Chapter 6
Chapter six
Deyvid
Things both did and didn’t go the way that Deyvid expected them to when he was introduced to Queen Tania Alloui face-to-face.
He was used to domineering personalities.
He’d been raised with a mother who had ruled her clan with a firm and often fierce hand and a father who ruled it after her with nothing but ferocity.
Moreover, Deyvid had always known he was a decidedly practical person.
He didn’t have any of the romanticism that characterized Petur so strongly.
Deyvid was a stranger in this country, an enemy to the state, and as far as the queen was concerned, a usurper of her family.
He’d known from the moment he came to Delomar that his stay there was going to be brief.
So he wasn’t surprised when Queen Tania, after laying out the timeline and her broad expectations, said, “You will be residing in the barracks with the rest of our soldiers.” But he was surprised when Petur followed that up with, “And having dinner with me every night at the palace.”
The queen, tall and beautiful, had turned an icy eye toward her brother. “That was not part of our agreement,” she had gritted out.
“Who I choose to dine with on my own time is my business,” Petur replied just as quietly. They glared daggers at each other, and Deyvid, ever attuned to the emotional states of the people around him, took the opportunity to bow very low.
“Your conditions are most generous, Your Majesty,” he said. “I thank you for your generosity.”
“Hmm.” His speech didn’t seem to pacify her, but at least it wasn’t making things worse either.
“Against my better judgement, you’ll be reporting directly to my brother, but don’t expect his fondness of you to lead to any slacking in your schedule.
” Her grip on the royal scepter she held in her right hand tightened.
“You have come to my court as an unknown. I will give you the chance to prove your loyalty beyond my brother’s infatuation with you, and I suggest you don’t squander it. One misstep and you’re gone.”
Judging from the way Petur’s head jerked around to stare at his sister once more, this hadn’t been part of the deal either.
Deyvid just bowed his head. “As you command, Your Majesty.”
“Indeed,” she said. “Now go.” Deyvid bowed once more, then left the grand hall where he’d been put on display in front of all of nearly a score of courtiers.
He might not be a shifter, but he had ears, and he could hear what they were saying about him.
It wasn’t like they were doing a very good job of trying to hide it.
“Another one of Petur’s strays.”
“Rarer than most.”
“Quite daring, really …”
“Dangerous, though. Do you not think it’s a foolish move?”
“Could be a canny one. No one knows a Harrier like a Harrier, after all.”
“Exactly, so how can the prince claim to—”
The chatter trailed off as Deyvid exited the hall, striding firmly toward the door that would lead him along the quickest route back to the barracks. His stomach churned; he was more than a little dismayed, though not surprised, at how badly his reception had gone.
When was Petur going to decide that Deyvid wasn’t worth the effort? Why had he dragged him all the way up here just to expose him to this kind of hatred? Was he really so sure that this mutual fondness between them was something to count on?
Deyvid wasn’t sure, not at all. He could admit to himself in the silence of his own mind, as he kept up his steady, unaffected pace, that he was certainly fond of Petur.
Maybe more than fond. He liked the younger man’s brashness, his sense of style, and his eagerness for action.
He liked his will to act, and he certainly liked the man’s skill within his own sphere of expertise; Petur was a shifter without parallel.
It was fascinating to watch him move from shape to shape and heartening to see him work with his troops.
There, at least, Deyvid was confident that he could play a positive role.
He was going to improve the readiness of the Shifter Corps before he had to leave.
It wasn’t like it was going to be hard. They had a lot to learn about following people and moving unseen, which was funny since so many of them were capable of taking on shapes that should have made spying second nature.
Finally out in the open once more, Deyvid continued toward the barracks, ignoring the stares from the people he passed.
Spy craft—horsemanship and spy craft. That was what he would focus on in his time here.
By the end of it, he would be able to say that he had done the man who had saved his life a true service, and they would both be able to look back on this time together with satisfaction if nothing else.
Satisfaction indeed, Deyvid thought to himself as he remembered exactly what Petur had done to him the night before.
