The Jack of Hearts (House of Cards Book 1)

One for the Last

***Note for anyone who read Chapter 26 before August 18, 2022: I have made a pretty specific revision in that chapter. It wasn't sitting right/how I hoped. This is my attempt at revising it. Apologies for any re-reading and confusion, and thank you for your understanding and grace for my writing process.***

Jhak O'rian of the Cluvani had never given much thought to marriage.

He'd always assumed he would get married... in the vague, hypothetical way that young men consider growing old: with a certain amount of inevitability but no great concern.

He had presumed — sure — that the woman he married would be beautiful, someone charming, interested in sport or riding, and found him, above all others, to be her match.

But the woman O'rian married enjoyed picking fights with street thugs, bossing people about, and painting her face with bright colours.

He had also presumed he would have more time to acquaint himself with the prospect of marriage  — and with his bride.

For, even though O'rian did not feel like the same person he was before he met her, it had only been the span of four months.

And in four cycles of the moon, his life had been inextricably changed, both by loss and in perspective.

Suffice to say that if anyone had told a younger O'rian that he would be the warrior to get on his knees and beg for the hand of the Scarlet Scourge's daughter, that man would have lost a couple teeth.

The boy that still lived in O'rian wished to crow and say it was in service of his people, nothing more. And while his wife might believe it, O'rian did not.

He felt a kinship to her, about which, there was nothing fraternal.

There was also every chance that everything he felt — even the things he smothered away in her presence — where just the product of the magical conjoinment of their emotions.

He remembered when he'd seen her for the first time — he hadn't even been fully confident it was the jaquelle his brother was engaged to: she was too surrounded by other women with orange and red hair, painted out to their ears.

But he'd caught the flash of her eyes and he'd shivered. Gooseflesh had risen on the back of his neck.

He'd known in that moment she was a snake, venomous and dangerous.

And to be perfectly fair, he wasn't wrong.

If anything, O'rian was now only more convinced of the threat that she posed.

The problem was that he'd always been fascinated by dangerous things. Fire, swords, sailing, magic, climbing, racing horses, the eastern ocean during winter storms — and now her.

Only know he thought of her as Rosalyne — rather than the Jaquelle, spawn of the Aerti king.

Which, if he reflected upon it for more than a minute, was probably even more dangerous.

Because while the Jaquelle was image of her father, an imposition of the most insidious kind; Rosalyne was Rosalyne.

If she sunk her fangs into something, she held on. Vicious and angry until the end. Even beyond what she should give, she risked herself without hesitation.

He couldn't — there was no way he couldn't respect it.

She was tenacious, and if she had been raised Cluvani, O'rian would've expected her to tackle him to the ground on several occasions.

Instead, Rosalyne seemed to satisfy herself with an arch look and scathing retorts.

And, oh stars, it made his teeth ache.