Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Franco: I’d be a really good supervillain.
Colum: Obviously.
A nnie tried not to be impressed by the castle. Colum told her that technically it was a fortified manor house, but it looked and felt like a castle.
They’d arrived at Triskelion on the Isle of Man several hours ago. Colum started to give them a complete tour, but several of the guards gently stopped him, pointing out she wasn’t a member and therefore needed to stay on the first floor until the fleet admiral said otherwise.
The reminder that she wasn’t a member hurt, but that fact wasn’t the biggest hurdle.
Eric had said no to dissolving Colum’s marriage.
Based on everything Colum had said about his relationship with the fleet admiral, Annie figured Eric would happily agree to an annulment. She’d been sure the biggest issue would be her being a Trinity Masters’ member, followed by the timing—it would be many years before Xavier would become admiral.
She wished she’d been at that Trinity Council meeting so she could have heard the exact stipulations and plan, but based on what Colum had told her, he’d been hoping they could delay starting work on the Trinity Archive until Xavier became admiral and the three of them could get married.
She’d also been a little worried about Xavier. It was clear he didn’t want to be admiral.
And then once he was admiral, she assumed he had to live in France, while Colum had to stay in Dublin, so where would they live? Could they live together, or would they have to maintain two separate households and only be together half the time?
She hadn’t let herself think through all those problems and details because she’d been sure Eric would agree to the annulment, and it would just be a matter of finessing everything else, including getting her own Grand Master to agree to the marriage.
But Eric said no. Colum was, and would remain, married.
The thought made her sick.
Xavier, in true form, had been pacing, prowling the floor since their arrival, his expression fluctuating between fury and despair over Eric’s refusal.
Colum had gone painfully quiet and was currently sitting and reading a book, though he’d yet to turn a single page the entire time they’d been here.
Annie, however, was burning with a cold fury she was trying hard to hide from her men.
“We run,” Xavier said suddenly. “We leave.”
“And go where?” Annie asked, because she’d considered and dismissed this possibility too.
“America.”
“I doubt the Trinity Masters would hide us,” she said.
“They won’t,” Colum said without looking up. “If they did, it would destroy the fragile peace between the societies.”
“South America, then. Asia. We leave together. We run.” Xavier pointed toward the door.
“We’d be fugitives,” Annie said. “And they’d hunt us. Both the Trinity Masters and the Masters’ Admiralty.”
“Fuck,” Xavier snarled.
Before he could continue, a heavy door slammed open. As one, they turned, making their way out of the small waiting room into the wide stone entrance hall.
Annie’s eyes widened as she saw the fleet admiral in person for the first time. He was a massive man, tall, muscular, intimidating, and not as old as she thought, given he’d been an adult, and a widower twice over, by the time Colum met him. Xavier had remarked once that Eric was often referred to as a Viking, and damn if that description didn’t fit.
Eric glanced at the three of them, frowning when his eyes landed on her. “Annie Ward, I presume?”
She nodded. Under normal circumstances, she would have shaken his hand, but her fingers twitched with the urge to take his hand, only to yank him forward and right onto the knife concealed at the small of her back.
Eric acknowledged Xavier with a brief nod. “War council. Let’s go…” Eric looked at the woman who’d followed him in.
The blonde woman was wearing a loose sweater and comfortable leggings that had clearly been cut to accommodate the cast on her lower leg. She had silver crutches tucked under her arms.
“Will you let me carry you up the stairs?” Eric asked, stepping close enough that he was definitely in her personal space.
“Absolutely not.” The words were polite, but the tone pure “fuck you.”
Annie raised her brows, studying the woman. Given the comments Colum had made regarding Nikolett and Eric’s tumultuous relationship, she had a feeling she knew who the blonde was.
“Janey Mac, what’s all this, then, Nikolett?” Colum asked in genuine surprise, nodding his head toward her injured leg.
She was right; the blonde was Nikolett.
Colum’s wife.
“I’m fine, Colum,” she replied stiffly.
Colum blinked several times, then ran his hand nervously through his hair, as if only remembering who she was to him.
Eric had been watching Nikolett, but he scrubbed a hand over his face, covering his eyes for a moment before looking up. “Okay, then. Meeting down here it is. Great hall.”
Annie walked beside Colum, who trailed after Eric. Xavier and Nikolett were somewhere behind them, with Spartan Guard members sprinkled between and around the group. She tried to lace her fingers with Colum’s, but he pulled his hand away. Annie literally felt her heart shatter in that moment, aware that Colum had given up all hope and was walking toward the Great Hall like a man about to face the gallows.
