Chapter 61 #2
He jerked his head toward Teller, who was bleary-eyed and shit-faced drunk, dancing with an equally inebriated Lily deep in the gardens.
They wore lazy, indulgent grins as they swayed unsteadily to the lilting music.
Lily whispered something in his ear, and Teller pulled her close. Too close, I noted with a scowl.
Taran squeezed my ribs. “I think Teller’s about to have a new body to research—sorry, body of research.” My eyes narrowed; Taran’s gleamed. “You know how studious he is. Stays up all night long learning every little detail about his subject. Really thrusts himself into his work.”
He cackled maniacally at my snarl. I liked Teller a great deal, just not when his hands were cupped around my sister’s ass. I wondered if Diem would forgive me if I cut them off.
Lily broke the embrace and flashed Teller a suggestive smile as she tugged him toward—to my abject horror—a boxwood labyrinth that was infamous among the Corbois cousins and their lovers.
I started toward them, and Taran gripped me hard to hold me back. “Don’t worry, Lu,” he said between chuckles, “I’m sure he won’t do anything to your sister that you haven’t done to his.”
My fist found Taran’s groin, and his laughter choked to a shriek. He doubled over, whimpering as he let me go, but his words had my eyes darting to Diem. She was looking at me, and she sharply shook her head. An order: Stand down.
The fight flooded from my body. Not at her command, but at the whisper of a smile on her face—a glimmer of happiness for our siblings, finding their way back to each other in a world that wanted them apart.
Suddenly, brotherly instincts aside, Lily and Teller’s determination to ignore a doomed future no longer concerned me.
It inspired me.
“Cousin,” I said, “I’m afraid Her Majesty and I are going to call it an early night.”
“Me too. Time to try out this mind-blowing mate sex everyone’s told me about.” He coughed, holding his injured crotch with a wince. “If this still works.”
He took a swing at me, aiming for revenge, and I ducked to avoid it.
I smirked and turned my back to walk toward Diem.
Even though my godhood prickled as it sensed Taran follow, I kept my shield down and let him plow into my back, tackling me to the ground.
I let him dig a fist into my side, wheezing as he knocked the air from my lungs, and I let him grin down at me in valiant retribution.
I even let him grab my face and plant an obnoxiously wet kiss on my forehead.
“You’re lucky the Blessed Mother forbids killing a man on his mating day,” I said.
He lightly slapped my cheeks. “I love you, too. You know, now that I’m a Bellator, when you mate Diem, we’ll be brothers instead of cousins.” He leaned in closer, eyes narrowing. “Wouldn’t that be nice? If you and Diem were mates?”
My heart thumped.
“You’re not Taran Bellator anymore,” I reminded him. “Zalaric’s the stronger mate. That makes you Taran Hanoverre.”
Taran’s face dropped. “Oh no,” he whispered.
I laughed. Loudly. “Oh yes.”
Taran shook his head. “Nononononono.”
“Better watch out for Aunt Iléana. Though, if I were you, I’d be more worried about Granny Marthe.”
He twisted around, shouting. “Zal? Hey, Zal! We have a problem. I can’t be a Hanoverre. I’m too fun!”
My shoulders shook with laughter. “It’s too late. You already are.”
He let out a loud whine.
“You’re still a Bellator, though,” I added. “Still a Corbois, too. You can’t get rid of me that easily. We’re family to the end.”
Taran glanced at Diem. “Family,” he repeated. He looked back at me, still pinned beneath him. “You two didn’t get me a mating gift.”
“What would you like?”
“An honest answer.”
“What’s the question?”
He thought for a moment. “Back in Sophos . . . I almost lost you, didn’t I? Both of you.”
I hesitated. “We were heavily outnumbered. It was a gift from the Blessed Mother that we got out alive.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
My mouth closed. I was still wrestling with what happened that day—and, perhaps, what almost happened. Even if I knew for sure, it wasn’t my answer to give.
