by Ada Harper
“No one said anything about love—”
“I’ll throw in an extra pistol and a contact in the Walls.”
Olivia’s stomach twisted at the words, but it seemed like too good a deal. She preferred not to think how the Empire’s spymaster had contacts in the Walls. “Fine—”
“Lie to me, even try to lie to me—” Lyre ticked a finger “—and I’ll deliver you to the empress trussed up in a burlap bag.”
Olivia pursed her lips. It wasn’t as if it would make her situation any worse. “Fine.”
“Goodie.” Lyre clapped her hands. “First question. Why aren’t we dead?”
“What?”
“If you say that after every question, kitten, we’re going to be here all night. I’ve obviously heard the tale of how you ran into him in the first place. By your own words, you were supposed to kill him. To hear Galen tell it, you had him dead to rights. What stopped you?”
Olivia’s lips parted. “He convinced me that I needed him as a hostage to escape.”
“Strike one.”
“What?”
“Strike one. Shall I fetch the sack?”
“That wasn’t a lie!”
“But was it the truth?” Lyre tilted her head.
Olivia’s lip curled, ready for a rude answer, but the look in Lyre’s eyes made her stop.
“Fine. I...tried. But I couldn’t. I lined up the shot but... I physically couldn’t. It made me nauseous. I thought it was the heat or exhaustion, at first. I figured I’d use him as a hostage, trade or shoot him once I got to the border but...” Olivia’s shoulders curled uneasily. “And then later I just...didn’t want to.”
“You looked pretty comfortable with shooting me when I showed up.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes. “I still could. Is that your second question?”
“Just an observation. See, kitten, that’s what I do: observe. And I’ve observed a lot of things. Like how you’re not exactly a trusting person yourself, but somehow you show up working in tandem with a man you were supposed to kill. An altus man, when I hear you got a hate-on for altusii. A rich noble, when you do anything for coin. And I observe how both of you follow each other like you’re pulled on a string. I observe, kitten. And my observation is that you need to admit how deep you’re in this.”
Olivia forced air through her teeth, eyes feeling suddenly too hot. She didn’t argue, couldn’t argue because it hurt. The ache in her chest was a clawing, deepening thing, and no matter how much she clasped at it, trying to close the wound, it pulled open, pulled her. The instinct to trust was inherently mistrustful because it was never just that easy and gods, Olivia was screwed.
Lyre shrugged. “You feel drawn to him. No biggie. It’s natural. He cleans up all right and that pheromone bond is a bitch.” And then, before Olivia could open her mouth, Lyre turned it into a question. “Unless it’s more than that?”
Olivia’s mouth snapped shut. Lyre’s smile grew and she slid off the crate to saunter forward. She leaned into Olivia’s space.
“Silence is cheating, kitten. I’m getting bored and I’ve got one more question.”
Olivia scowled. “What?”
“More of a challenge, really.” Lyre leaned down. “Go ahead. Tell me you don’t know who’s been waiting on the other side of that door for three minutes now.”
“Galen,” Olivia breathed and half turned. She wanted to say it was a stupid question—who else would know they were here, who would wait for her... But that wasn’t why she knew it was Galen. It wasn’t why she felt the hum and heat of stone and sunshine in her chest, warming over the hurt. It was like a compass, pointing to magnetic north. Galen was always a certainty in her mind, at the edges of her nerves. Galen was a certainty and that terrified her.
Lyre chuckled as she passed her. “Got it in one, kitten.”
Olivia stared at the crate in front of her as the door clattered open and closed. Stared at it as she heard a muted footstep into the room. Stared as the car rocked in silence. The sigh behind her said he was not going to do the job of breaking the silence first, for once.
Olivia pulled together the shreds of her resolve and turned. “I didn’t know Lyre was teaching you to be a spy now. How much did you hear?”
“Enough.” There was a smile Galen couldn’t seem to keep off his face, which was both guilty and pleased.