The guards carried a heavy wooden table and chairs into the center of the massive stone room that looked like it should have a medieval king or warlord sitting on a dais at one end, a whole pig roasting in the massive fireplace.
Colum looked at her as they finally sat, taking seats next to each other, Xavier claiming the empty chair on the other side of Colum. The position had the three of them presenting a united front and staring down the fleet admiral, who sat at the other end of the table.
Nikolett didn’t look pleased by her choice of seats, finally opting to sit beside Xavier but turned to face Eric, her broken leg propped up on an extra chair one of the guards brought over.
Eric looked around the table, meeting Colum, Xavier, and Annie’s gazes in turn. “I think we have a page from the manuscript.”
Annie stared at Eric, thrown off by the unexpected statement. She’d expected this to be about the break-in; Colum said Eric had mentioned the Spaniard on the call ordering them to Triskelion.
She hadn’t anticipated it would be about the manuscript directly, only about who wanted the manuscript, and the plan for dealing with both the Spaniard and Dodge.
“No.” Xavier slashed a hand through the air. “We have all the pages.”
Eric scowled. “I’m not talking about one of your pages. I think we have a page out of one of the sections you haven’t found yet.”
“What?” Colum leaned forward, frowning hard behind his slightly crooked glasses.
Xavier must have noticed they were crooked the same time Annie did, because he leaned forward and gently adjusted them for Colum, and Annie’s heart ached at the unfairness of it all. These men were made for each other. They were made for her. The idea that they couldn’t be together because the fleet admiral couldn’t straighten out his own life was complete bullshit.
She turned her angry gaze to Eric, but it softened when she realized the fleet admiral had also witnessed the sweet moment…and it distracted him.
Sadly, not for long.
“Show the page to them,” Eric said.
One of the Spartan Guards pulled a thick, clear plastic case from a bag and passed it to Colum. Annie and Xavier leaned in to look. Annie didn’t get to see much before Xavier snatched it out of Colum’s hands, opening the case and taking the page out.
Everyone watched, silent, as Xavier studied the page. When he finally looked up, Annie knew from his expression what he was going to say before he spoke. “Yes, this is Wilde.”
“Where did you get it?” Colum demanded.
Eric’s face looked as if it was carved in stone, every emotion wiped clean. “Someone sent it to Nikolett.”
Everyone looked at Nikolett, who raised one brow in a cold, controlled expression. Annie couldn’t decide it she was terrified of the woman or if she wanted to fucking be her.
“Her?” Colum demanded. “Why?”
Annie hid a smile in reaction to Colum’s blunt, dismissive words.
“I have no damn idea,” Eric said. “This situation is a Gordian knot.”
“You have a connection to Wilde?” Xavier asked Nikolett.
She shook her head. “No, but we’ve had a run-in with the Spaniard.”
At that, Annie focused, really focused, on the mystery they were faced with, forced to put her other feelings aside. She internally scoffed, as if a broken heart could simply be forgotten, but she had to try.
As far as their current mission was concerned, Annie suddenly felt as if she was a few steps behind everyone else in the room. Except for Xavier, who looked just as perplexed as her. “The same Spaniard who tried to take the manuscript? Wait, wait, can someone explain what’s going on?”
“We can try,” Eric said, then paused, apparently stumped about where to start.
“There’s been a longstanding history of members of both the Masters’ Admiralty and Trinity Masters being blackmailed after they visited a poly-friendly resort in Crimea,” Nikolett began. “Several weeks ago, after…” Nikolett paused for a moment. “After the Trinity Council meeting, we sent people into Crimea to find the blackmailer.”
“Before this most recent blackmail attempt,” Eric said, “photos the blackmailer took of the trinities having menage sex were being sent directly to the people involved. Pay, or the blackmailer releases the photos. That’s how it was for years. Until recently.
“A trinity went to the newly reopened resort—no one knew about the previous blackmail because no one in this damned society tells anyone anything—and once they returned home, they too were blackmailed. But this time, the blackmail demand and photos didn’t go to the individuals. It all went to one of my admirals. And the threat wasn’t to expose them for having a menage or a same-sex relationship. The threat was to expose the Masters’ Admiralty.”
Annie looked at Nikolett. “Someone blackmailed you because some of your people were caught fucking on camera?”
Nikolett shook her head. “Not my people, though the resort is in my territory.”
There was more to that statement, given the way Eric sighed at Nikolett’s words, but Annie didn’t ask, not wanting to derail the information briefing.
