Emily whispered something into Chevalier’s ear.
Chevalier frowned, “What do you mean voyeurism?”
Emily blushed and whispered more into his ear.
“You watched her shower?” Quinn growled. Emily blushed deeper when she realized the Council could hear what she whispered into Chevalier’s ear.
Emily covered her face with her hands, but Chevalier pulled them down gently, “You have no reason to be embarrassed.”
“I had reasons for that too! I had reasons for everything,” Damon said, scowling at Emily.
“Oh, this should be good,” Zohn said.
“Control, if she no longer felt she had even a shred of privacy… then she would constantly behave. It’s all psychological.” Damon grinned.
“Can you explain why you felt the need to kiss her?” Maleth asked, ignoring his defense about the spying.
“Again, proving her obedience,” Damon said.
“Are there other charges?” Quinn asked.
“Child abuse and neglect,” Emily said softly.
“That baby is weak. She needs to be toughened up and learn the hard facts of life,” Damon said, scowling. “I did her a favor.”
Emily pushed off to stand up, but Chevalier held her back, “Calm down, Killer.”
Maleth sighed, “I suppose there’s no reason to deny that we are also filing charges against you for abuse of a council member.”
“What abuse?” Damon asked.
“By the look of Emily’s arm, I think that would be obvious.”
“That? She’s not a member of the Council. She’s just a mortal who…” Damon thought.
“Is kept in the palace so the Elder has a fuck any time he wants?” Emily asked, and ignored the gasps from the Council. “Isn’t that what you told me in Paris?”
Damon glared at her, “Well it’s true. No one else has ever brought a mortal into the palace. Why else if not for an easy lay?”
Emily took Chevalier’s hands and wrapped them around her waist when he began to tense and growl.
“Well… this just gets better and better,” Zohn said, irritated.
“I think that’s more than enough charges to decide on a punishment,” Maleth said, his eye were furious.
“If anyone finds Damon not-guilty on any charges… speak now,” Quinn said.
Damon turned a pleading eye to Zohn, but found him sitting silently and watching him.
“You can’t do this! Am I the only one that sees her for what she is? A spoiled brat, the sex kitten for an Elder, and for that she’s granted complete immunity from all rules?” Damon yelled.
“Am I your sex kitten?” Emily asked Chevalier.
“Most definitely,” Chevalier chuckled.
Damon scowled at her.
“I am still owed a debt of gratitude for the sugar pills and the order for a baby. I’ve given you the chance for more Winchester children.” Damon grinned when Emily glared at him.
“You… you did that without council approval?” Maleth asked, frowning.
“Yes and now she’s pregnant, and you can have what she has denied you, more Winchesters,” Damon was smiling.
“I’m not pregnant, you moron, I had the flu,” Emily told him.
Damon looked at her, furiously.
“If no one finds any reason to hold the punishment, then we will discuss and return to you with our answer soon,” Maleth said to Damon and he was hauled away to the prison cells.
“I have something I need to do, and punishment’s not really my thing,” Emily said. She stood up and walked down the stairs and out through the trial room doors. She felt all eyes on her and wanted nothing more than to change. She already made her point to Damon.
Chevalier cleared his throat when he saw the entire Council watching Emily leave. They all looked at him apologetically.
Kyle took a moment to compose himself, and then spoke, “Banishment is the usual punishment for a former member of the Council.”
“Yes, but I get him first… in the interrogation room,” Chevalier said ominously.
Maleth nodded, “That sounds fair to me.”
“Let’s give the Elder a week to do with Damon as he wishes, and then Kyle will banish him to the ground for six hundred years,” Quinn suggested.
Kyle nodded.
“Set up the coronation for tomorrow night, let’s make it official as soon as possible,” Maleth said.
Chevalier left to go check on Emily, and was followed by Kyle.
Quinn smiled when the Elder and Kyle left, “That was interesting.”
“Damn,” Zohn said, and laughed.
“Makes me want to go find a mortal.” Maleth grinned.
“You do realize, that the Valle and Encala still think Emily is pregnant,” Quinn said, more seriously.
