Page 37 of Consort's Glory
Too many people in too tight quarters, her grandma always told her. You never know who could be standing next to you. Why invite the danger? It’s not like you don’t have friends to spend time with here at the lake.
Except she had cousins, not friends. Acquaintances, not confidants. Fellow apprentices, not comrades. Cold distance, not embraces or kisses or—
A leather-covered finger curled under her chin. Theodore guided her face up until she could not avoid his gaze even if she wanted to. “You know, the more you tell me about your grandmother, the less I like her. What possible excuse could she have for caging you like that?”
“She had her reasons.” Good ones. Very good ones.
Margot gently extracted her chin from his loose grasp. Her stomach twisted with a mixture of guilt and dread. “I’m surprised she hasn’t threatened to storm the Tower yet,” she told him, only half joking. “Grandma is… very protective of me. Always has been. Knowing I’m with you must be making her tear her hair out.”
Well, metaphorically, anyway. Sophie Goode didn’t lose her cool ever. No matter how dire a situation, no matter how riled Sophie was, she never, ever let on. Stoic was the name of her game, and if she had ever been any other way, Margot wasn’t aware of it.
Sophie felt things, though. She felt deeply. No one in the Coven or the Collective could deny that. Every single one of her actions, no matter how coldly calculated they might initially seem, were aimed at protecting the people and Coven she loved above all things. Margot only hoped that what she did that afternoon, that publicly aligning herself with Theodore would make her grandmother think twice before trying to forcefully remove her from the EVP, inadvertently causing Margot’s death.
Theodore picked up the white cocktail dress, mindful of the wicked tips of his claws, and held it out to her with a smile that was all challenge. “I would very much like to see her try.” His smile melted into a look so warm it glowed. Pressing the wispy, achingly pretty gown into her hands, he softly added, “Take the dress, darling. I promise I’ll find a reason for you to wear it.”
Margot slowly closed her fingers around the fabric. Her mouth was strangely dry when she asked, “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Now hurry up and get more.” He grinned, huge and delighted. “We have a dinner reservation, remember?”
Oh, she thought, her ears buzzing as the world narrowed down to just Theodore: his little eye crinkles, his dimples, his four terribly dangerous fangs. Oh, he’s… I don’t think anyone’s ever smiled like that before.
Perfect. That was the word she couldn’t find.
When Theodore smiled like that, he was perfect.
* * *
Dinner was dreamlike. There was no other way to put it. Only in a dream would Margot find herself tucked into a private room at a restaurant whose name she couldn’t pronounce. Only in a dream would she sip fine fey wine from some obscure corner of Europe and catch sight of a handsome elf through the crystal of her glass. Only in a dream would Theodore Solbourne sit across a tiny table and ask, “Will you answer a question for me?” in a voice that made everything in her stand at attention.
Margot toyed with the stem of her glass, her stomach full and heavy with a luxurious dinner of delicately sautéed greens and angel hair pasta. She knew that she would need to ask Andy to procure some of her special protein mix tomorrow, as she had gone too many days without it, but the beautifully made meal would hold her over until the morning, surely.
The golden wine made her a little sleepy, but not enough to wipe away her wariness when Theodore cocked his head to one side. His own meal — a raw slab of white-veined Wagyu beef drizzled with some sort of dark sauce she couldn’t identify — was long gone.
“Depends on the question,” she hedged. “If it’s not too personal, sure.”
Theodore raised his eyebrows and looked away. “Well, see, that’s going to be a problem.” He took a long sip of his own wine before turning his gaze back to her. In a low voice, he said, “Everything about you is personal to me.”
Margot flushed. Had he caught her watching his lips on the glass? The way his jaw moved? The tantalizing glimpse of his throat his high collar allowed her?
No, that’s the wine talking, she firmly reminded herself.
“Just ask, Sovereign.”
Setting her half-finished glass aside, Margot tore her gaze away from his face to focus on the flickering candles between them. What was she doing, letting herself drink with him? Her size made her a natural lightweight, and the burn out meant she couldn’t filter the alcohol out of her system as efficiently as she usually could.
Margot knew she needed to be sharp to keep up with whatever game Theodore wanted to play with her, so the wine — delicious fey honey wine that cost a fortune — would just have to wait.
“Why the Healing House?”
She glanced up, surprised. “What?”
“Why the Healing House?” Theodore leaned an elbow onto the table and casually traced the tip of a claw over the curve of his lower lip, his eyes locked on her. “I saw your intake form and your application. You are enormously over-qualified for that kind of position. That’s for low-level brightlings and retiring healers, not someone who performed groundbreaking neurosurgery at sixteen.”
The air left her lungs in one great whoosh. “I…” Margot sat back in her chair, suddenly acutely uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny. “How did you even know about that?”
It was one thing to understand he’d been surveilling her — she was, after all, the granddaughter of the Goode Matriarch in foreign territory — but to find out about her work at the hospital… That went a step beyond normal background checks. Many steps, actually.
“I’ll answer your question with one of my own, since you keep dodging me,” he replied, smiling that slow, challenging smile that made her pulse race. “How come you went under a pseudonym when you published the paper after the fact? Don’t you want people to know what kind of healer you are? What you can do?”