“The important part is that the blackmailer knew enough about the Masters’ Admiralty to not only know the people he blackmailed were members, but who their admiral was, and where to send the blackmail demand,” Eric said.
“There was a confrontation between our people and the Spaniard,” Nikolett added. “And during that confrontation, the Spaniard said, ‘say hello to your admiral.’”
“The admiral, or your admiral?” Eric demanded.
“I told you, Russian grammar makes the use of ‘your’ ambiguous,” Nikolett said.
“What’s this, then?” Colum asked. “I thought the Spaniard was talking about Hande?”
“Who’s Hande?” Annie demanded.
Xavier leaned across the table, explaining to her that Hande was the admiral of the Ottoman territory, while Colum stared into space, clearly thinking, and Eric and Nikolett remained awkwardly quiet.
“An assumption was made,” Nikolett said, once Xavier sat back, “that the Spaniard’s words were a continuation of the implied threat of exposure, implicit in the fact that the blackmail demand was sent to an admiral.”
“The assumption was made because you and Vadisk said ‘the admiral’ in the debrief,” Eric growled.
“However,” Nikolett went on, “while Hande and the Ottoman territory are investigating the Spaniard, my territory is running its own investigation.”
“You think the Spaniard meant ‘your admiral,’ and since he was speaking specifically to Vadisk, he was referencing you, not Hande?” Colum asked Nikolett. His hand slipped under the table, lightly gripping Annie’s knee, as if he needed that touch to ground him, keep him in the here and now.
Nikolett nodded once. “It’s possible, which is why we’re investigating. We know from conversations Vadisk overheard between the Spaniard and the blackmailer that the Spaniard has information about us that he shouldn’t. The blackmailer kept asking him for it, but the Spaniard was using whatever information he had about the Masters’ Admiralty to barter with the blackmailer, who is a government official in Crimea.”
“And you seriously think the assassination attempts have nothing to do with anything else?” Eric demanded, staring at Nikolett.
“No. The timeline doesn’t work,” Nikolett insisted. “The Spaniard got involved when the blackmailer hired him. He may have had information on us before that, but he could be an information broker in addition to a mercenary. We’re an old society, and there are rumors about us. There’s information out there for people who care to look.”
Nikolett glanced around. “The blackmailer and the Spaniard had worked together before—the blackmailer hired him for something unrelated to us. Either the blackmailer asked the Spaniard to look into these poly relationships that kept showing up in Crimea, and the Spaniard was able to uncover more information about us than the blackmailer could alone, or the Spaniard knew enough about us that he was able to provide the information the blackmailer wanted.”
“All bad options,” Eric muttered.
“The point being, whatever the Spaniard did or didn’t know before, it wasn’t until the blackmailer asked for his help that he made a move against us. And that was only months ago, not a year ago.”
“Someone’s been trying to assassinate you…for a year?” Annie asked.
“Trying to hurt me, not necessarily assassinate me. At this point, I have to assume if they wanted me dead, I’d be dead rather than inconvenienced.”
“Inconvenienced.” Eric shoved up from the table, walking several steps away, his back to them.
“Did someone shoot you in the leg?” Colum asked, sounding only academically interested.
“No. This is from a bear trap that was dropped into my garden.”
Xavier and Colum both blanched, and even Annie winced at the idea of having a bear trap snap on her leg.
“I was shot in the shoulder,” Nikolett went on.
Eric whipped around. “Nikolett, tell me you’re joking.”
A man standing behind her—he must have been one of her guards—winced slightly.
“No. I was shot.” Nikolett smiled at the fleet admiral.
Eric’s low, vicious curses weren’t in English, but the meaning was more than clear, and the fear in his eyes as he looked at Nikolett painful to see.
Annie looked at Colum, eyes wide, and tipped her head toward Eric and Nikolett. He grimaced in response. Oh yeah, those two had issues, and she suddenly understood why Colum had called this an in-name-only and loveless marriage. Eric truly loved Nikolett.
And though Nikolett was cold as ice to Eric, Annie had caught the heated flashes in her eyes whenever she looked at him. She was in as deep as Eric.
While the interpersonal dynamics were fascinating, the back of Annie’s mind was picking apart the details she’d just heard.
Annie held up a hand. “Stop.” She didn’t realize she’d reverted to her operative voice until everyone around her froze, several of the guards studying her as if she were a threat.
“You’re saying that a blackmailer either hired the Spaniard to help him blackmail the Masters’ Admiralty, or he bought information about you from the Spaniard. Now someone, probably Dodge, has hired the Spaniard to steal the Oscar Wilde tell-all manuscript from you as well.”
