Page 25 of Consort's Glory
Her name was a luxury he’d only indulged in for six months. For nearly twenty-five years, she’d simply been ‘my consort’. His dream. The cool touch in the back of his mind, always there, soothing him even when he felt there was no continuing on. The soothing tether he clung to when his body took a beating or the frustration of dealing with his sister and brothers got to be too much.
A whisper of a mental link he touched obsessively, hourly, just to reassure himself that she was still there.
Theodore was incredibly lucky that he was able to sense her at all, considering most elves didn’t recognize their consorts until they came face to face.
But he knew. He had always known.
Margot was his. More importantly, he was hers, and had been hers since the night she was born.
Theodore wasn’t given his family’s hit-or-miss gift of Foresight, unlike both his sister Delilah and his older brother Sam, but he was blessed in another way: long range psychic connection. It was a rare and valuable skill, but Theodore only really used it to keep his link to Margot open.
He didn’t read her mind, of course. That would have been a deeply immoral breach of her privacy, and ran the risk of opening him up to far more than his mind could handle. But he could sense her, could feel the general tenor of her mind, the flavor of her personality, every day for the past twenty-five years.
The link sprang into being when he was ten. He always suspected— and after cross-checking Margot’s intake forms knew for certain — that it manifested mere minutes after her birth.
It was the bond that told him that she was not an elf, and it was that knowledge that changed the course of his life.
By the time they were finished, it would change far, far more than that.
Margot was Other. Yes, she was different, and yes, she was perfect. He would change the world to have her. The alternative was unthinkable.
Theodore self-consciously smoothed his unruly hair back against his scalp and peered at his reflection in the mirror above the bathroom sink. He was Sovereign, but he didn’t feel like the title lived in his skin, reflected in his looks. Theodore was just Theodore — Teddy, to his friends and family.
He was attractive by elvish standards, but those had less to do with looks and everything to do with power: physical, mental, and political.
Physically, he trained hard and could take down any challenger who presented themselves. Mentally, he was clever, passably charming, and had a sneaky psychic ability that would always keep his enemies one step behind him. Politically, he stood at the very top of the food chain, the only position that would allow him to live the life he dreamed of.
Unfortunately, none of that guaranteed anything with Margot.
Despite his two and a half decade long relationship with her, Theodore was in the dark about what she liked in a man; what she found attractive, what would win her.
While he didn’t doubt that he would win her, he would have preferred more preparation for the campaign.
He wanted to know what books she liked to read, what side of the bed she slept on, what made her laugh. He needed to know what made her happy and what made her cry.
He wanted to know the joy of kissing her and being kissed by her.
Calm down, Teddy, he inwardly coached himself. Slow. She needs slow. She doesn’t fucking know you, idiot.
Straightening his spine, Theodore snagged his gloves off of his bedside table and tugged them on with a scowl. He usually didn’t mind the social obligation to wear them, but he loathed the idea of having the barrier between himself and his consort. Only skin contact could soothe that raging beast in him, whipped to a frenzy by the presence of his consort.
But forgoing them wasn’t a choice he could make yet. They hid the one outward sign of the pull, the physical reaction elves underwent when they found their consorts, and it was something no elf would miss if they saw it.
He was just shoving his cell phone into his pocket when it began to vibrate in his hand. Knowing it was either his family or his direct subordinates, Theodore didn’t bother to check the ID before he raised it to his ear.
“Go.”
“You, Mr. Solbourne, are a tough elf to reach.”
Theodore paused halfway through the doorway of his bedroom, his gaze locked on the furniture of the sitting room. “Madam Goode,” he answered slowly, “for what do I owe the honor?”
Sophie Goode’s voice, familiar to him from her many, many media appearances and speeches on the UTA Congress floor, came through the receiver with a crispness that chilled the blood.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour, but your assistants refused to give me your personal number. They were very insistent that you would get back to me in due time, but seeing as you are holding my granddaughter prisoner, I’m sure you can understand why I refused to wait.”
He muffled a snort. Theodore doubted she was a woman who waited for anything. It was a good thing that he wasn’t one to bend under intimidation, otherwise the force of the Goode Matriarch’s seething disdain would have buckled his knees.
“Margot is not a prisoner,” he replied, affecting the cool, imperious tone of the sovereign with ease. “She is being given every courtesy and has been honored with my vow of personal protection. In fact, we are about to have breakfast.”