“Ugh.” Olivia braced herself against the boxes to her back and hugged her arms to her chest. She felt off-kilter, unbalanced in ways she didn’t know how to fix. She gave him a narrow look. “You send your Imperial spymaster to make all your love confessions?”
Galen’s eyes widened. “That wasn’t—I meant, when the time was right—I didn’t mean it like that.” His brows twitched, expression morphing into something boyish and hopeful that sent nonsense fluttering through her chest. He took a step forward. “Though it could be if—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. So when were you even going to tell me? Was this your plan? Wait until I’m nice and vulnerable? Swoop in and look for the opportunity of my life exploding to coax me into coming with you?”
Color drained out of Galen’s face. “Absolutely not. No—Liv, I never lied to you. I just want to help.”
“Help. Because of our bond.”
“We do make a good team,” Galen offered.
“You try to marry all your teammates? That must make the Imperial military complicated.”
“An affinity isn’t always a romantic relationship,” Galen said cautiously. “Affinities can strengthen combat units, family ties, friendships—”
No, hell no, if Lyre was going to force her to be honest, she was going to inflict the same treatment on Galen. It only seemed fair. Olivia’s eyes narrowed. She stalked into his personal space. “Platonic.” Her voice dropped, and she was close enough to feel the heat of him, feel his breath stutter. “That’s what you’re feeling?”
Galen appeared to stop breathing. His eyes dropped to her mouth, and when he brought them up again they’d darkened with intent. He licked his lips before answering heavily. “No. It’s not.”
Satisfaction welled up in her, a purr sparked with interest. She leaned back, not quite retreating out of his space yet. “If you want me to listen to you, then you need to be honest about what you really want here, Galen.”
“I want you.” He said it so simply, easily. The bluntness of it sent Olivia back a step. He followed. “I want to win this war, I want to crush these conspirators that threaten us, I want to protect my country, and I want you.” He paused, face softening. “What do you want?”
“I want...” Olivia stopped, trying to field her thoughts. “I want to have a choice.”
Thick brows knit. “Of course you do.”
“And if I choose no?”
Hope crumbled, just in his eyes. Galen swallowed. “Then I’ll still help you. You can leave when this mess is sorted out and...with enough time and distance, quite a lot of time and distance, the chemical effects of the bond would fade.”
“And you would be okay with that,” Olivia said.
“I would not be okay,” Galen admitted quietly. He dropped his gaze. “But I would survive, if it meant you were well.”
The quiet in his voice sent a tremor through her, cracks forming. The train swayed, she with it. She didn’t know why she spoke the next thought. “I would be a horrible mate.”
Galen looked up. “How so?”
“I’m Syndicate. I’ve got shit for manners. I’m not an easy person. I’m paranoid and mean and selfish. I’m not...experienced, with much of anything, least of all at being at ease. It would be horrible. Two weeks stuck with me, it’d implode.”
“It took less than two weeks to convince me of the opposite, if you’ll recall.” Galen’s shoulders eased. He studied her face like a battlefield. “Prove it.”
Olivia blinked. “What?
”
“Prove it. Honest, Olivia, I’m not a fool. I know we have a war to put down and a conspiracy to rip apart before I can do anything about my feelings. That should take a week. Maybe two.” The Red Wolf confidence returned, and this time when Galen smiled he seemed to fill up the whole car with light. He carefully reached out and clasped her hand. His thumb rubbed along her pulse. “So take that time to prove it. Come to Ameranthe. Be your worst. Be crude. Be Syndicate. Be suspicious. Show me all your thorns and inexperience and ugly parts, don’t hold anything back. And if you prove it ‘implodes’ as you say, I will wish you well. But—” He lifted her hand to his lips but didn’t kiss it. His breath shivered over her knuckles. “But if instead you decide to stay, I want permission to take everything you are, good and bad. I won’t let you go again.”
Olivia rallied one argument, then another to her tongue. But each time, they just couldn’t make it past her lips. She found herself fascinated by the small gap of air between Galen’s lips and her skin. She felt herself falling into that tiny space. This was impossible, doomed to failure, but then that’d been her entire life. She was always falling, but Galen always looked at her like she had wings. “What kind of proof do you have in mind?”
