Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
CONNOR
I manage to hold it together long enough to gently close Fiona’s door. My. Mate. Did. Not. Sleep. With. My. Enemy. Praise the creator! When I asked her about him, I didn’t feel a shred of emotion for him down our bond. But that image she sent me when I licked her fork…. She is not unaffected. I didn’t broach the subject of her being my mate again, but that will come with time. Deep down, she already knows she’s mine. I have to trust in that.
As I see it, I have a few things going for me. She doesn’t know I can read her thoughts when she projects them down our bond. Plus I’m sure I’ve convinced her that Roman isn’t the man she thought he was. Fuck, Roman convinced her of that himself when he shot at her. Stupid fucker. All I have to do now is get her to accept me as her mate. I snort. I’ve never had trouble seducing women in the past. Once she’s healthy, I’ll have her on her back in no time.
My smile eases wider as I set the tray down in the kitchen, then break into a touchdown dance, thrusting my fists into the air.
“I take it things are going well.” Seb’s dark laugh comes from the family room. It’s an overcast day and the room is dim. I didn’t see him there, waiting in the shadows.
I lower my arms and clear my throat, playing it cool. Pretending he didn’t just see me do a happy dance in my kitchen. “Seb,” I say in an artificially low voice. “I was just, uh…” I can’t think of any reasonable excuse, so I point in the general direction of the sink and trail off.
“Never mind.” He rises from a leather chair and strides toward me. Once he steps into the light, his face betrays his true emotions. Dark circles stain the skin under his eyes and his expression is bracketed by lines of deep strain.
“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“What’s wrong? While you’ve been holed up here with the fiancée of the Order’s second-in-command, I’ve been putting out all the fires you’ve caused.”
“Fires? What fires?”
“Everyone’s pissed. Ellison is having a total meltdown over what this means for the accord, and Remus hasn’t said a word since he found out you took that woman. Every time I try to talk to him, he just growls and that vein in his neck throbs like he’s going to blow. Be thankful he’s not here because I think he’s saving up all his words for you. ”
“Fuck them.” I lift my chin in his direction. “We all agreed I should go. They can’t get mad now that it didn’t work out the way they expected.”
Seb gives a frustrated grimace and runs his hand through his hair. “We gave you the okay to go to the wedding and read Stefan’s mind. You abducted the bride of the grandmaster’s son from the altar in front of witnesses.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Stefan wasn’t there. I adapted the plan. It’s called thinking on my feet.”
“It’s called potentially starting a war.”
Now I’m pissed. I point at the floor between us and try to keep my voice down to keep from waking Fiona. “ They started the war the night they killed Lucy.”
“You shouldn’t have taken a hostage, Connor. That’s not how the brotherhood works.”
“The wheel is in Aries, my friend. It’s my prerogative.”
Seb gets in my face. “Go fuck yourself. You’re the brotherhood’s leader for a month, not our king. I have half a mind to return her to Roman myself.”
Pure fire blazes in my blood, and I cross to the window to distract Seb from seeing it on my face. I’m sure my eyes are glowing green, reflecting the dragon within. It’s all I can do to stay in control. I take a deep, calming breath before I speak again. “Look, what’s done is done,” I say. “This is going to work. Stefan will be forced to meet with us to address the Lucy situation. Did you get the message to him that we have her and if he wants her back, he needs to meet with us?”
Seb rolls his eyes. “Couldn’t. ”
“Huh?”
“It seems Stefan isn’t just missing from his son’s wedding—his secretary hasn’t been able to reach him in days and says he wasn’t planning on coming back to work for another week or so. Also, no one seems a bit concerned about it. Roman is running the company in his place and presumably the Order too. We’ve left a message with him as well, but he’s not returning his secretary’s calls or ours either, and when we hired a human messenger to deliver the ultimatum to him at the Chateau de la Rosalie, there was no response to that either. The messenger confirmed Roman got it. Roman is deliberately not responding to us. Oh, and no one knows Fiona’s been abducted either. There’s no word of it on social or in the papers. As far as the world is concerned, all the party guests are still celebrating at the chateau. Of course all the party guests were Order members. It follows that if Roman wanted to keep this quiet it would stay quiet. He hasn’t even reported it to the police.”
“Because he knows what this is all about. He knows it’s in retaliation for Lucy and he doesn’t want to involve humans.”
“He isn’t returning our calls. And we haven’t been able to reach Donovan either. Something is very, very wrong about all this.”
“Do you think they went into hiding?”
“I don’t know. I can’t begin to guess what’s going on. None of us could have foreseen this turn of events because none of us thought we were kidnapping a woman three days ago.”
I smooth my eyebrow with the pad of my thumb, wondering how much I should reveal to Seb about why I actually took Fiona. One look at the fire in his eyes and I decide to keep it to myself. “Uh, right. What’s done is done. I did what I thought was right.”
“You acted impulsively and broke the rules.”
I shrug, turning back to him and spreading my hands. “What would you suggest I do? She’s here and she’s sick. I can’t just return her where I found her.”
“Sick? What kind of sick?”
“Apparently she has fibromyalgia and all the stress brought on a flare. She can hardly move.”
“Fuck.”
“Morwyn was here and checked her out. I’m keeping her comfortable. He says being near me will help her recover faster, but I’m not going to move her until she’s better.”
Seb plants his hands on his hips and shakes his head slowly. “You really screwed the pooch this time.”
“I get it, okay? My dragon may have been running a little hot, and we acted without thinking first. I’ll go see the Oracle. I’ll do whatever she recommends.”
A harsh laugh bursts from Seb’s throat. “If only it were that easy, my friend.”
“Huh?”
“Ellison already went to see the Oracle because Ellison follows through and follows the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah. Ellison is the greatest.” I grunt. “What did the Oracle say?”
“She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Connor that he’s made his choice and now he must live with the consequences.’ ”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Your guess is as good as ours.”
Damn, being in trouble with the rest of the four is nothing compared to being in trouble with the Oracle. “Maybe I should go see her myself. Apologize. Ask her advice.”
Seb’s humorless grin grows wider. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“She’s in seclusion.”
“Seclusion?” I’ve never heard of the Oracle being inaccessible. She’s always in her sanctuary, reading the stars. She exists to see the future and guide our species.
“According to her acolytes, it’s a time to be cut off from the world and devote herself to prayer and connection with the creator.”
“How long does that go on?”
The way Seb licks his bottom lip, I know I’m not going to like the answer. “Anywhere from a week to a year, according to her acolytes.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck.” Seb frowns.
“Well, she’ll have to come out of seclusion for Mason’s ascension to the brotherhood.”
“That’s three and a half weeks away.”
I scratch the stubble on my jaw. The part of my soul that is my dragon stirs, his voice low and coarse as he whispers in my head, This is good. It means more time with Fiona. Time we can use to win her over. To convince her to be ours. Claim her as our mate.
“Thanks for letting me know,” I say dismissively.
He brushes invisible lint from the arm of his sport coat. “No problem. I, unlike some, take my responsibilities as a member of the four seriously.”
The barb raises my hackles, but I don’t take the bait. “What exactly do you expect me to do here?”
“It’s not for me to decide,” Seb says incredulously. “What are you going to do? As you keep reminding us, you’re calling the shots.”
Inside, I can feel my dragon smile wickedly. Yes, we are . “I’m going to stay here and guard Fiona while helping her recover. Roman is a smart boy, and resourceful. If he wants his fiancée back, he’ll answer our calls or have his daddy come out of hiding to do so. The plan is, we stay the course and protect our own.”
Seb bows. “I’ll let the others know. It should be fun watching Ellison’s head explode.”