Chapter Sixteen #3
When we stepped in, Fang was growling from the couch with his hackles raised and his sharp teeth on full show. Iro blinked and took a step back, only to look over his shoulder at me and Nuro, who was hovering behind me like a bad stench.
As soon as his gaze drifted to the commander, he swallowed a large lump in his throat and continued into the house.
The lithe half-elf opened every single cupboard in my kitchen.
He even looked in my fridge, which he was completely astounded by for a few fleeting moments before he forced himself to focus.
Iro was more than welcome to rummage through my food stores to his heart’s content, but as soon as he gave up looking behind the cartons of eggs and milk bottles and turned his attention to the hallway, I froze.
He barely even glanced at the living room connected to the kitchen before he marched down the hall like a man on a mission.
Fang growled and stalked closer, but I quickly ushered the wolf back into the living room so he wouldn’t attack the innocent Hand.
Ellyn and I followed behind Iro like a shadow, and when he turned into the nursery, I realized the cat was officially out of the bag.
Iro paused and turned around to look at us. His heterochromic eyes fell to Ellyn’s stomach, and a pink blush coated his olive-colored cheeks.
“C-Congratulations?” the half-elf stuttered.
“Thanks,” I huffed. “Are you done in here?”
Iro spun back around in a small circle, and thanks to the room being pretty barren when it came to furniture, he cut his investigation short.
Ellyn and I stepped out first and blocked the door to our bedroom, but of course the keen half-elf wasn’t going to leave a single inch of our home untouched.
“Please, Sir,” Iro said with a defeated slump of his shoulders. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“You’ve already invaded my privacy,” I said. “It’s pretty obvious Shaar isn’t here. Why do you need to go into my bedroom?”
“We have to look everywhere,” Iro pleaded as he glanced nervously in Nuro’s direction. “Please. I cannot defy direct orders.”
It wasn’t like Iro was the one who had given them. Even Nuro was a puppet to the king, and the lazy monarch was clearly getting tired sitting on his ass waiting for the shard to be found.
Denying him entry now would just delay the inevitable and end up with me in even more hot water.
Maybe he wouldn’t look under the bed. Maybe the shard had managed to hide itself somewhere better.
There were too many questions with no answers, so I had no choice but to step aside and let him open the door.
The wood creaked as Iro entered, and the bedroom looked the exact same as we left it. Ellyn had changed the bloodied sheets and made the bed neatly. The door to the en suite was ajar, and Iro beelined for that first.
My wife and I entered the room behind him, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the bed. I regretted telling the shard to hide under it, but there was nowhere else on my farm it could have gone without the soldiers sniffing it out.
“What manner of wizardry is this?” Iro asked as he poked his head out of the en suite and held up my electric toothbrush.
“It’s not magic,” I said. “You use it to brush your teeth.”
“Brush your teeth?” Iro’s arched eyebrows tugged down into a frown. “You don’t have hair on your teeth.”
“It’s not--” I sighed and put my head in my hands. “You scrub them. With paste made out of mint leaves.”
“Oh.” The half-elf blinked and carefully put the toothbrush back on the counter. “Strange.”
“Iro, don’t get distracted!” Nuro barked from the hallway. “Focus on the task at hand.”
“Y-Yes, Commander,” the dark-haired half-elf stuttered as he marched out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom.
His blue-green eyes swept across the intimate space and landed on the chest of drawers next. He opened every single drawer and stuck a gloved hand in to shuffle the clothes around.
I bit my lip so hard it felt like it would burst, and it was Ellyn’s grounding touch against my chest that kept me from going ballistic on the poor guy.
He was just following orders. That’s what I had to keep telling myself.
When Iro was convinced there was nothing of interest hidden between my underwear, he moved onto the bedside tables.
Loose papers that had once been important when I lived in California scattered on the floor.
Iro tossed one of Ellyn’s hairbrushes on the bed, followed by a few books she’d stored in there to read late at night.
I clenched my fists so hard I felt my nails cut into my palm. I could hardly feel the biting pain as I watched him move onto the bed itself. The neatly-placed pillows were thrown to the end of the bed, followed by the covers.
Yeah. Like I’d tucked the shard in and read it a bedtime story.
After Iro had messed up our entire bed, he finally did the one thing I hoped he wouldn’t. The lean half-elf got onto his knees and slowly lowered his head beneath the bed.
My breath hitched in my throat, and Ellyn tightened her grip on my bicep.
Because Iro was now reaching under the bed.
And my entire world was about to be shattered like the Emberstone.