“Yes,” Eric said, resuming his seat.
“Those could be a coincidence. Unlikely but possible,” Annie said slowly. “What’s more likely is the Spaniard, whoever he is, has a reputation for knowing about the Masters’ Admiralty, so anyone looking to come after you is going to him.”
Eric acknowledged that. “But why is he trying to kill Nikolett?—”
“He’s not,” Nikolett said coolly.
“—and why did he send her a page from the manuscript?”
“It was sent to Nikolett, not you, Fleet Admiral?” Annie asked.
“No, I just happened to be there when she got it.” A muscle in Eric’s cheek twitched. “Good thing, because she wouldn’t have told me about it if I hadn’t seen it.”
“And why would I? The Spaniard is an internal matt—” She exhaled slowly. “Until you told me about the attack in Dublin, I thought it was an internal matter. The information the Spaniard had about us seemed to be isolated to Hungary and Ottoman, and Hande and I were both working on it.”
Colum’s face had gone blank, and he was staring into middle distance, clearly processing.
“Colum?” Eric said.
At first, Annie thought Eric was checking on him, but when Colum blinked, focusing on the meeting once more, she realized it had been a prompt.
“The Spaniard knows about the Masters’ Admiralty,” Colum began speaking in quick, sharp sentences, unlike his normal meandering word patterns. “He might even be a member, given how much he knows.”
Around the table, everyone shifted. Colum had said the quiet part out loud, words dropping like lead balloons. Annie was glad someone else had pointed out that, more than likely, the Spaniard was a member. She’d been thinking it but hadn’t wanted to say it.
“He’s connecting with clients who want something from us—the blackmailer, now Dodge. Or maybe Dodge isn’t his client. Maybe the Spaniard purchased whatever piece of the manuscript Dodge found in Stoker’s papers from him, and is trying to get the pieces we have. He clearly has some of it, as evidenced by him sending a page to Nikolett. He sent it to Nikolett to show us he knows who we all are. Or maybe he sent it to Nikolett as a test, to see what she’d do with it, and by all of us coming here, we confirmed whatever information he had on us.”
Colum stopped, looking around at everyone’s reactions. Annie smiled, reaching for the hand still on her knee under the table.
“There are a few things I’d add,” she said, smile dropping as she turned away from Colum. “I don’t have all the context for what’s happened before, but from where I sit, it seems clear that the Spaniard didn’t get involved in the manuscript issue until very recently—I mean, in the past few days. The first two attempts to get our pieces of the manuscript were amateurish. We know that based on information from the man in Dublin and the man?—”
“One-eyed man,” Xavier muttered.
“—in New York,” Annie continued. “I think after the failed attempt in New York, either Dodge hired the Spaniard or sold his piece of the manuscript to him. Either way, I think if this Spaniard had been involved from the beginning, the first attempt to break into the archive would have been successful.”
Everyone took a moment to process that.
Xavier sat forward. “We need to check with the other admirals. Maybe they each got a page.”
“Good idea, text your mother,” Eric said, pulling out his own phone. “I’ll text the others.”
Nikolett studied Xavier. “You’re Victoire’s son?”
“Yes.”
Colum studied Nikolett closely. It was clear he knew Nikolett, but they responded to each other as if they were merely colleagues, not friends after that first brief, awkward encounter in the entrance hall. And there was certainly no romantic attraction. Colum had admitted to having no feelings for her, but Annie was only human, and when she’d first seen Nikolett in the hallway, she’d felt a twinge of jealousy because the admiral was very beautiful.
“So who’s trying to kill you, then?” he asked Nikolett, clearly curious rather than concerned.
“Probably someone loyal to Petro,” she said casually. “Given what we’ve discussed about the Spaniard being a mercenary specializing in attacking the Masters’ Admiralty, it’s possible that some of the recent attacks could be the work of the Spaniard, if he was hired by my enemy. Maybe his words to Vadisk were a warning that he’d taken a contract to kill me.”
Eric was holding perfectly still, his gaze on his phone, his knuckles white.
“Could they be the same person?” Annie asked. “Your enemy—the person loyal to Petro—and the Spaniard? I think it’s pretty clear the Spaniard is either a member or someone related to a member.” Annie glanced at Colum. “Do you reject legacies—the children of members—who don’t meet the society’s standards?”
“My mother didn’t get a page,” Xavier said, before anyone could answer Annie’s question. He held up his phone, then tucked it into his pocket.
