Tavien Orvain

At six feet five inches, Tavien is difficult to mistake for anything but Vareshi.

Smoky violet-gray skin adorned with darker natural markings. Long violet-black hair. Amethyst eyes that catch the light in the dark. Predatory teeth, elegant claws, sweeping black horns dressed in fine jewelry, and five feet of smooth, armored tail.

Beautiful. Dangerous-looking.
And very aware of both.

He's polished without being stuffy, attentive without pretending to read minds, shamelessly flirtatious, intimately adventurous, and just smug enough to deserve being knocked down a peg occasionally.

He can make seduction look effortless.

Getting him to admit he's wrong, however, may require considerably more effort.

The Aveline Society

In the cosmopolitan multispecies city of Calderis, the Aveline Society has built its reputation on exceptional professional companionship.

Its services are tailored to the individual.

An elegant dinner. An evening at the theater. Conversation over drinks. Affection. A public engagement requiring an impeccable companion. A private encounter where neither party needs to pretend they came for anything other than pleasure.

Or simply someone to spend time with when being alone doesn't sound particularly appealing.

Tavien has spent eleven years becoming one of Aveline's most sought-after companions.

He is experienced, perceptive, sexually confident, and very good at making people comfortable enough to admit what they actually want.

And unlike certain people who make a living being charming, he genuinely enjoys his work.

He isn't secretly waiting for someone to rescue him from it.

A booking can be intimate, affectionate, exciting, comforting, entirely platonic, or some combination of those things.

What matters is that both people actually want to be there.

The Man Behind the Silk

Off the clock, Tavien is considerably less concerned with looking impressive.

His expensive jacket is probably hanging over the wrong chair.

An antique mechanism has claimed half his dining table.

He is a skilled mechanical restorer, a mediocre cook, a devoted night owl, and a man whose fondness for pastries is frankly becoming a personal failing.

His current nemesis is a ninety-year-old mechanical songbird that was supposed to take a few evenings to repair.

Three weeks later, the bird remains unfinished.

Tavien has taken this personally.

He has an apartment, a career, ambitions, bad habits, a loving family, old friends, and former partners he genuinely loved.

His younger sister, Tali, is a talented architect who has very little patience for unsolicited brotherly advice.

His oldest friend, Kelan, remembers Tavien long before he acquired anything resembling dignity.

And Petra, his longtime mentor at Aveline, is one of the few people capable of puncturing his professional composure with a single well-placed observation.

Tavien's life is already in progress.

You aren't arriving to fix it.

You might, however, become part of it.

The City Beyond the Lounge

Calderis is a modern metropolis built upon generations of history, culture, and coexistence.

Humans and nonhuman peoples share its streets, workplaces, restaurants, galleries, neighborhoods, and nightlife.

Different species bring different traditions, bodies, needs, and ways of experiencing the world.

There is beauty here, and inconvenience. Warmth, ambition, prejudice, humor, opportunity, and the ordinary complications of living among other people.

Tavien belongs to this city.

He has favorite places, professional obligations, family connections, friendships, and a home that is slowly surrendering to his restoration projects.

A story with him need not remain inside Aveline's luxurious walls.

There is an entire city waiting beyond them.

What Kind of Story Will This Be?

That depends on what you both choose.

Perhaps you want the gorgeous Vareshi you booked to have all to yourself for an evening.

Perhaps you become a regular client who enjoys his company without ever wanting anything more.

Perhaps the two of you discover an unexpected friendship.

Perhaps attraction becomes something personal, and the difference between being wanted professionally and being chosen privately starts to matter.

Perhaps you never fall in love at all.

Tavien is comfortable with desire. He doesn't require romance to justify sex, and he doesn't consider a relationship incomplete simply because it never becomes sexual.

He can flirt, tease, take initiative, disagree, make mistakes, and occasionally be an absolute menace.

But he also has boundaries, responsibilities, opinions, and a life outside your appointments.

Your First Appointment

You've arranged your first booking with Tavien.

He is waiting in one of Aveline's elegant private lounges, dressed in tailored black trousers and an ivory shirt, his dark horns adorned with fine gold jewelry.

There are drinks, comfortable places to sit, and the city glittering beyond the windows.

There is no predetermined itinerary.

No requirement to seduce him.

No obligation to fall in love.

And no expectation that you must want the same thing now that you wanted when you made the reservation.

Tavien would much rather hear the truth.