodily behind him, and he turned away, sauntering towards the last person lying on the ground. He looked down at the man, who wore armor, then nudged him with one clawed foot. "Get up, Zhiolas," Dain rumbled. "I didn't hit you that hard."

His friend muttered something I couldn't parse, and swatted Dain's leg when the crown prince pushed him again. He shoved himself up, then pulled off his helmet, a cascade of sweaty white hair tumbling down. "One day I'm surely going to remember that you can make glamor-flame feel like hot iron, but today was not the day," Zhiolas said. He looked up into the stands at me.

I waved in response, recognizing him by more than the name. Unglamored, the fae was painfully beautiful, looking like he'd been chiseled out of marble by Michelangelo, but it was the same face I'd seen dying in Yosemite, uncoarsened by humanity. He looked unreal, an ethereal beauty who would have been at home in the forest of Lothlórien, as if he might glimmer in the darkness with starlight. Next to someone like Zhiolas, Dain looked feral and animalistic, the strength of his body brutish and the power of his movement crass.

Maybe it should have made me reconsider my appreciation for Dain's looks, with the realization that compared to other fae, he was a barbarian who didn't even approach beauty of any kind. What it did, however, was give me the mental equivalent of the eyes emoji, mostly in my pants. Zhiolas looked like perfection itself. Dain looked like he could and would fuck you until you forgot your name; then, while you laid sprawled across the furs of his bed with legs that no longer functioned, like he would go out, kill you a deer, and feed the fire-roasted haunch to you bite by bite. Give me the feral one any day, holy fuck.

"Introduce me to your soulmate," Zhiolas said, still watching me, with a slight smile on his pale face. "Since I helped find her, I should at least get to say hello."

"As you desire," Dain replied, sounding like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. "Leah, will you meet us in the staging room?" he asked, raising his voice.

"Sure thing!" I called back, getting up.