Zohn looked over at the Elders, “I forgot about that.”
“Let them believe it. It doesn’t really matter,” Maleth said, and adjourned the Council for the day.
“Have you seen that outfit before, Sir?” Kyle asked, grinning.
Chevalier laughed, “No I have not, though I hope to see it again.”
“The look on Damon’s face was priceless.”
“Yes it was, wait until the look on his face when I get him alone.”
“After the coronation… why don’t I take Em to the island for a few days, that way you don’t have to worry about hurrying?” Kyle suggested.
“That… is perfect, thank you,” Chevalier said, and looked around the empty bedroom. The leather outfit was lying on the couch and he ran his fingers over it.
“Oh, excuse me, Sir,” one of the Cavalry said. “I just wanted to see if the Lady found the sledgehammer she asked for.”
Chevalier raised an eyebrow, “Why did she need a sledgehammer?”
The guard shrugged, “Sorry, I don’t know. Mark took her down to the stables though.”
The guard blurred to the stables, followed by Kyle and Chevalier. They stopped just outside the door by Mark.
“What’s she doing?” Chevalier asked.
“She won’t let me help… it’s making me nervous,” Mark said. Ford was running around the yard eagerly. He had been chained up inside the stables for weeks and had a lot of energy to burn.
The heku watched as Emily hit the locks on the horse’s stalls with the sledgehammer. She’d already worked up a good sweat and so far managed to knock almost a quarter of the locks off. Emily would take aim, scream, and slam the sledgehammer into the lock, repeating until it fell off.
On the last stall of the row, Emily leaned back against the stall, trying to catch her breath. She grinned when Chevalier, Mark, and Kyle walked past her and easily broke the locks with their hands. She got a rope and led each horse out into the corral to get some fresh air and exercise.
“Damnit, Damon,” Emily growled, and started dumping out the water in all of the stalls. She pulled the hose out and put fresh water in for each of the horses as the heku poured them all fresh food.
Emily grabbed a pitchfork and started to muck out Patra’s stall. She was completely covered in sweat and her clothes were dirty and caked with straw and horse manure.
“Are you going to muck all of them?” Chevalier asked from behind her.
Emily didn’t even look up, “Nothing’s been done and this place is disgusting.”
“Fine, then I’ll help,” he said, and headed into the storage room.
“No, I got it. It feels good to do something,” Emily said, piling new, clean straw into Patra’s stall.
Chevalier nodded and then leaned back and watched her. He had her dinner delivered out to the stables, “Come eat.”
Emily washed her hands in the hose and grabbed a sandwich, sitting down on a bale of hay to eat.
“Kyle and Mark’s coronation is tomorrow, after that, Kyle was wondering if he could take you to the island for some R&R,” Chevalier told her.
Emily nodded, “Sure, it’d be nice to get away. Can’t you go?”
> “No, I have some things I need to do here.”
“Ugh, another coronation.”
“I figured you can wear your new leather dress, if that’s what you want to call it,” Chevalier chuckled.
“Oh that’d go over well. I think I’ll stick with a formal.”
Emily got back up and started to clean out the other stall. By midnight, she was moving slowly and her arms were tired and sore. Chevalier returned the horses to their stalls, except for the one she was working on currently. She threw clean straw into it and leaned back.
“I think that’s enough for the day,” Chevalier said, and took the pitchfork from her after he put the horse away.
Emily took Chevalier’s hand and he led her into the palace and up the stairs. She moved slowly from the work in the stables, so he slowed to match her pace.
Emily kissed Alexis good night and went into the bathroom. She froze when she saw the shower, with its clear glass doors. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and the bathroom seemed large and open.
“He’s not here,” Chevalier said, kissing the back of her head.
“I know but...”
“Will it help if I join you?” Chevalier grinned and pulled her shirt off over her head, tossing it into the corner.
“Maybe…” Emily said, and unbuttoned his shirt.
***
“Get away from them!” Emily screamed at the Encala. They were approaching her slowly, their red capes blowing in the wind.
