Hugh turned and looked at her.
She squirmed, then threw her arms out to the side. “What? What?”
Someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t an “emergency had occurred” knock. It was brisk and pissed off, which meant Elara.
Well, that didn’t take long. From how green she looked after he started on the merc’s ears, he thought she’d take the evening off. The hopes of mice and men…
“Not tonight,” he called out.
The door flew open. Elara marched in, her jaw set, brimming with rage and magic.
Elara didn’t bother looking at Vanessa. “Leave.”
Vanessa opened her mouth. Something snapped in her eyes. “No.”
Elara swung toward her. The storm within her was straining to break out, and Vanessa had just designated herself as a lightning rod. This ought to be good. Hugh landed in a chair and leaned back, his head resting on the interlocked fingers of his hands. He wished he had a beer.
“I’m not leaving,” Vanessa said. “You leave. You’re interrupting.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Elara said. “After I’m done, you can come back and entertain the Preceptor all you want. But right now, I need you to go.”
Vanessa swung to him. “Tell her I can stay.”
“I already told you to leave,” he said.
Vanessa pushed from the wall. “I’m staying.”
Playing for keeps.
“You’re pissed off, because he doesn’t want you,” Vanessa said.
And now she decided to dig a hole.
“He wants a woman,” Vanessa said. “Not an iceberg.”
Doubling down.
“I understand why that’s upsetting, but I don’t really care. He likes me, this is his room, and you’re intruding. Go. You’re not wanted or needed here.”
Hahaha.
Elara regarded Vanessa for a long moment. She reminded him of the black-footed cat he had seen in southern Africa on a long trip to retrieve one of Roland’s artifacts. They’d had to search a wide area, and every night, once they came back to camp, he would take the midwatch, and the little black-footed cat would leave her burrow to hunt for food for her two kittens. She would sneak up on the birds and rodents, line her jump, wait, motionless, calculating distance and wind, and spring just at the right moment to break her prey’s neck. She was relentless, and she killed with a precision he had never seen in great cats. Now he saw the same calculation in Elara’s eyes. She was about to leap into a kill.
“I was going to give you time to correct yourself, but you leave me no choice,” Elara said. “First, the Preceptor isn’t going to help you. He’s here because he’s responsible for the welfare of his people, just as I’m responsible for the well-being of mine. We rose to our positions of power, because we have learned how to lead and compromise. We hate each other, but we are both cognizant of the fact that we have to work together for our mutual survival and we both sacrificed a great deal for the sake of this partnership. There is much more at stake here than sexual gratification. In an argument between you and me, the Preceptor will always side with me. I’m the bigger threat. All you can do is withhold sex, while I can divorce him and throw his soldiers out of the castle.”
Vanessa narrowed her eyes.
“Before you speak, remember that you are also one of my people. Your welfare is important to me,” Elara said. “It’s critical to your safety that you understand this: he isn’t besotted with you. He is a cold, calculating bastard. Love isn’t in his vocabulary. You don’t hold any power over him and if you annoy him enough, he will replace you with a different warm body. You must never gamble your safety on his attachment to you. There isn’t one.”
Vanessa turned to him.
“She’s right,” Hugh said. “I told you this when we started.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“I’m not done,” Elara said, her voice cold. “According to your performance evaluation and the testimony of your coworkers, you are laboring under the mistaken impression that having sex with the Preceptor excuses you from your duties. As of last night, you have a nine-day backlog. You speak down to your colleagues, you imply that you are better than them, and you argue with your supervisor. One of your colleagues described your behavior as toxic.”
“I do my work!”
“Should I ask Melissa to come up here and give you a detailed breakdown of the assignments you failed to complete?” Elara asked.
“She’s lying.”
Elara grimaced. “Please. Don’t waste time, Vanessa. You’ve decided that you are better than your current position and you’ve made everyone around you aware of it. In this community, your position is based on merit, not your choice of bed partners. Having a relationship with the Preceptor doesn’t entitle you to any additional benefits. You don’t get hazard pay.”
Hazard pay?
“You have one week to catch up on your assignments. You won’t be paid until your backlog is cleared.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“You will apologize to your colleagues and to Melissa for your conduct,” Elara continued.
“I won’t,” Vanessa snarled.
Elara’s face was merciless. “If you no longer want to be employed as a paralegal, you are free to look for a different job. You know our rule: if you don’t contribute to the best of your ability, you receive no support. If you don’t like it, you know where the gates are.”
An angry red flush heated Vanessa’s face. For a moment he thought Vanessa would charge her. Instead, she spun on her heels and tore out of the room. The door slammed closed behind her.
Elara glanced at him. “Any idea what brought this on?”
“She thinks the balance of power shifted in my favor,” he said. “Now, what the hell was so bloody important?”
“You found an abandoned palisade.”
He got up, poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, and drank. He missed the wine, not the alcohol, but the taste.
He realized she was waiting for him to answer. “Yes.”
