Page 96 of Consort's Glory
His consort sankinto a chair across from him and put her head in her hands.
“Baby,” she groaned, “you can’t do this without allies.”
Theodore scowled down at her untouched breakfast. In the back of his mind, a thousand undone tasks buzzed in time with the incessant notifications hitting his phone, each one demanding his attention.
None of it mattered when his consort was upset.
“I have allies,” he insisted, pushing a plate of curled bread-things toward her. Now that he knew she’d gone without proper nutrition for so much of her life, Theodore couldn’t stop himself from insisting she eat at every opportunity. When she flatly refused to entertain his assertions that she should eat good, healthy meat, he settled on shoving human food her way instead.
“I have my family. We’re the most powerful name in the Protectorate. My sister has Foresight, Patrol is loyal to me and Valen, Sam runs most of the EVP economy from his estate, and I can cut down any challenger who threatens my seat. We don’t need anyone.”
Margot dropped her hands to the small, circular table, her slight frame gilded by the warm light spilling from the window next to her. Her face was lined with exasperation when she sighed out, “Theodore, you…” Without looking at him, she sought out his hand, seeking his touch even when her temper made little electric sparks flare around her eyes.
She began again. “Okay, I’ll grant you that those are all strengths. I’m not arguing that. What I am arguing is that you are currently in the middle of a brewing disaster, threatening to make it worse by upending a thousand years of dogma with no backing, no warning, no friends to stand by you when your enemies decide to use the ensuing instability to cut you down.”
“There’s no reason to view this as creating instability.” He cupped her hand in both of his, soothing himself with the necessary skin contact. “I’m telling them the truth. If we don’t change, we die. I’m not taking their money or their traditions or their children from them. I’m just marrying the woman I love and making a point while I do it. After that, it’s up to them.”
Margot flushed an endearing pink, her topaz eyes softening for a second before they snapped back to temper. “Yes, but those articles you showed me— Theodore, you’ve pissed off the Collective, the Temple, and you’re about to blindside the five families that could, if they got their acts together, depose you. Even with the entirety of Patrol on your side…” She shook her head. “You already have someone out to get you. What happens if they decide this is the perfect time to gather support? If nothing else, going into this without warning any of the power players will be viewed as massively arrogant, if not outright insulting.”
Theodore fought the urge to bristle. He’d done things on his own for so long, his family’s steel will behind him every step of the way, that it went against the grain to stoop to politics to ensure his place. It was his strength — his family’s strength — that got them where they were, not petty politicking or currying favor.
Elves, as a rule, didn’t play nice with one another. Their society was built on insular family groups, on the pride of their names and their kin; the vicious sharpness of their claws. He was proud of who he was. He was proud of his family. He was proud to say he’d fought and clawed for his place in the world, so he could have the woman he loved in his arms and know she was safe.
To hear her questioning that strength stung, but Theodore was smart enough to know that didn’t mean Margot was wrong.
Theodore’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Another important call. Another irate message from the Gloriae demanding an audience, or the pissed off family representatives wondering why he wasn’t in the Tower to greet them as they arrived for the Summit. Perhaps it was another request for a follow-up statement about Margot’s safety, about what he intended to do with the Healing Houses in his territory now that he overstepped his bounds, or a thinly-veiled threat from the Collective, reminding him that Margot’s choice to stay by his side was the only reason they weren’t howling for his blood.
Things were, put simply, a mess.
Theodore knew he could hold on to power. Nothing and no one would take the future of his people from his hands, not when the cost of it might be their extinction. Nothing and no one would take Margot from him, either.
But I don’t want bloodshed. We can’t afford it.
Even one lost life was too much. Their numbers were pitifully small. If a full war broke out? His people would wipe themselves from Burden’s Earth.
Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, Theodore asked, “So what do you propose?” Before she could respond, he added, “And no, I will not accept any answer that involves hiding our relationship for any length of time, darling.”
“Fine.” Margot looked out the window for a moment, her eyebrows drawn tight together as she lifted her cup of coffee to her lips for a long, slow sip. “So you don’t have any families you can get to back you up? None of the big five?”
“We have families with business interests in common,” he answered, “but no, none that I would trust this information with ahead of time.” Glory knew what they would do with it. Take the advanced warning to consolidate their own power, organize a coup? Try to take him out before the announcement could be made? Something more nefarious?
Besides, the idea of groveling to even the second most powerful family in the hierarchy, the du Soleils, made his stomach turn. They were as secretive as his own family, but arrogant, quarrelsome, and a general pain in his ass. Perhaps he wouldn’t have so much against them if Olivier du Soleil, the scion of the family, didn’t act like Theodore had mortally wronged him at some point in their lives.
No doubt Olivier penned one of those irate messages currently buzzing away in his pocket. Theodore could just about imagine what the whipcord lean, white-blond elf would have to say if he was informed Theodore preferred eating breakfast with a witch — a witch halfling — to dealing with whatever his problem was.
“So what about people not in the hierarchy?”
Theodore blinked, the image of Olivier’s aristocratic sneer vanishing from his mind’s eye in an instant. “Others?”
“Yes,” Margot answered, squeezing his hand. Her gaze was intent, shrewd. His halfling knew what she was doing, and that sense of calm authority was deeply attractive. My consort is fierce, intelligent, and proud. I’m damn lucky she’s mine. “What about allies outside of the five?”
“Elves don’t make alliances.” The answer came automatically. “Well,” he amended, thinking of the stubborn prick that was Taevas Aždaja, “not officially.”
Taevas was the Isand of Clan Aždaja, the leader of all the dragons in the UTA, and at some point after making a brief acquaintance at a meeting of the United Congress, he decided Theodore was to become his protégé — whether the elf agreed or not. After a decade of enduring his high-handed lectures, snark, and unexpected visits, Theodore still wasn’t quite sure what to make of him.
What he could say but never would, however, was that it was Taevas who first put the idea of banishing the moratorium on taking Others as consorts entirely. Initially, Theodore’s only goal had been to have Margot to himself. After a memorable evening of sullen drinking with the devilish dragon, wherein Taevas outlined exactly how the dragons nearly went extinct five hundred years before, the idea of true change took root.
He still wouldn’t call the man an ally, though. Theodore shuddered imagining Taevas meeting Margot. The man was a menace and a self-proclaimed “enemy of panties and sobriety.” He could only imagine how Taevas would act with his prim, deceptively fragile consort in the room. Likely, the dragon would take her dignity as a challenge.