“None of the others have, either,” Eric said, though his voice was strangled. Abruptly, he pushed to his feet. “Excuse me.”
“Eric, wait,” Colum called out, standing as well. “There’s something…” He started to run a hand through his hair but stopped, lowering his arms to his sides, his spine straight. “I’m stepping down as archivist.”
Annie started to interrupt, to stop Colum, but Xavier caught her eye and shook his head.
Eric reared back as if Colum had struck him. “Like hell you are.”
“I mean it. As soon as this is all over, I’m finished.”
Eric’s flash of anger melted into genuine confusion. “Why would you leave the archive? You love it. It’s your home.”
“You’ve left me no choice. I told you I don’t want a marriage in name only.”
Nikolett’s head snapped up at that.
“I want a real trinity. I want to be loved.”
Annie’s heart broke.
“Colum—” Eric started.
“I agreed to the marriage because I believe a joint archive is in the best interest of our society. When Hande stipulated that I marry someone in a leadership position, I accepted the trinity you proposed. Even though,” Colum glanced at Nikolett, “I knew who she was to you. But I knew it would be a marriage in name only, and I was okay with that…before. Now I want more, and I don’t want to be married to the woman my brother loves.”
The room went completely quiet. Annie was pretty sure Nikolett wasn’t even breathing.
Eric’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say anything.
“I told you I wanted you to dissolve my marriage. Annul it. You said no.”
“No?” Nikolett asked sharply. “He said no?”
Eric reared back, looking baffled. “Colum, I didn’t say?—”
“I, we , want to be together.” Colum looked at her, then Xavier. “And we’re all willing to sacrifice to make it happen. I told you that Xavier is a finance minister, and in a few years, he’ll be the vice admiral when the current one retires, and eventually the admiral of France. He doesn’t want to be admiral, I know he doesn’t, but he’s willing to do it so we have a shot at happiness.
“I know I asked too much, but I thought…” Colum swallowed. “I wanted you to annul the marriage, help get the Grand Master to agree to let Annie come to us, and buy us a few years so Xavier could become admiral. It’s too much, I see that now.”
“Colum, no, it’s?—”
“I know I don’t get to choose who I marry, but I won’t be in a loveless marriage.”
Annie’s throat was tight with tears.
“I want to love someone. I want them to love me too.” Colum swallowed hard. “I’ll never love someone the way I love Annie and Xavier, and it will break me not to have them. But if I step down, then there’s no rule that I have to be married to an admiral. Which means I don’t have to be married to Nikolett.”
Eric’s face was a study in misery, but he’d stopped trying to interrupt.
“What I want is Annie and Xaiver. Since you said I can’t have them, I only ask that you not force me to be Nikolett’s punishment.”
Nikolett made a pained noise, her eyes sliding closed.
Watching the man she loved stand there and admit defeat while begging for a chance at happiness that would only be a pale imitation of what the three of them could have had together was tearing her apart.
Eric stayed silent for several moments, and only when Colum didn’t say anything more did he respond. “Colum, I didn’t say no.”
Annie’s gaze whipped to Xavier, then Colum.
“I didn’t… Fuck, I’m sorry. I was distracted and not really listening. Maybe I did say no. What I meant was, not right now. I couldn’t talk about it right then.”
Colum’s brows creased, confused. Annie shared that emotion. She’d overheard Colum’s call with Eric. He had said no. But…as she played the conversation back, it occurred to her they may have misinterpreted what Eric meant.
“So what are you saying?” Colum asked, the faintest hint of hope in his voice.
“The last thing I want is for you to not know love.” Eric gripped Colum’s shoulders. “To love and be loved…it’s beautiful. And terrifying.” Eric’s gaze traveled from Colum to Xavier to her, before settling on Colum again. “They’re the ones you want?”
No one, in either society, was allowed to pick their trinity…except it sure sounded like Eric was going to let Colum pick his.
“I’m in love with them,” Colum said softly.
“Love,” Eric repeated, the word more breath than sound.
Colum nodded. “They make me happy.”
Eric’s eyes softened at that, the corners of his mouth arching upward, then he turned his attention to Xavier, the heaviness of the moment lifting like it had never been there at all.
Eric clapped Colum on the shoulder. “Sit down, let’s figure this out.”
Annie couldn’t stop the grin that split her face as Colum returned to his seat, looking a little shell-shocked.
Eric looked at everyone except Nikolett.
“Colum, you still want to be the archivist?”
“Yes.”
