Charmer (MxM)

The union of King Rindou Zarka and Princess Sorcha was an unprecedented event. A year after BloodBinders Queen Akane's death during an undisclosed training incident the King announced his union to the Shadow Princess. This union came as a shock to everyone as tensions between the kingdoms of Reinkei and Reaux have been steadily mounting. It is obvious that this union was an attempt to escalate the situation, which ultimately worked. King consort Sorcha Veian, now Sorcha Zarka, was the second daughter of the Shadow family. The couple had one son, Kaito Zarka, who is the first product of a union between two royals with abilities. This is an interesting development as usually partners to Royals are chosen from the Aristocrat caste. This dilution of purity however means that the child will never be viable to take the throne.

More on the Zarka family history in exhibit 30G

Excerpt from the Reinkei Museum of natural history. Exhibit 230 a

Amhain, 13, 07421

Atlas stared at his phone for what seemed like hours. His new contact of Kaito Zarka stood out innocently on the digital screen. It only seemed fair that the older male had his contact too so after an absurdly long internal debate Atlas sent him a text saying.

"Hi, this is Atlas. Figured you should have my contact too."

The punctuation was a bit of an overkill he realized in hindsight. It didn't take long before his phone buzzed back. Unlocking it Atlas was met with a reply that said:

"Hi! Yeah, I suppose you had me at a disadvantage."

Followed shortly by another text,

"It was really nice working with you the other day. It helped a lot with my coursework. We should do it again sometime :)"

Atlas was genuinely stumped. Cursing himself at having opened the message he refined himself to crafting a reply, without Rion's social prowess he managed a pathetic.

"Yeah, we should." And left it at that. There was no reply so Atlas relaxed a little, chalking it up to Kai just being polite and Princely as he must have been raised to be.

Rion's disappearance was mildly concerning as he tried her phone twice and was met with no answer. Giving it a few more hours he decided to show up at her apartment and get her input on the very confusing situation that he had somehow landed himself in.

This was precisely why he didn't leave the house for anything other than his classes and perhaps Rion's on the rare occasion that they hung out at her place.

Knocking on her door he waited a while before it swung open revealing Rion's surprised and slightly smug grin.

"You know..." She began. "I had a bet with myself running to see if you would end up freaking out and coming over, or if you would let it lead to something more for once in your life."

"What?" Atlas asked dumbly, staring at her blankly as he tried to understand how exactly her reasoning led her from point A to B.

"You and Kaito. In the coffeeshop?" Rion prompted seemingly barely holding back laughter.

"You know about that?" Atlas's grasp of the whole situation was unraveling by the minute.

"I saw you two together working. Figured I should leave the pair of you alone to let whatever weird tension between you guys exists grow. Who knows, maybe one day it'll finally snap, and you'll-" Rion was about to begin to describe just how she thought the two of them would go at it in the middle of the coffee store when Atlas cut her off.