Page 99 of Consort's Glory
Margot dared to peek at him again, her interest piqued. “Are you on the lookout?”
The half-orc favored her with a slight smile. Glory save me, she thought, briefly stunned, he could level cities with that face.
“Why? You think I need some help?”
“With your looks?” She shook her head, ignoring Theodore’s annoyed rumbling. “No, probably not. But I do have a lot of cousins who’d be interested.”
If Kaz ever came to a Coven gathering, they would eat him up with a spoon.
He’d be lucky if there was anything left of him afterward, she thought, smiling wryly. Coven witches were not, as a rule, particularly hung up on sexuality or its expression. He’d have more offers than any single being could handle.
Perhaps seeing the gleam of humor in her eye, Kaz’s smug look turned wary. “And risk bringing home another tiny hellion? No, thanks.”
Margot quite liked the idea of being a hellion. Preening a little, she opened her mouth to tell Theodore so when the door through which the acolyte disappeared opened once more.
A woman stepped out into the reception hall, her gate smooth and her long, white gold hair flowing like silk down her back. Besides the symbol of Glory she wore around her neck, the priestess was shockingly unadorned. She wore a black pencil skirt, stilettos, and a simple cream blouse under her robes of office — yards of topaz silk crafted into a long-sleeved garment that fluttered around her slim ankles.
“Good afternoon,” the priestess smoothly greeted them, her voice fascinatingly smoky. “My name is Petra Zaskodna, High Priestess. What a happy coincidence it is to find you here, Sovereign. I’ve been trying to reach you since I flew in last night.”
“I’ve been busy,” he blithely answered.
Petra’s eyes, cornflower blue and sharply intelligent, flicked down to where Theodore still clasped Margot’s hand on his arm. “I see. Am I to assume this meeting is not to discuss your infringement on Glory’s domain?”
“Is that what the Temple is calling it?” Theodore’s amusement bled through the bond and into his voice. “Fascinating.”
Petra’s cool expression didn’t change. “Indeed.” Gesturing to the room at large with an elegant twist of her wrist, she continued, “I am not the Priestess in residence here, obviously, but since there still hasn’t been a member of the Gloriae picked to fill the empty seat, I was sent by the Temple to speak to you about your edict.”
“We had a Priest until recently,” Theodore coolly replied. “I would have been more than happy to speak to him.”
“Yes. Priest Maximilian Dooraker. He passed away a year ago. He was a good man.” Petra said the name in the same even tone she said everything else, except Margot caught the slight tightening around her eyes that hinted at hidden feeling. “Unfortunately, filling a position as important as this one is tricky. Perhaps the vacancy is why you felt comfortable stretching your authority.”
Margot raised her eyebrows. She cuts right to the heart, doesn’t she?
A bit like someone I know, Theodore replied, squeezing her hand. Aloud, he said, “This is my Protectorate, Your Grace. I can stretch my authority as far as I wish.”
Petra hummed. Tucking her hands into the pockets of her long robe, she glanced between the couple with cold-eyed calculation. “Is that so? I’d inquire, then, as to the nature of your visit, if the sovereign is so certain of his authority over the dominion of a goddess.”
Margot’s eyebrows hit her hairline, but Theodore wasn’t fazed. A slow smile stretched his mouth, revealing a hint of deadly fang. Drawing Margot closer to his side, he answered, “Why, Priestess, I should think that’s obvious.”
To her credit, Petra didn’t gawk at the sight of the sovereign draping an arm around a witch’s shoulders, his gloved hand skimming down her side in a blatant caress, a statement of proud ownership. “Oh?”
Theodore’s grin widened, dimpling his cheeks. “We’re here to be married.”
“Married.” The word was flat, hardly a question. Petra’s gaze lingered on Theodore’s broad smile for a beat before sliding to Margot. “You wish to marry this elf, sister?”
Margot tactfully refrained from mentioning that, officially, the Goodes and the entire Collective did not recognize the “family” that was the Temple and its devotees. They worshipped Glory, certainly, but in their own ways, and not at the behest of an organization that had been brainwashing children for hundreds of years.
“Yes,” she answered, her heart beating faster at the renewed realization that it was the truth. Would she have preferred to marry him under the sky, without the blessing of an institution her family had feuded with for generations? Of course, but Margot didn’t care enough about bad blood to pass up the opportunity when it presented itself to her. “Yes, I want to marry him. I want a real ceremony, too. It has to be legal.”
Petra searched her face for several seconds, but Margot didn’t see any judgment there. Another unusual thing. Most High Gloriae of the Temple tended to look down their noses at people, whether or not they actually disagreed with them. It was a certain inherent smugness that could make even the most even-keeled person puff up with indignation if they endured it for too long.
Petra, however, looked at her with a shade of real concern in her eyes, a warmth that some might miss under the layers of cool professionalism she wore like a her robes of rich topaz.
The Priestess’s gaze slid back to Theodore. They lost a little bit of their warmth as that calculating gleam returned. “Tell me, Sovereign, why should the Temple consent to marry you when you have shown no respect for the sanctity of our mission thus far?”
Theodore’s smile blew up into a full grin. Staring down his nose at the Priestess, he asked baldly, “What do you want, Your Grace?”
Petra rocked back on her pencil-thin heels, her eyebrows arching. “What are you willing to give?”
