Chapter 61
Chapter Sixty-One
Ilyas
Rage burned through my veins, though I worked hard not to show it on my face.
This conniving fucking asshole somehow knew that there was a rift between father and son, and he definitely knew that it had been Eric who had put the lawsuit to essentially overthrow the orc king forward.
He’d led my bond mates here to a slaughter.
“I am going to end you,” I growled at him, and Adrik waved a hand like I was a pesky child.
“Oh stop, Ilyas. The king has very kindly agreed not to shed blood on this night.” He stared at the king in question.
Joseph Voight looked like a fly in a bowl of caviar among the gargoyle crowd.
Eric might be an orc, but he oozed intelligent confidence.
He was dashingly handsome in his perfectly tailored tuxedo, his sunstone cufflinks flashing on his wrists.
In comparison, his father was in a tattered leather jacket and dark jeans stained with what was hopefully motor oil but was probably blood.
His hair was greasy, and his tusks were yellow.
There was an air of barely restrained violence around the orc king, and I hoped he’d snap and tear the head off the key to my former flight.
The king leaned back in his chair. “Of course. We are nothing if not polite guests.”
Eric scoffed his derision but sat down opposite his father as if his presence wasn’t a direct threat. “Father. Good to see you breaking your own rules yet again.” He gave the king a sharp-toothed smile.
“You’re no son of mine,” he growled.
Eric rolled his eyes. “If only that were true.” Otis sat down directly beside Eric, closest to the orcs, and Hailey was positioned between Syke and Louis. I took my place at the head of the table, opposite the key, who sat at the other end.
Dinner was served, and I watched as the staff hesitantly placed plates in front of the orcs. One of the king’s guards reached up and squeezed the ass of a cat shifter, and she squeaked and danced away as the orc chuckled.
I growled low in his direction, and he smirked at me. “Keep your hands to your fucking self, or I’ll cut them off,” I snarled. It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise.
The orc enforcer’s eyes just gleamed with malice.
“A busy week for both of your groups, wouldn’t you say?” the key remarked, his eyes dancing with delight. “Terrible stuff, that riot.”
The king inclined his head. “Yes. The offenders have been dealt with.”
Eric scoffed. “Dealt a bag of cocaine, perhaps.”
The king’s eyes turned to Eric, and the venom in them made my claws extend. I would remove this fucker’s head from his body if he made a move, king be damned. “The clan is none of your business anymore, faggot. Keep your mouth shut.”
Eric leaned forward. “It must burn, Father, to know your little submissive son is about to take your fucking crown from you.”
“Not if I strangle the life from you first,” he spat back.
Leaning back in his chair, Eric laughed. “You always were stupid. There’s no stopping it now. Even if you kill me, it’s before the Supreme Council. It will be argued and pursued, and you will remove your boot from the throats of the orc population.”
“I will squish you like a fucking—”
“Gentlemen!” the key interrupted, his face pinched, like he was only just realizing he’d bitten off more than he could chew. “Let’s leave politics out of the pleasant dinner conversation, shall we?”
One of the enforcers grunted in Eric’s direction. “Pretty little human mate you have there. Freddie must not have been all that special after all. I like my fucks a little less breakable.” He looked up, stabbing a potato with his knife and putting it to his lips. “But humans break so good.”
Syke’s shadows swarmed over the table, the threat clear. The whole time, Hailey smiled and ate her steak, showing no weakness to the orcs or the gargoyles. She was secure in her knowledge that we would protect her, and it was a heady trust to possess.
“You’d know about breaking things,” Eric replied congenially. “Does the key know about the gargoyle teen you got addicted to heroin, and then when he couldn’t pay, you pulled his wings off?” His tone was light, but his eyes were steely as he gazed upon the men who’d made his life miserable.
The whole party screeched to a halt. We all knew the boy he referred to—a troubled kid whose parents had all but ignored him, as was the gargoyle way.
The flight had considered him defective, and when he disappeared, they’d declared him a runaway.
I knew his mother and father still mourned his disappearance, even if they had been shitty parents to him.
