Page 8 of Consort's Glory
“I know you’re a top-notch healer, but you took a real hit.” A hand, tanned to a deep gold, skimmed an undamaged swath of her cheek. “You need to go to a med center, sunshine? We’ve got one not too far from here. You can come stay with me—”
“No, thank you.” Margot took a single step back, her expression warming even as she rejected his offer. “I’ll find accommodation elsewhere. I’m sure the Collective will have somewhere I can stay the night and recuperate. I’ll be fully healed by morning.”
Without meaning to, both Theodore and Viktor donned identical looks of thunderous disapproval. When Viktor opened his mouth to argue, though, Theodore decided he had given the coyote shifter too much leeway.
“Vik, go back to your territory. Healer Goode is none of your concern.”
They locked eyes, Viktor’s coyote amber connecting with Theodore’s midnight blue in the sickly glow of headlights and street lamps.
Theodore made sure Viktor could see the seriousness in his expression, the sheer implacability he felt toward the subject at hand. In this, he was not only the sovereign of the Protectorate, but an elf whose consort bled in front of his very eyes. It made every vicious instinct surge to the fore, shredding the thin veneer of icy sophistication all elves wore, the pretense that they were not apex predators but rational, cool-headed people, until he stood on the precipice of real violence.
It was a jealously guarded secret that elves were a singularly savage race. They were more vicious, more territorial, more possessive than any other — and when it came down to it, not even the carefully curated image of chilly reserve would stop an elf from tearing out the throat of one who dared threaten what belonged to them.
It was this brutality, perhaps, that finally convinced Viktor to back off. Not because he feared Theodore, not even close, but because the animal in him recognized the beast in Theodore. That beast wouldn’t be satisfied until the threat was shredded beneath his claws, something the coyote alpha understood and approved of.
Still, the aggravating man turned to give Margot a searching look, giving his back to Theodore in a deliberate display of dismissal. “You want me to stay, sunshine?”
Sunshine. The pet name made Theodore roll his eyes. They hadn’t spoken properly in five years, but Viktor was the same incorrigible flirt he ever was.
Reaching back to sweep her hair into a tight coil, Margot gave Viktor a deadpan look. “I can take care of myself, Viktor.” Her hair secured by some unseen means, Margot reached out to press a single fingertip to the coyote shifter’s tanned cheek. Her voice was softer, almost yearning, when she added, “Thank you, though.”
Viktor nodded once before his sombre look slid into something more playful. “I’ll come check on you. Maybe you’ll need me to change your bandages, or help you into a bath.”
Theodore was relieved when Margot only huffed and paced away to peer grim-faced up at the smoking shell of the Healing House. As she drifted down the quiet block, Viktor turned back to Theodore.
Serious now, his voice was a rumbling growl when he said, “You’ll catch who did this, Teddy — fast, or we’ll take over.”
“Why do you care?”
Raging instincts aside, Theodore knew that Viktor didn’t truly have any designs on Margot. The only person Viktor ever truly wanted was, at least in his mind, out of his reach.
His flirting was and had always been incorrigible, his friendship just as much. But he rarely showed any sort of protective instinct outside of his pack, and despite his earlier claim, Margot definitely wasn’t that.
Viktor stepped closer to Theodore than most sentient and lower beings would have dared. Only the years of friendship between them allowed that sort of proximity.
“It may not mean anything to you, but she’s hiding something awfully soft under that tough Goode shell,” he explained, amber eyes studying Margot’s profile as she drifted over to speak to one of the fire squad. “That one’s got a huge heart. She’s been working in the Underground, treating people for free almost every spare minute she has. But she’s private. Wouldn’t ask for help if she was trapped under a ten-ton boulder.” He tsked. “Healers. All the same.”
Theodore knew that his healer made frequent trips to Underground hotspots and back alleys most wouldn’t venture into, but his guard had never been sure exactly what she was doing there. Their job was to keep her safe, not spy on her.
Gaze sharpening on the man who was once his closest friend, he asked, “How do you know?”
Those keen, coyote eyes held his. “She didn’t tell me, if that’s what you’re bristling about. She likes me, but we haven’t known each other long enough to swap secrets.” Viktor shook his head, sandy hair falling carelessly around a handsome face. “But I know people, and even the Underground talks. I know she’s been using the Market as a clinic. The weres have seen her more than a few times. In fact, they like her enough to have put a protection order out, though I don’t think she knows it.”
Everyone liked healers, but it said something about Margot that it was the most notoriously violent of the factions within the Protectorate — the coyotes, the weres, himself — who were actively looking out for her.
Viktor’s warning was clear: If Theodore didn’t find whomever threatened her, not only would he have the Coven Collective howling for his blood, but half of San Francisco’s most vicious power players.
It was a good thing Theodore didn’t scare easily.
Tearing his eyes away from the diminutive figure of his consort, Theodore shared a hard look with Viktor. “She’s coming back to the Tower with me. No one will get another chance to hurt her.”
A keen intelligence was Viktor’s greatest, and most underestimated, weapon. “You going to lock her up, Teddy?”
Theodore shook his head. “No, Vik.” He paused, gaze lingering on the woman who was the center of his universe, before he quietly admitted, “She’s my consort. I’d die before I hurt her.”
Viktor was silent for a beat. His voice was tight when he replied, “You gonna…”
“Yes.”
