Page 12 of Consort's Glory
As Theodore slidhis big body into the backseat with her, Margot forced herself to ignore the ensuing panic that threatened to bubble over into hysteria. She’d managed to go her whole life without ever being in the same room with an elf — a necessary, life-saving precaution — and now she was wedged against the door of a car, sharing the same air, the same seat, as the sovereign himself,headed toward his fortress.
Where I’ll be surrounded by elves twenty-four/seven.
Her hands were shaking so violently that she had to shove them into the pockets of her ruined coat as she closed her eyes, trying to find the focus to speed up the instinctive healing already taking place in her cracked skull.
Closing her eyes didn’t mean she wasn’t hyper-aware of both the elf seated to her right, his thigh a bare six inches from her own, or the orc currently guiding the m-enhanced car along the meticulously maintained streets. She wasn’t lying when she told Theodore she could multi-task.
Margot was perfectly capable of freaking out and sealing cracked bone at the same time.
The orc, Kaz, didn’t scare her nearly as much as Theodore, though. She was used to orcs. The Coven, and most of the Coven Collective’s land on the West Coast, butted up against the Orclind. Growing up, she’d spent many a lazy summer afternoon cavorting with orc children.
But when puberty hit, her playmates gradually disappeared. Their parents would cast her uneasy looks, and after one of the boys she shared a clumsy kiss or two with asked his mother why Margot “smelled that way”, they steered clear of her altogether.
That was when her grandmother handed her that first bottle of Noscent, and the isolation of the Goodeland changed from a childhood paradise to walls that edged closer, loomed larger, every day.
The reminder of that bitter memory forced Margot to open her eyes. Cold sweat dampened the skin of her palms. Had the sharp scent of adrenaline and blood already washed away her layers of protection?
Her eyes darted around the dim cabin of the car, trying not to linger on the sharp profile of the elf as he looked out of his window. Neon light and the flash of headlights illuminated hard, angular features and curling lashes.
She was also painfully aware of Theodore’s scent, so much so that she barely noticed Kaz’s.
It was spicy, like cinnamon crossed with bright cedar, with a rich undertone that reminded her of drowsy summer nights by the bonfire. It settled in her lungs and made a home there. It was impossible to ignore and luxurious; a slow caress to her senses.
Margot was painfully aware of how quickly scent could permeate even a big room full of people. In the confined space of the car, she didn’t stand a chance.
Panic fizzed across every nerve.
Fresh air would help. Daring to pull one unsteady hand from her pocket, Margot reached for the switch to lower her window.
Her finger barely touched the switch when smooth leather, warm and inherently dangerous, slid over the back of her neck. The faintest prick of metal claws kissed the vulnerable skin of her pounding pulse.
“You shouldn’t roll the window down. It’s cold,” Theodore rumbled, like it was normal for him to stroke the pad of his thumb up and down the curve of her throat.
The panic flared brighter, hotter, and yet the clasp of his hand didn’t make her want to thrash, to scramble away. It should have awoken every survival instinct she had.
Instead, the muscles of her neck and shoulders loosened under the steady heat and pressure of his kneading fingers and heavy palm.
Touch wasn’t rare in her line of work, not when she needed skin contact to heal, but affectionate, intimate touch… No, she rarely got that.
Only her covenmates were ever allowed that close. Other intimacies, the ones she craved in the deepest, loneliest parts of her being, were completely impossible. The trust it would take to let a partner that close for that long was the kind she could only give to her bondmate.
Even at her loneliest, her most touch-starved, Margot knew the risk of taking that chance with anyone else was simply too high.
It was that touch-starved, screaming part of herthat allowed Margot to melt into Theodore Solbourne’s confident hold for a single, breathless moment. The feeling of warmth, the heaviness of his palm and the slow strokes of his thumb, momentarily soothed an ache that never really went away.
“I need fresh air,” she lied, turning her head to try and break his hold.
Theodore’s hand slid away from her nape, but it didn’t leave her. Instead, it settled on the curve of her shoulder as he replied, “Fine. Kaz?”
There was a flash of movement as Kaz fiddled with the dials on the dash, and then the hum of air through the vents filled the luxurious interior of the car. A moment later, warmth blew gently against her bruised skin as her window lowered a third of the way, letting in cool, wet air.
The air helped clear a little bit of the shock that stubbornly hung on, fogging up her normally razor-sharp mind.
Every cell in her body hyper-aware of Theodore’s hand on her shoulder, Margot forced herself to breathe deeply through her mouth before asking, “Shouldn’t I have stayed to talk to Patrol? I didn’t give anyone a statement.”
“No need,” Theodore answered. His voice was a living thing that filled up the limited space between them, wrapping itself around her until all of her focus, every one of her senses, belonged to him. “You can give me your statement.”
Margot swallowed the hard lump of panic clogging her throat. She had no idea what the protocol for her behavior was supposed to be. Usually she understood the best way to navigate a social situation to keep herself as unnoticed as possible, but there was no way to escape the sovereign’s notice now. How could she, when he seemed incapable of keeping his hands to himself?