“You know, when you told me to leave that night, I wasn’t gonna do it,” Taran said.
“Then you had to be the asshole who said ‘go get your mate.’” He sighed.
“Fuck, Lu. I had to go. I couldn’t take knowing I found the person I want to spend forever with and I lost the chance to do it because I died waiting for a stupid perfect moment. ”
“I’m glad that didn’t happen,” I said.
“Me too. What an idiot that would have made me, huh?” He thwacked me hard on the chest and winked. “Go get your mate, brother.” He jumped off me, striding toward Zalaric and yelling, “Zal, sober up. We need to talk about family holidays. I am not doing Solstice dinner at House Hanoverre.”
I badly wanted to enjoy the irony of Taran wrangling a drunken Zalaric away from the party, but his last words to me stuck in my head, setting my blood aflame. A question hung on my lips, the closest to escaping I’d ever allowed it.
I climbed to my feet and walked toward Diem. “My Queen,” I said as I approached.
She hummed absently, still staring south. “If Vance’s army kept marching past Umbros, how long would it take them to get here?”
“Is that where the Centenaries think he’s gone?” She nodded, and I frowned. “Arboros might let them pass through uncontested, but Faunos won’t. Neither will Fortos. Without Ophiucae to help them, it could take them weeks, if they make it here at all.”
“And with Ophiucae’s help?”
I paused as the full weight of her meaning sank in. I waited for her gaze to meet mine, and when it didn’t, my voice turned quiet. “Your army is strong. We’re trained and well-armed. We beat him twice in Lumnos already—”
“The first time, he fled when he realized I was immune to his magic. The second, I killed the Sophos Descended he sent. Yes, my army is strong, but Ophiucae can’t be defeated by strength alone. If I hadn’t been here, Lumnos would have fallen.”
“Then it is a good thing you are still here.”
“Am I?” she whispered.
She massaged her wrist, rubbing her thumb in repetitive strokes as if there was something she was trying to wipe away. The movements turned more forceful, fingers curling to scratch angry red lines across her arms.
My eyes narrowed in on the movement. She’d been doing that often lately. I’d seen a similar tic in my father after he lost his magic to the broken bargain at the Challenging.
Shadows sprang from my palms. They spiraled around her waist, her arms, her neck, grazing every inch of bare skin her gown revealed. Her eyelids fluttered at their touch, but there was no familiar flash of silvery light, nor any pulse of her godhood soaking my magic in.
I’d been around Diem before when she was recovering from flameroot. Though her magic took days to return in full, I’d always been able to sense her aura, weak but growing.
Today, I felt nothing.
As if she was truly the mortal she’d once believed herself to be.
“You didn’t answer me,” she said. “How long until they’re here?”
I glanced up at the sky, fighting a rising anger at the gods. “Three more days. Maybe four.”
Her eyes squeezed closed.
“I’ll send messenger hawks to the other realms to warn them,” I said.
“He’s interfering with the hawks. Alixe is sending riders instead. She’s calling back our soldiers on the sea, as well.”
“We should get the children somewhere safe.”
“Ophiucae won’t hurt the children.”
“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think.” My tone was more curt than I’d intended, my rage at fate and its cruelty spilling over, and she flinched at its bite. “I only meant . . . are you sure, Diem? Sure enough to risk their lives?”
She paused, then breathed a hoarse “no,” looking as if that answer cost her a great deal to give. She gazed at the merriment spreading through camp. “Maybe I should warn everyone now.”
“We’ve got guards on the borders and coasts, lookouts everywhere, and weapons at the ready. There’s no more that can be done for tonight.”
“So what am I supposed to do, Luther? Let them dance and be happy when death could be days away?”
“You could always join them.”
Her incredulous, almost offended look broke my heart to see. The timing could not be worse for what I had planned, but I was more certain than ever that it needed to happen.
I raised my other palm and fired three quick bursts of light into the clouds. Diem frowned. “Why are you calling Sorae?”