29. Elhyor
29
Elhyor
I ’ve had a shitty day, and that is putting it lightly.
I didn’t leave my office last night, and then I was behind my desk at first light again today.
I’ve been plotting, counting, making plans, and destroying them all the same.
My mind hasn’t stopped swirling with her last words.
“If you’re not happy with his handiwork, you can tell him yourself in three days.”
Her father, the one person who should have been protecting her.
He’s the one who tortured her the most.
I can’t forget the way she looked at me when I told her I was sending her back to her father.
It’s haunting me, even when I close my eyes.
Those dark blue eyes were all but begging me to reconsider, pleading that she hadn’t heard me right.
I did this.
Somehow, it feels like I made her attack me.
That might be why I couldn’t find it in me to lock her up in her room. Not that it changed anything. She hasn’t moved from there since she left the attack scene.
It’s been cleaned in the meantime, but each time I leave my office to grab something to eat or just get a few hours of sleep, I don’t miss the two indents I made with her daggers on the cross.
And I hate myself for those.
At least we got the doctor in time. René called me afterwards, saying that she should be alright, as long as she didn’t overuse her hand over the next couple of days.
There’s been no noise coming from her room that would indicate that she’s been doing anything other than sleep, maybe read, or watch something on the computer that’s in her room, so I’m not too concerned about her hand.
I’m more concerned about what I’m going to do with her.
Knowing what he did to her, I can’t send her back to him.
But what does it leave me with?
Because I don’t think Micha?l will let me keep her if I don’t marry her, after all.
I’ve been trying to avoid her at all costs, so that my dragon’s instincts can be kept in check, but I don’t see any other way now.
What I’ve been trying to avoid for the past week might be the only thing that would save her.
I don’t need a wife in my life. I don’t even need a woman.
I’ve seen what it did to my father when we lost my mother. I’ve seen how her loss drove him to madness and then to taking his own life.
I don’t want that for myself.
But I’m not even sure it would happen with Angélique.
Am I willing to risk her safety on what-ifs?
Angélique isn’t like my mother, though. She isn’t human. She might not be able to shift, but she still has shifter genetics, or else René’s spray wouldn’t have worked so well.
I thought she was like a porcelain doll that would break at the first sign of hardship, but she proved to me that it isn’t true. She doesn’t break; she retaliates.
And now, I have a decision to make.
There is a tentative knock on my door.
“Enter,” I say without lifting my eyes.
I’ve been studying Versailles’ inner plans. I’m not planning on invading it to kill her father—even if that thought actually crossed my mind several times in the past hours—but I needed something to focus on when my mind started to swirl, and that’s what I came up with.
“Elhyor?”
I’m surprised to see Cassiopé in my office. It’s not usually a place she likes to be. There’s too much light coming from the colored windows, and it doesn’t hold any of her precious books, either.
“What can I do for you, little Cass?”
She might be the only person in the whole of Notre Dame to whom I speak so softly. I watched her grow up, and she might be an adult now, but in my heart, she’ll always be my baby niece.
A baby niece who is older than Angélique… Angélique, who I am getting closer and closer to finally deciding to marry…
I shake my head.
I need to focus on Cassiopé, not on what could be with Angélique.
“It’s a little difficult,” she says as she fidgets with the bottom of her shirt. I see her take a huge breath, and then it’s like I can’t stop her anymore. “Angélique has been sent to kill you. She was supposed to marry you, to get you in bed and then finish you off. But you can’t hold that against her,” she adds as she holds a hand up in a way that makes me think she wants me to let her talk. She doesn’t pause, though, so it’s not like I can really talk over what she’s saying. “They have her best friend. Micha?l has gone rogue and has poisoned Gabriel and kidnapped Léandre. He’s the bargaining chip, so if she doesn’t comply, something horrible will happen to him. There’s no clue as to what he will do to him, or even to her, if she doesn’t kill you, but from the sight of her back, I can only guess that it won’t be pretty.”
Fuck.
That doesn’t sound good.
I take a minute to think before I answer.
Weirdly, it’s all making sense.
Micha?l refused to step down last year, and now, with this last piece coming together with the rest, I can see the whole image clearly.
From what I heard from the gossip mill, Gabriel is the only one who is still holding on against Micha?l. Rapha?l is as mean as his animal—a swan—and always sides with Micha?l, so it’s not surprising that Micha?l wants Gabriel out.
But the son, too?
Maybe those plans to infiltrate Versailles weren’t so stupid after all.
“You’re not going to punish her, right?” Cassiopé asks.
That’s when I see the smoke escaping my nostrils. It has started to fill my office, and I didn’t even see or smell it.
I should be surprised, but I’m starting to think my dragon has a mind of its own and has decided we should keep Angélique.
”I’m not going to punish her,” I say with barely contained rage. “I haven’t decided anything about her father, though.”
“Good,” Cassiopé says before she grabs the side of my door. “Maybe you should let her know,” she adds before letting herself out and leaving me to drown in my rage.