Page 5 of Consort's Glory
In the same instant, Viktor was up and in front of her. A growl, so deep it was almost inaudible, rumbled over her sensitive skin, cutting through the competing sounds of the fire squad and the people gawking in their doorways.
Except… all that chatter from her neighbors had gone mysteriously quiet. Margot darted a glance along the street just in time to see several black-clad figures ushering people into their homes. They wore no Patrol emblem on their backs, but their height, the way they moved— there was no mistaking what they were.
Elves.
Her gaze swung back to Viktor, who stood ramrod straight, his legs spread and his sturdy, tanned hands turned deadly with coyote-sharp claws. Behind her, she could feel the wild energy of another coyote shifter moving closer; a man she knew as Benny, one of Viktor’s packmates, watching his alpha’s back.
There was someone else near, too. Blocked from sight by her coyote bodyguard, Margot could feel him change the air in her lungs, the current of magic that ran through every cell in her body. A force of nature stepped up to the curb in shiny black shoes tipped with deadly silver.
She was surprised to hear the high note of astonishment in Viktor’s voice when he demanded, “The fuck are you doing here, Teddy?”
“What makes you think you have any right to ask that question?” Recognition was a sharp twang in that hungry, neglected part of her. The voice was cool, tightly controlled, deep with an authoritative rumble that sent a wave of goosebumps over her skin. Magic fizzed in her veins at the sound of the rich baritone, so smooth and familiar.
“Now,” the stranger continued, “step away from the healer, Vik, before I move you.”
A warning growl rumbled behind her, distinctly coyote and deeply territorial. Out of the corner of her eye, Margot caught two black-clad figures moving with unnatural grace towards them, their metal clawtips glittering in the glow of the streetlights. The glamours over their faces cast them in smoke and shadow, obscuring features until they were nothing but clawed wraiths, ready to defend this man Margot couldn’t even see properly.
She stared at the figures, unable to process what she knew to be true. That’s the Sovereign’s Guard, she thought. Why… are they here?
All elves were trained to fight from birth. It was one of the few aspects of their lives they actually liked to talk about publicly. But the guard — they were in a league of their own. No one crossed the Sovereign’s Guard and lived to tell the tale.
Whatever was happening, things were about to get much worse.
Margot reached up to grasp Viktor’s belt loop, using it to help herself stand. Even using him to leverage her full weight upward, he didn’t sway, his defensive stance unchanged.
The blanket around her shoulders slid away, exposing her battered skin to the cold, wet air. Viktor’s arm swept backward, attempting to keep her behind him. “Margot, no. Let me deal with him.”
More scared of the approaching wraiths than whoever could possibly be standing in front of Viktor, she pushed against him to peer around his broad shoulder. “Viktor, the Sovereign’s Guard is—”
All the air squeezed out of her lungs.
The man standing just a few feet away was huge — easily two full heads taller than she was, with an added hundred pounds on him to boot. Almost everything about him was thick with muscle except for his waist, which was a finely tapered angle sliding into narrow hips, accentuated by a simple black belt, slacks, and heavy, calf-length coat. His shoes, now familiar to her, gleamed with black leather and silver accents in the low light.
He was all black and white: Black hair, a mess of waves on top and trimmed neatly on the sides, accentuating the elegant points of his ears. A white button-down with starched arrow collar up to his chin, pinned in place by twin, intertwined thistles cast in silver. A black elvish suit jacket, perfectly pressed, stretched over broad shoulders. Black leather gloves with wicked silver clawtips covered large, deadly hands. He even had skin that appeared bleached white in the yellow glow of the street lights, but which she knew was actually the palest sapphire blue.
Catlike black eyes framed by thick, sooty lashes, and set in a hard-edged face almost too pretty to be real, stared back at her.
Margot’s foolish heart skipped a beat, her magic bubbling like champagne in her veins, before it caught another, faster rhythm.
No one who lived in the Elvish Protectorate could mistake the man before her for anyone else.
He was Theodore Solbourne, Sovereign.