“You can’t kill us all,” Vaughn said, smiling.
Emily turned and looked behind her. Thousands of Equites were gathered behind her and cowered away from the approaching army.
“I can try,” Emily said to him, angrily.
“You’re just a mortal. One gun can’t kill us all,” Vaughn laughed.
Emily looked at her hand, and all she had was a single bullet in a small revolver. She glanced again at the terrified Equites behind her, and then turned back to Vaughn.
“I’m warning you. I don’t have to kill all of the Encala… just you,” Emily said, and leveled the gun at Vaughn.
“You can’t kill me with a gun. I thought you were smarter than that,” Vaughn said.
“She’s not smart at all,” Keith said from beside Vaughn.
As the Encala jumped at Emily, she jerked awake and sat up, out of breath.
“Em, why are you always trying to protect us?” Chevalier chuckled.
She looked around the room as her heart slowed back down. When she saw that everything was as it should be, she curled up next to Chevalier.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, and yawned into her hand.
Chevalier grinned and shut his eye as he picked up the swirls from Emily’s sleeping mind. He woke just before dawn and dressed quickly, heading down to check on the coronation preparations.
Emily woke up suddenly when he felt she was alone and looked around the room. She put on a nightgown and poured herself some coffee from the steaming pot on the table. Alexis ran out a few minutes later and crawled into Emily’s lap. She dug into the strawberry crepes as Emily ran her finger through the baby’s hair and watched the fire.
“Daddy?” Alexis asked, and Emily saw she was covered in sticky strawberry juice.
“After a bath,” she said, and went into the bathroom to run a bath for the toddler. Emily had her cleaned up quickly and threw another ruffled dress on her.
Emily pulled on clean jeans and a t-shirt, and walked Alexis out the door. Silas picked Alexis up and followed Emily and her two guards down to the council chambers. She peeked in, but the room was empty.
“Coronation room?” Silas suggested.
Emily walked in and saw hundreds of heku cleaning and putting up Equites banners and green embellishments. The three Elders were in their chairs discussing something. Alexis and Silas headed for the Elders while Emily watched the heku above her. He was perched precariously on the edge of a ladder that was leaned against the wall almost thirty feet from the floor.
Emily and her guards ducked when he dropped a hammer and it landed beside them. She stood up and grabbed the hammer, and then headed up the ladder. The heku looked nervously toward the Elder as she approached him.
“Thank you, Ma’am,” he said, and took the hammer when she handed it over.
“Let me hold it for you, it’ll go faster,” Emily suggested, and leaned away from the ladder to hold the banner to the wall while the heku hammered it in place.
“Seriously, Lady Emily, must you do that?” her guard asked nervously.
Chevalier picked Alexis up and threw her into the air before hugging her, “Good morning, Princess.”
Silas fell in behind the Elder and watched his little charge.
“Where’s your Mom?” Chevalier asked, looking over the great hall.
“Es Mommy,” Alexis said, pointing up high.
“We’ll wait for her.” Chevalier grinned, and kissed her on the forehead.
“Actually, is that Emily up there?” Quinn asked, pointing to a small figure up on a ladder.
Chevalier sighed, “Why is she up there?”
Silas shrugged, “I have no idea, Sir. When we left, she was on the ground.”
“Looks like she’s helping,” Maleth chuckled.
“I’m just… not going to look. If she falls… call an ambulance,” Chevalier said, and turned back to Alexis.
A few minutes later, Maleth looked over to the other end of the coronation room and grinned, “She’s down, you can look.”
Chevalier watched as Emily made her way to him. He couldn’t help but smile at the terrified look on her guard’s faces. Alexis put her hands up for Silas, and he picked her up just as Emily arrived at them.
“It’s looking good,” she said, looking around.
Chevalier smiled reassuringly at her guards, “Please stay off of the ladders, mortal blood would stain the green carpets.”
“Ha-ha,” Emily said, and sat down on Chevalier’s lap.
“Mommy, tookies!” Alexis yelled.
“Oh that’s right, we’re going to make cookies,” Emily said, and stood up.