His right thigh still ached from where the eager prince had pressed his teeth in a little too deeply.
Deyvid had redirected him easily enough, though, and then been treated to the most decadent, luxurious tongue play of his life.
He’d practically been catatonic by the end of it, and if Petur hadn’t already spent himself, he would have begged the man to fuck him then and there.
That wasn’t something they’d had time for yet, but—
Mind on business, Deyvid reminded himself sternly as he finally made it to his room, skillfully avoiding the shifters that lingered in the halls.
He knew they could hear him, could smell him, but his presence didn’t alarm them.
That was a bad sign, given that he was an unknown to most of them.
They had just arrived in this city, after all.
Lise herself had dropped Deyvid at this room not two hours ago.
People should be asking questions, and yet …
By the time someone was banging on his door an hour later, Deyvid was deep in designing a series of lesson plans. “Enter,” he called out, and Petur—because of course it was Petur, nobody else knocked like that, Deyvid knew it—strode into the room with a frustrated and angry look on his face.
“I didn’t know your introduction to court was going to go that way,” he bit out, the closest thing to an apology Deyvid was likely to get. “She told me she was going to give you a fair chance, and I—”
Deyvid held up a hand. “It’s fine. It went better than it could have.” Not that he’d hoped for much, but he kept that to himself. “I’m thinking we start your people with advanced tracking and go from there.”
“Excuse me, advanced tracking?”
Deyvid said patiently, “We need to start your people on something that they’re already good at, I think, and prove I’ve got the skills to take them to another level before we can expect them to trust that I’ll be able to teach them something completely new. So, advanced tracking.”
The petulance and anger was wiped off Petur’s face in a matter of seconds. He sat down on the edge of the bed, leaned back on his arms, and crossed his feet at the ankles. “And what exactly do you think you can teach a bunch of shifters about tracking?” he asked. “You’re not a mage.”
“You don’t have to be a mage to hide yourself from shifters,” Deyvid said, “but you make a good point. I should also teach you how to track mages.”
“There isn’t a good way to track mages,” Petur insisted. “They can cover their tracks with spells.”
“They only bother to cover the tracks they think you’re expecting to see,” Deyvid replied.
“Most shifters are attuned toward scent, not sight. You’re so busy with your noses to the ground that you’re not seeing what else is there.
I watched three of your people walk right over a set of footprints that they should have seen with that second group down south. ”
“I know.” Petur grimaced. “I’ll talk to them about that. But—”
“This is an endemic problem,” Deyvid interrupted.
He had to get his thoughts out before he let Petur railroad him into a different topic.
“Those are some of your best people, you said it yourself, and yet this happened multiple times. If they’re not able to see what’s right in front of their eyes, you can’t expect that most of the Corps will be able to either.
“It’s good that you work in groups. It’s good that some of them are more sight-focused than scent-focused. It’s good that there’s variety, but they need to have a baseline that includes proficiency in multiple areas of tracking, not just the one that their animal shape is best at.”
Petur tilted his head. “And how do you suggest we go about starting this training process?”
“I think we need to let them hunt me.”
Petur blinked. “I beg your pardon.”
“Let them track me if that makes you feel better about it,” Deyvid clarified. “But really, the best teacher is experience, and that’s how respect is best earned as well. If you want me to make any sort of difference in the time that I’m here—”
“You speak like there’s an end date.”
“In the time we know I’m going to be here,” Deyvid parried, “then we need to prove my abilities to them.”
Petur shrugged. “You’re not wrong, but I wonder if you’re not overestimating your own abilities. After all, I was able to track you rather successfully if you recall.”
“You were,” Deyvid said. “But given you’ve got four different shifts, I feel I should expect nothing less of you.
You’re supposed to be the best, aren’t you?
I tell you what,” he added when he saw Petur’s hackles start to rise, “pick between ten and twenty of your absolute best people and give me an hour’s head start.
If they don’t find me within the next hour, you can come and look for me yourself. And when I win—”
Petur picked his hands up off the bed and leaned forward, eyes flashing eagerly. “And when I win,” he said.