TWENTY-SIX #3
“Guest. Angela. Not my prisoner, so please stop thinking that.” He released her wrist but did not step back.
She held his gaze. Most people couldn’t, from what she’d observed so far. The guards reported to him with their eyes lowered. Tamarr did it too. It seemed everyone knew the power of his eyes; that if they looked too long, they’d go mad or blind.
But Angela still didn’t look away. “Why am I here?”
Only then did he straighten fully, reclaiming the space of command.
“You asked to be kept informed as part of our treaty agreement.” He turned to face the other men in the room, his voice commanding.
“There has been increased Black Cloak movement…” Zarek tapped on the map spread across the table, written in a way she’d never seen before.
It moved as if alive—not the paper itself, but the wood beneath, its grains rising and reshaping to mirror every contour of the map above, responding to wherever a finger pointed, pulling the land closer or pushing it wide.
It took her a moment to realize they were pointing at her house, her suburb that rose from the paper itself, as if the map was part of the wooden table. Which was impossible, when she could clearly see it was paper.
As Zarek spoke, the others studied her openly while others avoided looking.
Martar, who she’d been introduced to yesterday, looked amused in a way that suggested gossip was alive and well in the Keep.
He was one of the three men who’d stood by her car yesterday, grinning when Zarek threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and whisked her away like some caveman. That grin of his was annoying.
Zarek must have picked up on it, as he cleared his throat and glared at Martar, who physically wiped the grin off his face and focused on the maps.
Zarek continued his briefing. “We have a contact in the mortal realm whose household requires protection while our intelligence operation is active. I want a rotating watch, four-hour intervals that will cover both day and night. Any and all issues about this operation go through me. Questions?”
The room remained silent.
Zarek then nodded at her, as if she understood that they were watching over her aunt, without telling the other men in this room that she was from the mortal realm.
“Thank you.” She opened her mouth to ask—
Zarek moved lightning fast to stand before her, with his voice barely a whisper, “We cannot bring her here. The Accords prohibit mortal relocation.”
Mortal. Ha. What did that make her? A complication in a plum-colored gown and borrowed slippers?
Several sets of eyes cut to her, like she was caught under a spotlight.
It made Zarek position himself in a way she hadn’t expected.
He didn’t step away from her.
Instead, he stepped in as if shielding her.
“If there are concerns over Miss Duboise’s presence while in the Keep,” he said to the other men, his tone carrying the authority of command, “they are mine to answer for.”
The room recalibrated instantly. Attention redirected to Zarek, where no one dared challenge him. But he had aligned himself with her in front of his peers.
Publicly.
Surely, this action would cost him.
But as he stood there, the faintest shimmer of fire stirred beneath the sigils etched into his armor. The flame was so fine it danced across the leather, rippling like ribbons until the staves brightened, and that flame…
His show of authoritative strength—damn, didn’t it make him look sexy the way he stood up to them!
Then he turned, stepping close enough that his body’s warmth brushed the air between them. His voice lowered to such an intimate murmur that when his breath hit the skin where her shoulder and neck met, it prickled with a pleasurable shiver that spread down her spine.
“I’ve kept my part of the treaty.” There was the faintest hint of amusement in his tone, no doubt watching the effects of his words race across her skin. “Now it’s your turn. Off to Magick School you go.”
Asshole.
She couldn’t help but match his grin, which he topped with a quick wink.
For a heartbeat, the captain dissolved, and she saw the man beneath the armor—the one who verbally sparred with her in corridors and chambers, who listened when she demanded answers, who she negotiated with behind bathroom doors, while seeming to enjoy her refusal to be intimidated.
It did unsettling things to her pulse.
Spending time with Zarek had changed something between them. He softened around her, just slightly, as though the armor loosened in her presence. And she, despite every logical instinct screaming caution, looked for the flicker of warmth beneath the severity he showed others.
But the room and this crowd did nothing to soften who he was, as several of the Vanguard officers were intently watching. It made her nervous.
Zarek straightened, and the grin vanished as though it had never existed. The staves etched into his black leathers flared like a ripple across his shoulders. “Tamarr.” The warmth was gone from his voice. “Take Miss Duboise to her classes. I’ll speak with you later, Angela. Go now.”
He did not look at her when he spoke, yet she felt the warning in the flare of his power radiating outward, a reminder to the room to contain their curiosity.
He was being very protective. Over her.
“This way, Miss,” Tamarr said gently.
Angela followed, telling herself it was the politics of the moment that unsettled her—not the way his voice had brushed her ear, or that she’d liked the way he smiled only for her.
So when the door of the war chamber closed behind her, Angela inhaled deeply to embrace the coolness.
Good. Her aunt was being taken care of.
Not good—because her aunt was in danger because of her!
Escorted by Tamarr down the corridors, soldiers stepped aside when she approached. They kept their eyes lowered and shoulders angled away. Some women lingered to watch and whisper behind their hands, adjusting their sleeves that too had silver threads as if drawing attention to their status.
But the gowns were different colors and styles, like a uniform of sorts.
The house staff, like Tamarr, wore white cotton shirts, brown vests, black skirts or trousers with hair tucked beneath scarves or fitted caps.
Soldiers wore gray leather, structured uniforms. After that meeting, she’d noticed the higher the rank, the darker the leather became; the silver buckles multiplied at belts and shoulders, catching torchlight like declarations of authority.
Zarek’s black armor stood apart.
His leathers weren’t merely dark—they were an absolute black, battle-worn, and etched with staves that, when not glowing, absorbed the light. No silver, only scarred and blackened metal. While others displayed rank, Zarek embodied it, that everything about him breathed authority.
“Tamarr, exactly who or what is Captain Zarek in the Vanguard?”
“Why, Miss, he’s our Great Captain and Field Commander. Second only to the Commander, and next in line, should Lord Gellar decide to pass the torch.”
So it was a ranking system embedded not just in titles but in fabric, buckles, color shades, and stitches.
“What about that pair of ladies, back there?” She pointed to the duo obviously gossiping about her, who stopped and stared with wide eyes at being caught. “They have silver embroidered in their cuffs like me. I know I asked before, but what does that mean?”
Tamarr followed her gesture discreetly, careful not to make the glance obvious as the two women pretended they weren’t watching.
“They’re the officers’ wives or daughters, Miss. The silver on their cuffs marks those who are permitted within certain areas of the inner wards of the Keep.”
“Permitted?” Again, Angela studied the silver threads embroidered in her sleeves. “Not ranked?” She had an awful lot more patterning worked into the cuffs. The weave was denser and a lot more complex than what the two women scurrying away had.
“Yours carry identification and protection. Not all those who wear silver threads are allowed access to certain areas…” Tamarr paused, her voice lowered like a whisper, “Like the War Room.”
“So the threads are like keys?” The way her world used keycards or coded locks. Which meant her gown was not simply clothing.
It was clearance.
Which meant the women whispering in the corridor had not been admiring the color of her gown. They had been reading her cuffs.
No wonder those soldiers in the War Room looked at her like some oddity.
It made it seem real, not just about the threat of the Black Cloaks, but with the Vanguard circling her aunt, Zarek’s public defense of her had just painted a target on her back inside the Keep as much as outside it.
She needed to know what she could do to protect herself and her aunt.
So, she would attend school like a child, in hope of answers, and to find a way to go back home.