“Aww man, that stuff smells so bad,” Silas joked.
“Stop complaining, you can always stay here.” Emily started up the aisle followed by her two guards and Silas carrying Alexis.
“How is she?” Maleth asked, when she was far enough away she wouldn’t hear.
“She’s ok, had a small incident in the bathroom, but I’m having curtains installed in the shower so no one can see in.”
“Disgusting is what that is,” Quinn glared.
“I can see it,” Maleth said, and then spoke quickly when Chevalier glared at him. “What I mean is, he obviously had feelings for her, and when we gave him power, he abused it to get closer to her.”
“Really makes you wonder what all happened in Paris the night she and Damon got into a fight,” Quinn said.
Chevalier nodded and then frowned when he saw Alexis running down the aisle toward them, alone.
A loud crash came from the foyer and the Elders blurred through the Great Hall. Chevalier grabbed Alexis as he passed her. They stopped when they reached the foyer and Chevalier growled.
Emily’s two guards, Silas, and the two door guards were standing in a line facing a group of seven Encala, and all of them were crouched low. Just as the Elders started for the face-off, Emily jumped in front of the guards with her arms out and the Encala turned to ash in front of the shattered front doors.
“Damnit, Em,” Chevalier said, and ran to her as she wiped the blood from her nose.
“What?” she asked, turning around.
“Child, we don’t give you bodyguards so you can protect them,” Maleth sighed.
“We outnumbered them!” the door guard said angrily.
Emily sat down on the stairs and held her nose to stop the bleeding. She opted to not react to the headache. She could take some ibuprofen later when no one was watching.
“Did they say why they
were here?” Quinn asked, looking at the door.
“They started to, but the second they saw the Lady, they fell into attack. We had them, Sir, I swear,” Emily’s guard growled.
“I’m sorry, ok?” Emily said, and leaned her head back.
“Are you ok?” Chevalier asked, his voice started to sound angry.
“I’m fine,” Emily said, and stood up to pick up Alexis. The second her hands left her nose, it started to bleed again. She headed up the stairs with the baby in one arm, and held her nose with her free hand.
“Why do we even guard her?” one of the newer guards asked angrily.
“Because one of these days… she’s going stop trying to protect the heku and let us protect her,” Chevalier hissed.
“It’s humiliating… to be protected by a mortal,” her guard hissed, and headed up after her.
Silas sighed and ran up after them.
“Damn, how do I get her to stop trying to protect us?” Chevalier asked Maleth and Quinn.
“Maybe we never will. The guard has a point though, why exactly are they there?” Quinn asked.
“Just… keep them with her,” Chevalier growled, and walked up the stairs.
“She’s napping,” Silas said as he headed back down with Alexis. “Lexi and I are going for ice cream, it seems.”
“How’s she napping? She just barely got up?”
“I don’t know, maybe she’s hiding the headache she obviously has.”
“Of course.” Chevalier blurred up the stairs and into the bedroom.
Emily was taking some ibuprofen as he watched her. She turned suddenly when he shut the door and swallowed the pills dry.
“Don’t be mad, ok? I didn’t think,” Emily said softly.
“I just wish you would let the guards do their jobs. They live for the fight, and you took it. By now, the Encala would still be dead, but you wouldn’t be suffering and the guards would have a natural predatory high,” he said, sitting down on the bed.
“I just need a nap,” Emily whispered, and laid down on the bed.
Chevalier watched as she fell asleep and then went back down to the Great Hall when she was in a deep peaceful sleep. He sat down on the chair with the other Elders and watched the finishing of the decorations. He kept quiet while Maleth and Quinn visited.
***
Emily came down just before the coronation started and took her place beside Chevalier’s chair. He could tell she didn’t feel well, and the dark blue slip dress accentuated her pale complexion and the weight loss from the past few weeks. She stood silently beside him and watched as the heku gathered. He noticed she wasn’t commenting about the looks she was getting, and he looked up at her several times to make sure she wasn’t about to pass out.
Equites : Book 4 of the Heku Series Page 39