CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
It’s critical, he knows, to handle this well.
Just as he wanted Jules to learn how to bring his own body relief during stress, so he wants his princess to learn she is the master of her body in this way.
Confident swimming requires autonomy, fear management and a whole lot of graceless splashing.
She kicks up, following her instinct to break the surface.
She gasps, grinning wide, and then briefly chokes when water goes in her mouth.
Lachlan chuckles as he scoops her up. ‘My little princess, look at you!’ he declares, so very proud. ‘You’re like a mermaid.’
‘Sharky mermaid,’ she corrects, coughing still, but her enthusiasm is bulletproof and she wriggles determinedly free to dive back in, breath held deep and tight that time.
She learns to swim in less than two hours.
She’s a natural.
?
‘I think she loves you more than me now,’ Jules says one night during a party in mid-August. He’s a little drunk. Endless glasses of champagne keep finding their way into his hands and, really, what else is there to do but drink?
Jules drifts through the ballroom doing exactly what’s expected of him, circulating elegantly beneath the dome while Alistair speaks with Mikhail and Ariadne elsewhere. For the moment, it’s just him and Lachlan.
‘You’re her brother,’ Lachlan says, lighthousing around.
‘She loves you more. She looks to you now, not me.’
Lachlan wants to point out that that’s how it should be for kids.
Normal siblings fight and argue. They don’t feel the need to protect one another and form parental relationships. He wants to say it’s been hard on her, not having Jules around. He wants to say a lot but then Mikhail Sorrenko comes over and asks Jules to dance.
‘I’d love to,’ the boy answers, allowing himself to be spun out onto the floor.
Lachlan takes the opportunity to check in.
‘Control, this is Kestrel. Echo Bay status?’
‘Eight bells, Kestrel. Eyes on confirmed safe.’
The new system holds up well, but Lachlan worries about the strength of it under a real attack like last year. The Moroz Front are known to be relentless.
On his right, the youngest Sorrenko boy is lurking, watching Lachlan. He’s not especially subtle while Roman is dancing with Savannah.
‘Vasily,’ Lachlan greets politely with a nod. ‘You OK?’
‘Y-yes, sorry. I just wanted to say hello.’
Lachlan speaks Russian well enough and could do so now, but he suspects it’ll foster intimacy, so he sticks to English. ‘Hello.’
‘Is it hard?’ the kid asks, then winces, looks like he wants to die.
Lachlan takes pity on him.
‘Security is a difficult sector to manage, yes. Are you having a good night?’
‘Oh, um. Yes. Sort of.’
Not taking the bait, Lachlan keeps his eyes on Jules.
Vasily is a year younger than Jules and Roman barely a year older, yet both Sorrenko brothers look noticeably older than the Penhalyx heir, who is consistently styled to appear younger than he actually is.
‘Control, Cascade is central, can you confirm tracking?’
‘Tracking confirmed, Kestrel.’
It’s more to seem busy than anything else.
Vasily asks, ‘Is that your codename?’
Gaze focused forward, Lachlan answers, ‘Yes.’
Mikhail is making no effort to restrain himself while dancing with Jules. His hands are where they shouldn’t be, too low. Lachlan breathes slow. Counts the rings in a cut-down tree.
One.
Two.
Thr—
‘Would you dance with me?’
Lachlan offers a bland smile. ‘No thank you, Vasily.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m not allowed.’
‘I see. OK, sorry.’
Mikhail Sorrenko dips Jules low, possessive hands lingering, whispers something to him.
Lachlan watches.
He watches when the song ends and Sorrenko cups Jules’ face to kiss the corner of his mouth.
He watches how Jules handles all of it with that glittering smile, so coy, hands on Sorrenko’s shoulders, moving away to go elsewhere.
He watches Sorrenko pursue.
And then Lachlan does the same.
‘Control, Cascade is on the move.’
‘Heard, Kestrel.’
Too many people between Lachlan and Jules, he loses sight, but knew he would. ‘Control, location on Cascade?’
‘Be advised, he’s in the kitchen and Dreadnought followed.’
Lachlan mutters a curse and heads into the kitchens which are hot, bustling and busy. He can’t see any sign of Jules or the older man. One of the head chefs catches his eye and nods to a door.
It leads down to the pantry.
Lachlan silently slips down, heart pounding.
He hears whispering.
What will the punishment be for killing Mikhail Sorrenko? Too severe to contemplate, but Lachlan isn’t certain of his own control anymore.
It’s not like with Pimple-tache.
He finds them in a dark corner of the pantry.
They’re not kissing. They’re not doing anything.
But Jules’ back is against the wall, his gaze shuttered.
Sorrenko hears Lachlan and turns, grinning ruefully. ‘Ah, you caught me, Tanner. I guessed we had thirty seconds, but you made it in twenty-eight. Impressive.’ He kisses Jules’ cheek, says softly, ‘Let me know your thoughts.’
Jules says nothing, stays against the wall.
