Page 4 of Consort's Glory
Voices rose and fell as the fire squad worked. Margot caught only snippets of conversation over the flames and the buzz of the foam blasters. Time passed slowly on the curb, punctuated only by the frantic snatches of conversation and the crackle of her home being destroyed.
“…a Healing House! I can’t believe—”
“Do you think it was an accident? I heard—”
“She’s a Goode, isn’t she? Do you think it might have been political or—”
Sometime later, the cold bit at Margot’s exposed legs even as Kimmi carefully tucked the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “You need medical attention,” she worried, chewing her lip, “I’m going to—”
Kimmi cut herself off. Whatever she meant to say died as her eyes fixed on something behind Margot’s back.
Warm hands on her knee and the back of her head made Margot tense. A familiar, if slightly unwelcome scent in her nose, half-hidden by the acrid smoke and the chemical stink of the fire retardant foam, eased the tension away.
Margot turned stinging eyes to the man crouching down beside her. When she looked up, she found a handsome face and eyes of clear baby blue staring back at her.
Her voice cracked. “Viktor.”
The coyote shifter held her gaze for a long moment, his lips pressed thin, before he turned to give Kimmi a sharp order. “Go get her some water. We don’t know that she didn’t inhale some of the smoke.”
Kimmi didn’t waste time arguing. Faced with a force of nature like Viktor, few would dare.
When her neighbor scrambled off to follow his orders, Viktor crouched beside Margot on powerfully muscled legs, his well-loved blue jeans stretched tight over his knees. “Hey now,” he crooned in that coyote-smooth voice as he stroked her hair back with one gentle hand, “if I’d known what you were headed home for, I would have been even more inclined to invite you to my bed. Hindsight’s a real bitch, isn’t it?”
A startled laugh bubbled out of her, raw and raspy. “I still would have said no.”
His smile was wide and easy, but his startlingly blue eyes were hard, his protective anger breathtaking in its coldness. “You sure? Maybe you need to take me for a test drive before you really put me out of the running, pretty witch.”
Margot found herself leaning into him when he put his arm around her shoulders. Touch hunger, a weakness she could very rarely indulge, crested in a great, selfish wave to overtake her good sense.
She had only known Viktor a few months, but even with his relentless flirtation, she found comfort in his steady presence, his unwavering calm. He was a man used to leading a massive pack of coyote shifters. He had to be a bastion of calm confidence. She was drawn to that sort of competence, that easy authority. It reminded her of home and satisfied something in her she didn’t want to think about too hard.
He was also kind, with an unswerving sense of loyalty to his people, and Margot happened to enjoy his flirting, even if they both knew by now that nothing would ever come of it.
“Why are you here? This isn’t your territory,” she croaked.
Viktor nudged her a little bit away so he could examine her face, his fingertips gentle under her chin. The hardness in his eyes solidified into a cutting thing as he took in the damage. “You’re not pack, but you’re as good as,” he rumbled. “You’ve saved the life of one of mine at least three times in six months. That puts you under my protection. Besides, this is the edge of my territory. You think I wouldn’t investigate?”
Margot blinked hard, her eyes smarting with the threat of tears. She had a mile-wide streak of Coven pride, of course, but to belong to a people, to never have to hide or pretend for them — Margot had never experienced that.
Staring up into the handsome angles of Viktor Hamilton’s face, she asked herself again, Why can’t it be you? I’d kill to belong to someone like you.
Not because he was handsome, but because he was kind, funny,and fiercely protective of those he loved. With him, she would never have to worry about what the world would do if her secret got out. He would keep her safe. He would love wholly, without shame or boundary. He would accept her. All of her.
Margot’s lower lip trembled as the shock finally began to wear off, stripping her of the protective barrier that blocked out both fear and pain. Breathing faster, her heart hammering, Margot was humiliated to feel Viktor brush a tear from her grimy cheek. “Oh, no tears,” he grated, something wild in his coyote-bright gaze, “I can’t stand it when women cry. You stop it now, pretty witch. That’s an order from an alpha. No tears.”
“I’m a healer,” she rasped, “we don’t cry.”
They were trained to only do that in private. No one wanted a weepy healer when they were wrist-deep in viscera, after all.
Viktor cupped her cheek. His palm was warm, roughened by work and the time he spent outdoors. The skin contact fed the greedy thing inside of her, the part of Margot that screamed for someone, anyone to touch and care in the way it needed.
“Then stop crying, witch. How am I supposed to take care of you if I’ve got a blubbering healer clinging to me?” His smile was crooked and terribly charming. “I can think of better reasons to cling, if you’re amenable.”
Margot’s laugh was watery, her punch to his t-shirt clad shoulder without any true force. “Making a healer mad is a bad plan. I know where all your organs go, rem—”
The peculiar feeling of something snapping hard against the surface of her subconscious stole her breath. Margot’s head snapped up and turned in one fluid move that was pure instinct; unerring compulsion.
The screaming thing in her stood at attention, waiting, watching, as the very air seemed to shift.