“Were you planning on telling me?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Something peeked out from inside her. Something cold and lethal, a power coursing through her. Her hair was down again, and it floated about her like a silver curtain. Her blue dress was cut wide, leaving her delicate neck exposed.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“It does concern me.”
“It’s a matter of safety. There is no immediate threat. If there was one, I would tell you about it.”
“We have to report it.”
He frowned. “Report it to who?”
“The sheriffs. The county.”
“No.” The harpy was insane.
She turned, pacing back and forth. “You’re not listening to me. Something weird happened in the woods on the border of our land. If we don’t report it, we will be blamed.”
He crossed his arms. “Who will blame us?”
“The authorities.”
She was really wound up tight. It was kind of amusing. He decided to stab and see what happened.
“Is this paranoia recent or is this something you’ve had for a while?”
Elara stopped in midstep and spun toward him, the long skirt of her dress flaring.
“We are always blamed. I’m speaking from experience. Whenever anything weird happens, they come after us.”
“‘They’ won’t find out.”
Elara missed the sarcasm in his emphasis. “They will. They always do. We have to report it. You should’ve sent someone to report it the moment you found it.”
“Do you trust your people?”
“What?” She tilted her head, giving him a look at the fine line of her jaw all the way to her neck. He wondered what she looked like under the dress.
“Do your people report to the authorities on a regular basis, because I have to tell you, I wouldn’t tolerate that if I were you.”
“Hugh! You can’t possibly be this dense. No, my people don’t talk to outsiders.”
She’d used his name. Well, well. “Mine don’t either. So, who’s going to tell?”
“It will get out. It always does. Someone will come to check on them—"
“To check on three families of separatists living alone in the middle of the forest?”
Elara halted. “Separatists still trade, Hugh. They still need supplies.”
“Try to get it through your thick skull: they abandoned society, built a palisade in the middle of a dangerous forest, and got killed. It happens all the damn time and nobody ever makes any effort to investigate.”
“According to your own people, this time is different. You don’t even know what killed them.”
Hugh felt irritation rise. “I would know if I had access to a forensic mage. How is it that in all of your settlement there is not a single mage?”
Elara crossed her arms on her chest. “We have no need for mages. We have plenty of magic users who can do everything a mage can do but better.”
“So why don’t you take some of those fabled magic users and analyze the scene?”
“So when the forensic team does arrive from the sheriff’s office, they’ll find an empty settlement and our magic signature all over it? Brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Leave this alone. If you stir that pot, your pal Skolnik will run back here with torches and pitchforks. Is that what you want?”
Elara narrowed her eyes. “You know what, never mind. I’ll take care of this.”
Hugh’s irritation boiled over into full-blown fury. His voice turned to ice. “You won’t.”
“Yes, I will.”
“I forbid it.”
“Good that I don’t need your permission.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Says who?”
“Says the contract we both signed. Or did you forget the part where I asked for autonomy on the safety-related decisions and you put in the provision that all of them have to be jointly approved by you and me? It cuts both ways, sweetheart.”
Her magic boiled just under her skin. Her eyes blazed. Didn’t like that, did you?
“Do it,” he dared. “Breach the contract. Give me an excuse for free rein.”
Elara’s hands curled into fists. Her cheeks flushed. She was so mad.
God, sex right now would be amazing. He would throw her on the bed and she would scream and kick and lash him with her magic. It would be fucking hot.
“I hate you,” she ground out.
“Right back at you, darling.” Hugh kissed the air.
Her face jerked. An ethereal growl rolled through the room, an echo of a distant snarl. Elara spun and within her he almost saw something else, hidden within silvery translucent veils of magic. She swept out of the room. The door slammed behind her, shaking the heavy wooden doorway.
Twice in one night. He’d have to replace the door if this continued.
Hugh poured himself another cup of water. For a few seconds, while she’d been in the room screaming at him, he’d felt alive. He lost it again and he could already feel the void drawing closer, but he’d tasted freedom in those fleeting moments and he wanted more.
Elara paced in her room. Traces of her magic slipped out of her, trailing her body. The gentle glow of custom fey lanterns bathed the room in a soothing buttery-yellow glow, but her temper needed a hell of a lot more than some ambient light to soothe itself.
That asshole.
That fucking bastard.
When she’d insisted on the joint decision provision, she was thinking of limiting his reach. At the time, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable choice.
Elara closed her eyes and whispered, projecting her voice. “Savannah.”
The echo of her power flew through the castle, finding its target. Savannah was on her way.
Elara wanted to march back into Hugh’s bedroom and crush him with her power until he groveled. To wipe that smug grin off his face.
She stopped and took a deep breath. Her magic swirled out and Hugh stood in her room, exactly as she remembered him, a perfect copy of the man, just slightly transparent when she looked at a fey lantern through him.
She circled him, examining the broad powerful shoulders, the sculpted arms, the flat stomach, the tree trunk legs… Built to crush all opposition. The man emanated a predatory confidence. If he said he would kill something, it would die. She was sure of it now.