“Then you need to be married to someone in leadership. Hande wasn’t wrong about that, and I have a duty to look out for the future of both the society and the archive. At the time, there was only one unmarried admiral.”
Everyone carefully didn’t look at Nikolett.
Eric turned to look at Xavier. “Your mother told me you’d refused to even consider being admiral.”
“If that’s what is necessary for me to marry the man I love, and for him to be happy, I’ll do it.”
“And right now, you’re what?” Eric asked.
“A finance minister.”
Eric grimaced. “Even if your mother is fast-tracking your training, it will be years before you’re admiral.”
“He doesn’t need to be the admiral. Being vice admiral should do.”
Everyone whipped around to look at Nikolett.
“The admiral is not the sole leader of a territory,” Nikolett went on, and there was the faintest hint of relief in her expression, though Annie thought she was trying to hide it. “The leadership is a trinity—admiral, vice admiral, and security minister.”
“We only have to wait until he’s vice admiral,” Annie breathed, excitement tingling through her. Below the table, she started to bounce her foot, needing to do something.
“Arguably,” Nikolett went on, “the finance ministers are positions of leadership as well. Certainly financial leadership. In some territories, they’re the highest-ranking financial positions in the territory if the vice admiral is more focused on the territory’s knights, given that the vice admiral oversees both.”
“He qualifies…right now?” Colum asked hopefully.
“Arguably,” Nikolett said again, for the first time smiling at Colum.
“Admiral,” Eric said slowly to Nikolett. “Do you consider your finance ministers leaders within your territory?”
“I do. And I’m fairly certain if asked, the admiral of France would say the same.”
Eric raised his brows.
Xavier pulled out his phone, typing furiously. A second later, he held it up, screen turned toward them. “Yes, she does.”
“Then a marriage to a finance minister—assuming the finance minister position is considered and treated as leadership within that particular territory—satisfies the new marriage requirement for the archivist.” Eric maintained a serious expression for only a moment longer, then grinned at Colum.
“Eric.” Colum and Eric exchanged a long, meaningful look, carrying on some unspoken conversation.
“Josephine would be so happy,” Eric said softly. “Love. Happiness. A family. It’s all she ever wanted for you.”
Annie watched Colum’s throat bob as he swallowed heavily, and she had to blink several times to hold back her tears.
“Just to clarify,” Nikolett interjected. “Colum is marrying someone else, yes?”
Eric’s jaw muscle worked. “Colum, your original trinity is dissolved. You are no longer married. You’re free to marry the people you love, granted the Grand Master approves.”
A wave of relief washed over Annie, but what she felt was clearly nothing compared to what Colum was experiencing as he slumped in his chair.
Annie couldn’t stand it any longer, rising and skirting the edge of the table to sit on Colum’s lap and kiss him. A second later, Xavier’s hand was tangling in her hair, holding her steady so Colum could ravage her mouth.
“Okay, kids, time and place,” Eric called out.
Annie felt her cheeks heat as she eased back, Xavier keeping a hold of her hair until the last moment.
“This isn’t going to help with the concern about who has better access to the archive,” Eric muttered, though he seemed to be talking to himself.
“Or you formalize your relationship with Colum,” Nikolett said. “You think of him as your brother, call him your brother. Make him your brother officially within the society. Then you have the same familial access as the Grand Master.”
“Why…why the fuck didn’t you say any of this before?” Eric demanded.
“Would you have listened?”
They resumed their seats as Eric switched his attention to Colum, Xavier, and Annie watching them with a fond, if slightly exasperated expression.
Colum’s smile turned sheepish as he looked at Nikolett. “I’m, er, sorry, Nikolett.”
“Don’t apologize, Colum. This marriage was never fair to you. I wasn’t ever going to sleep with you.”
He looked alarmed at the idea of having sex with icy Nikolett. Colum liked it hot and rough, and Nikolett seemed too tightly wound for that.
“After all,” Nikolett said calmly. “I’ve been having sex with your brother for years.”
Eric cursed, then loudly announced, “Meeting adjourned.”
“Go, go,” Annie whispered to Colum. “Before someone reminds him we haven’t actually figured out who that Spaniard guy is.”
She, Xavier, and Colum raced out of the Great Hall.
“He agreed,” Colum said, still sounding shocked. “He agreed.”
“We’re getting married.” Xavier grinned.
“Wait, no, one more thing.” Annie gripped their hands. “I know Eric said we can get married, but I’m still a member of the Trinity Masters. The Grand Master has to agree to this.”
Colum grinned. “I’ll call Franco.”