Page 44 of Consort's Glory
“She’s fuckinglucky to be alive.”
Kaz leaned forward in one of the supple leather chairs on the visitor’s side of Theodore’s desk, his forearms braced on his knees and his huge green hands dangling between them. His hair, Solbourne black, was loose today. It hung in thick waves over his massive shoulders, inky against the jewel tone of his skin.
In the other chair sat Valen Yadav, General of Patrol and the man all three Solbourne sons aspired to be like. Military somber, with a steely spine and head high, Valen watched the two boys he helped raise with dark eyes, his expression stormy.
Like the rest of the Solbournes, he considered Margot one of theirs. The fact that she was harmed under his guard was a blow to his professional and personal pride. To Valen, Margot was a charge he failed to protect, and that was unacceptable to both the man and the general. The events of the previous night, when Sophie Goode so neatly humiliated the Sovereign’s Guard, was yet another blow.
Valen had just finished outlining the facts of the preliminary report on the bombing and the new security measures they would be implementing within the Guard, and although he didn’t say it aloud, Theodore could see his agreement with Kaz’s assessment in his eyes.
Theodore stood at the corner of his desk, one hand braced against the edge, and tried to get his breathing under control. The mere suggestion of how close Margot came to death made his gorge rise. “And there has been no evidence of dissent? No threats slung around beforehand? That’s not normally how these kinds of things work.”
Separatist groups, rebels, zealots against the Temple, or magic, or the EVP government — they all loved to talk. Never, in the history of the Protectorate, had there been a politically motivated attack that didn’t come with a declaration before or immediately after. They couldn’t keep silent, not if they wanted their violent statement to mean something.
Valen shook his head, his close-cropped salt and pepper hair standing out starkly against his deep, sapphire-hued skin. “That assumes this was a politically motivated attack. We have no evidence of that yet.”
“But the political ramifications are huge,” Kaz replied, his voice a deep, sonorous rumble. “Just days before the Summit? And come on, a Healing House? You might as well accuse us of not being able to protect our young, too.”
Considering how fiercely they guarded their children, it was an insult that would have sent any elf into a frenzy. One simply did not threaten children. They were too precious, too few, and family too much the bedrock on which the entirety of the elvish hierarchy lay to ever allow a threat against them.
Forgetting that absolute fact was when Thaddeus II finally crossed one line too many — and the reason Delilah slit his throat with her own claws.
“Yes, but there’s been no statement. We’re nearly forty-eight hours out from the blast. If it was political, it’s a sneak hit — and probably the first of many. The city is on high alert and the bomb squads are on call just in case there’s more.” Valen scrubbed his claws against the white stubble on his hard jaw. There was no sign of strain in the hard, blocky planes of his face despite the fact that he probably hadn’t slept a wink since the bomb went off. “But there’s no evidence either way. We need to look at everything, including the possibility that it could be solely related to Margot herself.”
Theodore clenched his jaw and heard his fangs squeak against one another. Elvish fangs were self-sharpening, their position allowing them to lie against one another when the jaws closed and scrape against one another when they opened, honing their points to constant, deadly sharpness.
Theodore wondered if he could clench his jaw hard enough to snap them. He wasn’t keen on testing the idea, but if they kept talking like that, he would.
“She was definitely the target,” Kaz pointed out. He twined his fingers between his knees and looked at Valen from beneath the curtain of his shining hair, unintentionally reminding Theodore that Kaz was, in fact, the pretty one. “If she had gotten home from that dinner any earlier, she would have had her brain turned to jelly or her body torn to shreds by shrapnel. It was pure luck that she didn’t.”
Valen nodded. “Teddy, has she said anything about who her enemies are? Who might be after her?”
Reminding himself that he liked his desk and did not need to rake his claws across the fine polished surface, Theodore grimly answered, “No. She and her grandmother have been infuriatingly closed-lipped about any threats.” He breathed deep, recalling the previous night’s hours of bliss and torture. “But I’m making progress. She’s starting to trust me. She won’t tell me now, but I know she will soon.”
“She won’t tell you?” Valen let out a harsh breath and sat impossibly straighter. His affront was clear when he demanded, “Why? We’re elves. There’s no enemy we can’t handle.” He gave Theodore an assessing look. “Haven’t you been courting her these past two days? What’s taking you so long?”
Theodore scowled. “It’s taking exactly as long as it needs to. She’s skittish and has no reason to trust us, remember? We are the ones who let her be blown up.”
“That’s exactly it,” Kaz dryly pointed out. “Problem is that we might be enemies. Why would the Goode Matriarch, who notoriously refuses to do business with elves, and her granddaughter, who was just attacked in elvish territory, trust us with their secrets?”
The stern lines of Valen’s face deepened with his frown. “I’ve met Sophie. She wasn’t always that way. I still can’t really believe she had the balls to drop into our territory like that. Back when she was just starting out as the Matriarch, I remember her pushing for more cooperation with us.” A speculative light entered his dark eyes. “She wasn’t head of the Collective yet, I don’t think, but I remember she had close ties with the du Soleil family. I don’t know what happened there.”
Theodore shook his head, his nerves stretched taut. Every second away from Margot strung them tighter, until it felt like he was being slowly pulled apart from the inside.
No wonder they call it the pull, he thought darkly. And it’s only been less than a day. How bad are things going to get if I can’t make any inroads with her soon?
He was reminded of the hunted look in her eyes, the sharp tang of fear in her scent, and felt a cold wash of dread in his veins. Courting Margot was never going to be easy, but Theodore had a feeling that it was going to be like trying to climb a sheer wall with his claws retracted.
He could do it. He would do it, but the ticking clock of the pull put a pressure on their courtship that made everything a thousand times more difficult.
Every second he went without skin contact, without beginning the processes of binding them together, made his thoughts a little foggier, his temper a little less restrained. The sovereign couldn’t afford that loss of control at the best of times, but especially when he had the Families coming to discuss the future of their entire race in a matter of days.
The mention of the Goode family's ties to the du Soleil family, of all people, only made his mood worse.
The du Soleils were some of his loudest critics, and one of the biggest voting blocks of the Parliament. They were proud, secretive, and deeply suspicious of his family. Delilah’s petition for abdication was nearly rejected because of the lobbying of Olivier du Soleil, a man nearly the same age as Theodore and three times as arrogant, and his father, whose cool hatred of Thaddeus II hadn’t abated with his bloody death.
“Do you have any friendly contacts with the du Soleils?” Theodore suspected he already knew the answer.
“We don’t have any friends in that camp,” Valen replied, mirroring the sour look Theodore wore, “but the line of communication is never closed. They’re coming in any day now for the Summit. I can have a meeting with Marcus to see what he knows.”