A trail of faint scars marked his chest, no more than light lines across his left pectoral, over the heart, ribs, and side. She’d felt him heal his people. He had to be able to heal himself, or he would have a lot more scars.
What sort of damage was severe enough to resist his healing?
Food for thought.
Shapeshifters sometimes radiated a predatory power too. Theirs came from the natural sleekness of their lines, from the way they held themselves, ready to burst into action, never one hundred percent comfortable in either of their skins, always expecting an attack. Hugh had a different flavor. The shapeshifters were born into their power; he achieved his. His body was trained and honed, and the arrogance came from experience.
She looked into his blue eyes. There was something else there, in the eyes. A bone-deep weariness as if something gnawed on him, and no matter what happened, life hadn’t fully reached him. She’d seen that same look in him when he carved the mercenary apart. There was no anger, no satisfaction. Just methodical precision. He’d decided it had to be done, so he did it.
It would be so much easier if he was an idiot, but no. D’Ambray was sharp and manipulative. She couldn’t trust a single word coming out of his mouth. He would pretend to be a man’s best friend, then stab him in the back and keep moving. He said one thing, did another, and thought only he knew what. She had no idea where he actually stood on anything.
And yet they clashed against each other like fire and ice. He hadn’t bothered to manipulate her. Why? Did he think she wasn’t worth the effort?
No answers hid in his eyes. Elara took a step back and looked at him again.
“Nice specimen,” Savannah said from the doorway.
“He is.”
“Vanessa certainly thinks so.”
“Vanessa likes attaching herself to dangerous men.” Elara shrugged.
“Tell me you’re watching them.”
“I know every whisper that passes between them. What do you think of him?”
“Brutal. Efficient. Trouble. To be watched. Take your pick.” The older woman swept into the room. The light of the fey lantern brought out the rich red undertone to her skin. Normally a green wrap hid her curly hair, but right now it was down, floating about her head like a storm cloud. Power emanated from Savannah, vibrant and strong. So strong.
“What do you need?” the head witch asked.
“The palisade,” Elara said.
“Conrad told me.”
“Do we still buy supplies from that trader, Austin Dillard?”
“He comes around.”
“Next time he comes around, someone might mention that there is a palisade near the Old Market in need of supplies, except we haven’t heard from them in a bit.”
“Someone will mention it. Do you want a divination?”
Elara shook her head. “Conrad didn’t get inside to take anything to anchor the vision, and I’m not sending anyone to retrieve anything. Whatever took those people could come back. Besides, they would leave the signatures of their magic and their scent at the scene, and I don’t want to chance it. I just need d’Ambray to see reason.”
She stared at Hugh some more.
“We can always poison him, you know,” Savannah said.
“Hugh?”
“Mhm. Something quick and sweet. He’ll fall asleep and never wake up. Won’t even know what hit him.”
Elara grimaced. “We can’t. We need his army.”
“Men.”
“Yes. Can’t li
ve with them, can’t kill them.” Elara crossed her arms.
“What’s upsetting you?” Savannah asked.
“He makes me angry, Savannah. Raging angry.”
“Has it been calling to you?”
“It always calls to me.” Elara sighed.
“Do you worry you’ll manifest?”
“I worry he may push me too far.”
“Have you thought about going the smarter route?” Savannah asked. “When you offer men opposition, they take it as a challenge. Sometimes a softer approach is better. A bit of flattery here and there, an appeal to his pride, a moment of helplessness. You know.”
Of course Elara knew. She’d done it before when she’d had to and she was good at it. “This one is too… aware. Besides, if I could bring myself to do it, I would’ve already done it. He opens his mouth and I want to kill him. I’ve actually had fantasies of ripping his head off, Savannah.”
The older witch looked at her for a long moment.
“What?”
“Don’t do it in front of his Dogs.”
“Hopefully, I won’t do it at all. If things get too bad, I’ll divorce him.”
“Better sooner than later. People aren’t marbles. You can’t keep them separate by the color of the uniform they wear. The longer his people stay with us, the more ties we forge.”
“The harder it will be to purge the Dogs from us. I know.”
“What do you want done about Vanessa?” Savannah asked.
“Nothing. I’ve handled it. Her choices are her own.”
“Betrayal should be punished, Elara.”
“What would I punish her for, Savannah? Bad judgement? Trust me, he’s punishment enough.”
Savannah nodded and left the room.
Elara raised her hand and touched Hugh’s chest, tracing the line of hard muscle under the skin with her fingers. The projection rippled as if liquid.
It was too bad… If it was anyone but him…
She laughed quietly at the absurdity of it and dismissed the construct with a wave of her fingers.
6
Hugh lowered his hands and took a deep breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He’d pushed himself for the better part of an hour, alternating the heavy bag and weights with weapon practice. His body finally realized that food was once again plentiful, and he was starting to rebuild the muscle he’d lost. He would need it.