Page 29 of Consort's Glory
Margot’s pulse was a hot,electric rhythm under her skin. Each beat was a lightning strike; a bright, biting force of nature that threatened to make her reckless, to push her into something she couldn’t undo.
The part of her she kept so tightly leashed, the half that Sophie spent years smothering, training out of her with rigid discipline and over-achievement, roared to life in her blood.
It raked at her mind. It bellowed. It strained toward the elf caging her in against the edge of the table even as it hissed and spit at him.
Only that drilled discipline and years of hard apprenticeship under Head Healer Mason kept Margot perfectly still in his hold. The strain of her two natures, never, ever quite so at odds before, made cold sweat break out across her skin.
Having him so close, touching her, his rich scent in her nose, was opening doors in her mind that had remained firmly locked for twenty-five years. Her magic arced through her, lacing the air with stinging ozone, and Margot felt suddenly that she was unmoored when she wasn’t looking; tossed out into a roiling ocean to drown, no hope for rescue in sight.
Even through the chaos in her mind and body, Margot sensed the barely restrained violence in the man at her back. She held her breath, expecting a scathing rebuke for daring to reject him, Theodore Thaddeus Solbourne, son of Thaddeus Solbourne II, head of the Solbourne Family and Sovereign of the Elvish Protectorate.
Theodore, whose attention surely, surely would get her killed, no matter how much her body wanted to bend to his will.
Instead, his voice was smooth, calm in a way that she didn’t expect when he replied, “It appears we have a lot to discuss, darling.”
Abruptly, the hand at her nape disappeared. He was sliding into his own seat across from the small, round table not a moment later, his expression shuttered.
Margot stared at him, once more taking in the way his white shirt stretched over ropes of muscle and broad shoulders, the way the daylight streaming through the floor to ceiling windows changed the color of his pale blue skin.
Of course, she got a good look at him the night before, but Margot couldn’t tear her eyes away from Theodore in the light any more than she could in the half-dark of the car or the dim glow from the lights in her suite.
A curl, black and shining with all the colors of elvish iridescence, fell across his brow as he reached out to pluck the silver lids off of their plates, his own silver claws tapping musical notes against the domed metal. Theodore wasn’t wearing a suit jacket this morning, and the tiny hint of stubble on his jaw was gone, making him look somehow younger, less intimidating.
He was gorgeous. She could admit that. No sane person would deny it when faced with the full force of Theodore Solbourne’s presence. The hard lines of his face, the elegant pointed tips of his ears, the deft, leather-covered hands — he was finely wrought down to the smallest detail. Even his lashes were perfectly curled and sooty against his skin.
Electricity arced through her again, hot and settling low in her belly. Desire, her mind helpfully supplied. This is desire.
Not the kind she had ever felt before, though. This was urgent, explosive, needy. It made her want to get up from her chair and sit in his lap just so she could be closer.
Terrifying. It was terrifying, this change that swept through her, and Margot couldn’t reconcile it with any experience that came before. The closest comparison she had was her darkest memory: That week of endless black, of madness and agony and fear so great it haunted her still. She hadn’t been in control then. She wasn’t in control now.
What was happening to her?
“Eat,” he commanded, gesturing to the uncovered plate in front of her.
She glanced down to find an artfully arranged array of breakfast foods. Sliced fruit, a fresh croissant, a small ramekin of oatmeal sprinkled with melting brown sugar, and, with a subtle sniff, she discovered an omelet made not of eggs, but almost identical plant-based protein. Considering her usual breakfast involved a bagel and a protein shake carefully calibrated for her needs, it was far, far more than she would ever have bothered with for herself.
Margot flicked her gaze back to Theodore and then down to his plate. Elves went out of their way to keep their habits and physical needs secret from the general public, so it had taken her years to discover what they actually ate. Theodore’s spread was as different from her breakfast as any food could possibly be.
The elvish diet, she remembered grimly discovering, was almost one hundred percent protein. Raw protein.
Theodore’s plate, while equally artfully arranged, was made up entirely of strips of raw meat run through with thick, creamy veins of fat.
Margot yanked her eyes away from the sight, her stomach twisting hard. In another life, the sight wouldn’t have bothered her, but in this one she was a healer first, and when she looked at meat, all she saw was flesh.
Swallowing hard, she dropped her eyes to her own meal. “I thought we had a lot to discuss.”
A rumble of indiscernible feeling came from his side of the table. “We do, but there’s no reason we can’t also eat. You’re under my care now, and that means you will not go hungry.”
She didn’t dare look at him directly, but she caught his movements out of the corner of her eyes as he shredded a hunk of meat with his clawtips and flicked bloody pieces into his mouth. Margot sucked her lips between her teeth and bit down.
Oh Glory, I was not raised to handle this.
Unable to stomach anything even if he wasn’t going to town on an extremely rare filet mignon, Margot reached for what looked like a cup of coffee. There was a small pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar perched close to her plate, but she didn’t bother with it.
She liked cream and sugar in her coffee, but one look at the rippling liquid in her cup told her she was trembling too much to successfully manage the fine movements necessary to accomplish it without making a mess.
Lips thinning at the reminder that her time was rapidly running out, Margot took one sip of bitter coffee before carefully putting the cup back in its place.