Lachlan waits until Sorrenko is gone to ask Jules, ‘Did he touch you?’
‘Kissed my cheek.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘No.’
‘Did he—?’
‘Why do you care, Bodyguard?’
‘You’re my responsibility.’
‘Am I?’ It’s so jaded, so disconnected. ‘You don’t seem interested in taking care of me beyond keeping me alive and untouched.’
‘That’s what I’m paid for. What did he say to you?’
‘He asked if I want to go with him when he leaves.’
‘What?’
‘Go with him to Europe for travel. Learn the ropes, see new places.’ The boy’s glittering lids sit at half-mast. ‘He’s going to ask my father.’
‘Let’s go back up now.’
‘I want to stay.’
‘You know you can’t be away for longer than—’
‘Why don’t you kiss me?’
‘Because I don’t want to,’ Lachlan sighs, tired of this before it even starts.
‘Am I not pretty enough for you?’
‘Julian.’
‘Am I not attractive enough?’
‘You’re gorgeous, you little brat, and you absolutely know it. Now get—’
‘Is it because I’m a Paranatural?’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Lachlan comes closer. ‘You’re not a Paranatural. Fenwick had a panic attack. A lot of people are afraid of them. He lost it.’
‘I’d never heard the word before that night.’
‘You don’t exactly move in common circles.’
‘How do you know I’m not?’
‘What you are is a pain in my ass,’ Lachlan informs him, taking hold of his wrist. ‘We’re both going to be in trouble unless you come upstairs.’
‘I want it to be you.’
Lachlan stops but doesn’t let go.
He understands immediately, it’d be impossible not to.
‘You’re a child.’ He knows Jules will argue, so he keeps going. ‘You’re my charge, my responsibility, and we both know you deserve better than me.’
‘I don’t know that, and even if it was true—’
‘It is.’
‘—I won’t get to make the choice anywhere but here.’
Lachlan holds his gaze, stays close.
It’s always such a tightrope with this boy.
‘It can’t be me.’
‘Why not?’
‘Setting aside how I feel—’
‘I’ll make it good for you. Whatever you want.’
‘Don’t you ever say that to anyone,’ Lachlan warns sharply. ‘Don’t debase yourself for someone who should crawl over broken glass just to get near you.’
‘Like you did?’
‘Tungsten isn’t glass, and sex complicates things.’
‘You fucked Fenwick and you hated him.’
‘And it complicated things.’
‘My whole life is complicated.’ Jules makes a strange face, under siege by a flutter of many emotions that have no place to land. ‘I just want to feel something new. Something for me. You can pretend.’
‘Julian, stop it.’
‘You pretended for her when she asked, didn’t you?’
‘That’s not the same.’
‘Because she’s not me?’
‘Listen, when your father leaves in September, I will let you go out. I’ll orchestrate it so you can have some time away from here.’
‘Great, so I get to fuck the first person I see in a club.’
‘It’ll be your choice if that’s what you want.’
‘I want you, Bodyguard.’
‘You can’t have me.’
Jules seems exquisitely caught between hitting Lachlan or arguing harder, but both fizzle and die under the downpour of his own innate melancholy. He masters himself regardless, and disappointment for expecting more seems to be at the root of his watery rot.
‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘If you like Roman, I’ll look the other way.’
‘I don’t like him like that.’ Jules blinks, frowns. ‘Do you?’
‘No.’ He can tell Jules doesn’t buy it. ‘We need to get back.’
‘Fine.’
?
Lachlan has become a master of his adjusted sphere.
He manages these fucking parties so well now. He handles each new element of the gatherings, the people and the security all while keeping eyes on Jules and checking in on Mimi.
But Jules’ behaviour over the last two weeks both improves and nosedives.
In terms of difficulty, it’s a massive improvement.
He’s become impeccably well-behaved. No sneaking out. No back-talk. Nothing. Jules is polite, obedient and eerily docile unless instructed otherwise, but this isn’t improvement, not really.
Jules is just slowly giving up.
He’s lost interest in almost everything.
Lachlan never sees him reading anymore, doesn’t blame him, the books his father gave him were hideous.
He never sees him in the pool anymore, only sunbathing beside it.
He never sees him with Mimi, doesn’t play with her anymore.
Jules never sketches, not even on paper.
He barely eats. He hardly sleeps. Even when he’s with Roman, Vasily and Savannah, he seems so tired.
With the old man micromanaging what was once entirely Lachlan’s domain, there’s little he can do beyond trying to talk to Jules, and even that yields mixed results.
They’re hardly ever alone anymore. If Lachlan tries to speak with him, it’s while moving from one place to another where Jules can feign distraction, and on the rare occasions he does engage, they barely get a moment before someone interrupts.
His father is constantly directing Jules elsewhere. Be with the Sorrenko boys. Take Ariadne walking around the grounds. Sit with Savannah beneath the old oak tree. Be where he wants, how he wants, who he wants.