His fingers tightened around hers, his head darted down and caught her lips, swallowing the surprised sound Olivia made. The kiss was quick, decisive and light, before relaxing into a soft and sure indulgence.
Galen pulled back, and Olivia huffed with reddening cheeks. “What the hell was that?”
Galen licked his lips, distracted. “For proof.”
Olivia tugged her hand free, trying to work up displeasure around the warmth in her gut. “What happened to I’ll ask first?”
“I will, until you tell me to stop asking.” Galen’s smile tilted on its edges, devastating and pleased. “But now we’re even.”
And Olivia was always falling around Galen.
Chapter Fifteen
The city of Chrysanthine was a familiar glitter of lights out the shuttle window. After managing to convince Olivia not to abandon him, crossing the border had been rather uneventful in comparison. Beside Galen, Olivia pressed her cheek to the glass with barely concealed curiosity. He tried and failed to see it through her eyes. The familiar cobble of tall spires and old patinated copper tile was too close to his heart. He could compare it to the Syndicate, however. He had a new appreciation for the wide boulevard they were passing over now. Chrysanthine had its share of crowded tenements and old quarters, but land was cheap here. Everything spread out a bit more, more breathing room. Nothing like the Cauldron district Olivia had called home. Galen wasn’t sure how anyone breathed in the Syndicate.
Olivia took a breath now, seeming to mirror his thoughts. “Gods, it’s like you gave a toddler building blocks and glue.”
Well, not quite his thoughts.
Galen huffed. “You said something similar before. Empire engineering is some of the most advanced on the continent, you know.”
“Sturdy, sure. But ugly as sin. You lot just keep piling shit on. Look—that one looks like it developed—I don’t know—tile cancer.”
“That’s our hospital.”
“My condolences.” A smile crept onto Olivia’s lips and she glanced at him with an easiness that softened her insults and tugged at the ache in Galen’s chest.
Prove it. He’d said it with so much more confidence than he felt. It brought him pleasure seeing her here, he looked forward to showing her something more of the Empire than just death and fear in the Caeweld, but he couldn’t help but be apprehensive.
He’d enjoyed being Captain Galen de Corvus in the Caeweld, been allowed to be some mix of the two in the Syndicate. But the moment they landed, he’d have to become solely the Red Wolf again. Duke of the Empire. He had no doubt that Sabine already had a dozen plans set in motion that would inevitably fall onto his shoulders. He had no idea how he’d find a way to reach Olivia, let alone in the time they had between the dangers they were both in.
He’d had a glimpse now of the Syndicate, of the world Olivia had been raised in. A world where pairing was subject to state review and children subject to institutionalization. Olivia insisted she’d had a family, that she’d known love, but her own words had described it as a trap. He wondered how to express the certainty he felt when he looked at her. Put it in words the way his world had tilted, made her his axis. He wondered if it’d ever be possible for her to feel it, too. She’d admitted an attraction, a connection, but the Syn didn’t have words for that feeling like his homeland did. You couldn’t believe in something that you didn’t have a word for.
You couldn’t choose something that you couldn’t name.
Galen had no idea how to reach someone without a shared language. Convincing her wasn’t the way. He did not want to be a thing Olivia needed to be convinced of. You could not convince someone into choosing you. But he wanted her to believe the choice existed, that she had a choice. And that he would be worthy, if it was what she wanted.
“What the...” Olivia startled back from the glass. Galen looked up. A film of color shimmered across the air in front of the shuttle, bright but translucent, like the curve of a soap bubble. Olivia visibly flinched as the shuttle passed through. Galen smiled.
“The shield of the crown. It surrounds the grounds of Ameranthe Court and protects the estate in times of war.” Ahead of them, Ameranthe towered over the city like a scalloped shell. It was a wall of white stone and ornate copper, glittering in the sun as it sheltered a sprawl of green and the forests behind. Galen felt a pang of sentimental relief. “Not that there’s been combat in the Imperial city since my grandfather’s time, but reassuring none the less.”