If what Eric said was true, then he hadn’t run away. I looked into the dirty brown eyes of the orc king, who held no trace of his son in his features. Even the key’s facade of polite hospitality dropped.
This had been Eric’s ace in the hole. This was why he was so good at his job. “He lies,” the king protested. “He’s a lawyer. That’s their job.”
Eric stood, and I stood with him. “Remember, Your Majesty,” Eric said mockingly, “that I know where all the bodies are buried. Come for me, and there is nothing you can do or say that will keep you from rotting in a prison cell.”
He looked toward me, and I wondered if it was wrong that my dick was hard right now.
Hailey also stood, her polite smile a little too sharp to be congenial.
“I think it might be best to end this night early.” She turned to the key.
“Thank you for the party and the invitation. I hope, in time, that everything becomes a little less tense, and Ilyas is free to move among his family and his people.” She leaned closer, her hands on the table, my bond mark fully on display to all those gathered.
“But make no mistake. He is mine, and I will fight for him because he is more than a saleable good. He deserves love, kindness, and empathy. He deserves a choice. They all do. I hope you feel like you achieved something tonight, other than letting wolves into your henhouse.” She stood tall.
“I hope you find your missing gargoyle boy. No one deserves to be lost without hope of ever being found.”
I was going to fuck them both on every available surface when we returned home. I scraped my chair out, unfurling my wings. I didn’t say anything, just waited for Otis to lead Eric and Hailey out while Louis and Syke lingered, searching for a double cross.
Syke stayed back, his eyes bouncing around. “I don’t trust the orcs not to have an ambush ready,” he murmured quietly, and I grunted my agreement.
“Go,” I told him softly, and Syke grinned as he dragged all the shadows in the room to him, swirling them around his body theatrically and then disappearing.
Startled gasps and little screeches of panic surged through the room, and I glared at the people who were my kin.
Syke was powerful, more powerful than I thought Hailey could properly comprehend.
It was a miracle he worked for the Creature Crisis Center at all and that he curbed those powers to keep people safe.
Syke was not a good person, though, despite his sense of morality. He would murder you in your sleep if you harmed someone weaker than you and then get an ice cream.
I met the eyes of as many members as I could as we walked out of the ballroom. Let them see what we would do if pushed. Let them see the violence that I also kept reined in.
Otis’s eyes scanned the buildings around us as the valet—a werewolf—appeared with the car. Louis ushered Eric and Hailey into the back seat, tipping the werewolf kid then climbing in after them. Finally, Otis got into the driver’s seat, and I hopped into the passenger side at the last moment.
We pulled out of the large, circular driveway and onto the road, and I watched the mirrors, waiting for… something.
“Where’s Syke?” Hailey asked, looking over her shoulder out the back window.
“Checking for an ambush. He’ll be fine, little hailstorm. Orcs aren’t nearly strong enough to take on a demon like Syke.”
Eric snorted. “Amen to that.” He slumped back into the seat, pulling Hailey tighter to his chest, then he closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath through his aquiline nose. “Well, that was fun. I hate to break it to you, Ilyas, but I don’t think your family likes us.”
I huffed a bitter laugh. “You’re my family,” I told him, and his brilliant violet eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “They don’t matter. I’ve done my part now, the rest is up to them.”
Hailey reached out, and I slid my hand back toward hers. She gripped my fingers tightly. “We’ll love and appreciate you more than they ever did. Forever.”
Forever was a funny concept.
Forever wasn’t a tangible thing. It could be decades or the mere moments between a busted up school bus running the red light and ramming our SUV.
Forever could be the handful of seconds as the SUV flipped end over end before landing on its roof.
Forever could be the moment between Hailey’s fingers being in mine and then emptiness.
We all hung from our seatbelts, stunned.
“Hailey?” Louis called. “Hailey!”
I turned in my seat, looking for my mate, preparing to see her injured, broken human body, but when I turned around, she was gone. Her seatbelt was still belted, but she was nowhere to be seen. Louis was scrambling around on his hands and knees, but she was no longer inside the car.
Her hand had just been in mine, and now she was gone.