Page 41 of Consort's Glory
“Fine.” He braced himself for something scathing, but when Sophie continued, he was surprised to hear how quickly the woman could pivot. The remoteness returned to her expression. “Since you’ve given me no choice, I will play it the way you want me to. You’ll stay.”
He smothered a sneer. “How very magnanimous of you, Madam.”
She turned her attention to Theodore. All business now, she said, “I’ll send out word that the Collective thanks the Protectorate for the special care you’ve taken with our healer.” She blinked once, slowly, as if even that small movement was a concealed threat. “And you will take care of her, Mr. Solbourne, or this will not be the last time you see me.”
“Believe me,” he muttered, “I don’t want that.”
“The feeling is mutual.” Sophie looked at Margot. Despite her rigid control over her expressions, Theodore got the impression that this was costing her much. He wondered if, in some small, shriveled part of her chilly soul, she was actually proud of Margot for so elegantly waltzing out of her control. “You will call if you need me, Margot. No Collective witch walks alone. I will not let you.”
Margot’s smile was small, heartbreaking. “I’ll call, Grandma. I promise.”
“That’s settled, then.” Sophie turned around to face Alric, who was already raising his sigil-tattooed hands in the air to open the gate in the wall. If he hadn’t just witnessed the intense battle of wills between the Matriarch and her granddaughter with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed she felt anything at all. “Look for a copy of my statement in the morning.”
There was an enormous, teeth-rattling tearing sensation in the air as Alric opened the m-gate. Before she could leave, however, Theodore raised his voice. “And Madam Goode?” He waited until she met his gaze to finish. “Don’t ever fucking trespass in my territory again. Next time, not even being kin will protect you.”
He meant it, and he made sure everyone in the room knew it, too.
They stared at one another, leader to leader, for several tense seconds before the Matriarch nodded once. Turning her head back around, Sophie stepped into the blinding light with the confidence of a woman used to such power. She glanced back only once, for a split second, to meet Margot’s eyes before disappearing from view.
Alric tipped his head in a nod. “You know how to reach me if you need anything, short-stuff.” He cast an appraising look in Theodore’s direction. There was a keen intelligence in his eyes, as well as a familiar, distinctly Goode hostility that made Theodore bare his fangs. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”
As soon as Alric stepped through the gate, it collapsed in on itself, reality and blistering energy coalescing back into its preferred shape.
Margot slumped against Theodore’s side, muttering, “Me too.”
* * *
The car ride back to the Tower was a long, quiet one. Margot stared out her window, every line of her expression and her body language telling a story of exhausted defeat.
Theodore didn’t understand it. She stood up to her ice queen of a grandmother with a stubbornness that made him proud. What did she have to feel defeated about? As far as he was concerned, she won a challenge that few would have escaped unscathed.
But he didn’t want to push her when she looked so fragile, so he carefully withheld the urge to tug her closer and tell her how proud he was of her, how much he admired her spine. He could give her space.
Until they got to the Tower, anyway.
When they got to the door of her suite, Margot turned to offer him a quiet goodnight, but Theodore wasn’t about to leave her. Realistically, he couldn’t. The pull was only getting worse the longer he held himself back from the skin contact he craved. Asking his strained nerves to take total separation was too cruel to contemplate.
Theodore Solbourne was a proud man, but not fool enough to forgo a bit of begging when it suited him. “Let me stay with you tonight,” he pleaded.
Margot stared up at him with wide eyes. Exasperation finally brought some color back to her face. “I don’t think that’s— I’m not going to sleep with you!”
“I’m not talking about sex.” Although just the suggestion made him ache in ways he couldn’t acknowledge in polite company. “I’m talking about staying with you tonight. I can tell you shouldn’t be alone, and I— fuck, Margot, I don’t want to spend another night in the hallway. Let me keep you company tonight, darling.”
He watched, rapt, as she gnawed on her bottom lip. Shifting warily from foot to foot, she asked, “You won’t expect anything?”
Theodore leaned into the doorway, drawn by her orbit. “Not even a kiss.”
She waffled for a moment longer, but the very fact that she didn’t immediately reject him gave him hope. So did the way she swayed, ever-so-slightly, and the glazed look in her eyes. Fey wine was notoriously strong, and his delicately built consort had plenty of it before and after Sophie’s appearance.
“Okay,” she finally answered, glancing away. “I need to take a shower first, but if you come back in fifteen minutes maybe we can have another cup of tea.”
“Another shower?” His brain might have short-circuited over the image that presented, if he didn’t so vividly recall her damp hair from breakfast. “Didn’t you already take one?”
Her endearingly shy expression shuttered. “Do you want to spend the evening with me or do you want to criticize my bathing habits, Sovereign?”
Theodore threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. I’ll wait.”
Roughly twenty minutes later, he sat on the couch in the suite’s sitting room, his suit abandoned in favor of the breathable, much more comfortable workout clothes he wore when he sparred with his guards. He didn’t own pajamas, and although he was titillated by the idea of showing up in her suite nude, Theodore knew that saving her the heart attack was the more merciful route.