“So the royal family sits pretty while the city gets razed?”
“If Chrysanthine City’s razed you can safely expect the royal family is already dead,” Galen said grimly. “The Empire is led from the front.”
“Fat lot of use a shield is then. Still, something that big...” Olivia frowned. “The energy that takes could power half the Syn. What a waste.”
Rather than the formal entrance, the shuttle landed on the south lawn. It was closer to the private residences, but Galen had expected Sabine to make a formal welcome of it. There were a few reasons to keep his return private, but most especially if Lyre had informed Sabine about Olivia and she did not want to be forced into formally acknowledging the bond. The look Lyre tossed him as she strode ahead, already coordinating with one of her aides, confirmed it.
“Oh!” A soft exhale of surprise made him turn. Olivia had exited the shuttle and had stopped in her tracks, head tilted down. She studied the grass intently before her gaze slowly inched up and took in the lawn. She turned in place, an unschooled look of awe lingering on her face. It drained the tension from her cheeks, softened her eyes with unguarded emotion.
Galen tried and failed to hide the smile in his voice. “Something wrong?”
“No,” Olivia murmured, voice a little distant. “It’s just so...green.”
Galen blinked. “You just spent two weeks in a forest.”
“Well, yes.” Olivia nudged the turf with her toe before she began walking again, eyes still roaming the lawn. “But that was out there. You don’t see this kind of green where civilized people live.” Suspicion crept into her voice as if she had discovered a cruel joke. “You do live here?”
“I do.” And then, because the thought was just too pleasing to him: “And for the moment, so will you.”
“Enjoy the view, kitten?” Lyre interrupted before Olivia could respond. She had turned to rejoin them. “Don’t typically invite foreigners to see the inner workings of Ameranthe Court. Come to think of it, now that you’ve seen it we’ll probably have to kill you.”
Olivia smiled right back. “Perhaps you should just tell me when you don’t have a reason for my death, Spymaster.”
“I’ll do that.”
As he’d feared, the waiting attendants had orders to bring Galen and “the Syndicate” to an immediate audience with the empress. He felt minor relief when they were escorted to the private residence. There were two Sabines, by necessity. His sister, who was clever and talkative. Who loved her brother almost as much as she loved word games and skiff racing. Meddling, but sympathetic and kind. Then there was Sabine the empress. The empress was also clever, but only spoke to cut and bind. Desirable and terrifying, like a snare-orchid.
Private residence hopefully meant they were getting the first.
He left the attendants in the hallway and led Olivia into Sabine’s study. He was surprised to find it already occupied. A noble in green satin sat across from Sabine in the receiving room.
“—if you would simply have a word with my mother. She listens to you—”
“It is not my place to meddle with another house’s family affairs,” Sabine said. “Though I am sympathetic to your situation.”
The seated noble tilted her blond head. “Sympathy! How generous. I suppose I can secure my lands with sympathy next time war breaks out.”
Galen recognized that mocking humor. He stepped in. “That’d depend who you’re trying to secure them from, wouldn’t it?”
The noble turned, rising to her full height. “Perhaps I should be asking you that, your Grace.”
“Lady Alais, a pleasure to see you.”
“Is it really? How novel.” Alais’s lips curved easily in a knowing smile. She was a tall altus woman, with a rapier build, short cropped hair and strong features.
She was also heir to the largest aetheric mines in the Empire, which meant Sabine tried to keep her close, though she was not popular with the rest of the senate. Luckily, Galen found Alais and her prodding wit refreshing compared to some of the ruling houses. She had a way of smiling like she was laughing. He could never quite shake the feeling that he was not in on the joke, however.
Alais’s eyes slid to his side and brightened. “So it’s true.”
The hairs on Galen’s neck pricked. He had to stifle the urge to step in front of Olivia—but no, that was ridiculous. He’d known bringing her here would mean subjecting her to the eyes of the Imperial nobility. Every hungry-eyed altus senator or, in Alais’s case, a lazy interest that was almost more alarming.