by Eva Chase
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rose
For the first several minutes tramping back through the forest, Derek was sullen and silent. He walked slowly, with a bit of a limp. When he glanced over at me, I thought I saw him checking out my breasts. Augh. Yeah, I was definitely going to need some brain soap after today.
Insect sounds hummed around us. The light through the trees was getting thinner—it’d be almost dinner time now, but the sluggish breeze that drifted over me was still warm.
Derek stumbled a bit, skirting a log. He grimaced and looked at me again.
“You’re going to turn me over to the Justice Division after this?” he said.
“I’m sure that’s what my dad will think is the best decision. Don’t try to tell me you don’t deserve it.”
“I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking maybe you’re not thinking that decision through all the way.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I understand their investigations are quite thorough.”
Philomena wove through the trees to join us. “What in heaven’s name is he going on about now?”
“I don’t know,” I said to her in my head. If there was something Derek wanted to say about my consorts or anything else he’d learned in the last hour, my magic meant he couldn’t hint at that even to me. But he also couldn’t say anything to the Assembly. Unless…
A chill tickled over me. “When the Assembly investigates him, they’ll probably check for magic on him. They’ll find my spell. Take it off him, and then he’ll be able to tell them about the actual consorts I’ve taken.” The unsparked consorts at least a few of their number were prepared to kill me and those consorts over.
Derek would go down, but so would I. Did he suspect that—that my life might be on the line? Or was he only thinking the public shame might be enough leverage?
Either way, if Dad found out about the conspiracy to enslave my magic, there was no way he’d let Derek go unpunished. No escaping the Assembly’s involvement. Maybe if I’d had time to convince him of the need for secrecy… but I already knew I was going to need to ease him into the idea of my consorts. Damn.
“I see your point,” I said to Derek carefully. “Maybe we should approach the situation from a different angle, then.” I motioned for him to stop and looked him dead in the eyes. “I’m not marrying you. I’d rather take a newt as a husband at this point.”
“Wonderful,” Derek said. “The feeling is mutual.”
My hackles rose, but I held my temper. “We could skip your illegal doings. Just tell my father you’ve been sleeping around behind my back. That you’ve got no interest in marrying me. That’ll be enough for him to accept you leaving. And then you can just get the hell away from here. Agreed?”
A flicker of relief passed through his expression. Whatever he knew about my situation, he hadn’t liked his at all. “That sounds reasonable,” he said.
“Then I’ll need to add to the oath you took,” I said, and summoned more of my magic. “You will not speak of the contract you made with my stepmother, or any of the plans that surrounded it, or hint at them, to anyone. You will inform my father of your infidelity and the contempt you have for me. Accept.”
“I accept,” he replied, the magic twining with his words more easily this time when he wasn’t resisting it.
“All right. Come on.”
Philomena picked her way through the brush beside me, holding up her skirts. “So what happens after that?”
I exhaled. “I guess I come clean with Dad and hope he comes around sooner rather than later.”
I let Derek do most of the talking. By the time he’d finished spilling his story—the part about Polly and his disinterest in becoming my husband, anyway—Dad’s shoulders had gone completely rigid where he was standing by his desk. His jaw worked.
“You pledge yourself to my daughter, come into my home, and that’s how you behave?” he said in a low, dangerous voice I’d never heard him use before.
“I would have kept my promise,” Derek put in. “I still meant to marry her.”
Dad looked at me. I swiped at my eyes as if fighting tears. I had started to feel truly choked up during the talk, both thinking about how long Derek had duped me and how much I wished I hadn’t needed to go through this at all. If I just could have had my guys, the ones I adored who adored me, from the beginning… But I couldn’t have them openly even now, unless Dad knew some loophole.
“I can’t marry someone who thinks that little of me,” I said in a shaky voice.
Dad’s tone softened. “Of course not. Rose. We’ll get this all sorted out. Can you give me a few minutes? I think I should speak to your former fiancé alone.” His gaze sharpened again as he turned back to Derek.
My pulse hiccupped, but Derek couldn’t tell Dad anything he hadn’t already. My magic had seen to that. I nodded. “I’ll be in my room.”
“That’s it,” Phil murmured excitedly as I walked across the hall. “You’re free of that ruffian.”
“But not really free.” I sank onto the edge of my bed, curling my fingers into the soft duvet. Remembering the other night here with Kyler.
Would I ever be able to bring the guys into my home like full partners? It didn’t seem fair. To them more than anyone.
It wasn’t long before Dad knocked on my door. “Can I come in, lamb?”
“Of course,” I said, giving my eyes another swipe so they’d look reddened.
He eased open the door and crossed the room to stand by the bed. “Derek is leaving,” he said. “As quickly as he can get his things together. You won’t ever have to see him again.”
I let out my breath in a rush. “Good. Thank you.”
He raked his hand through his hair. “But of course now we have a difficult situation to face. Your twenty-fifth birthday is only six weeks off. I’ll have to start talking to other potential consorts… You won’t have as much time to get to know them beforehand as I’d have liked, but I’m sure I can find someone you’ll be happy with. Or at least content, while you settle in with your powers and decide what you want to do next. Once your spark is kindled…”
“I’ll be fine, even if I break the consort bond,” I said. “I know. And I know it’ll be okay. That’s actually— I wanted to talk to you about—”
He stared to pace from one end of the room to the other, barreling on. “You don’t need to worry about it at all, Rose. I should have seen the problem sooner. I take responsibility. I’ll fly out tonight—you know, I might know just the fellow. We never arranged a meeting because you seemed to hit it off with Derek well, but you share a fair few interests, and he’s made it known he’s interested in finding a good match. Killian Sorensen. Quite the name, too.” He chuckled.
I’d been about to interrupt Dad to tell him I didn’t need a consort at all. At that name, a finger of ice ran down my back. I knew it. I knew it because…
Celestine’s files on possible consorts. The ideal last-minute backup guy. Killian Sorensen.
No. Derek had said Dad had no idea. It had to be just a coincidence.
“Is that one of the possible guys Celestine picked out?” I said tentatively, watching Dad’s expression. “I can’t help feeling—she was the one who suggested meeting with Derek—after that, and with her disappearing so suddenly…”
“Of course, of course,” Dad said. His eyes were already distant, as if he were booking the plane tickets in his mind. “No, your stepmother has nothing to do with Killian at all. I’m not sure I even mentioned him to her, to be honest.”
“You didn’t discuss him as a possible match?”
He shook his head. “I met him in passing during some business function or another. Always thought he was a good sort, so I kept an eye on him. I can’t imagine how your stepmother would have met him. She certainly never spoke about him.”
My stomach twisted. He was lying, baldly. Celestine’s notes had mentioned a luncheon she and Dad had arranged with Killia
n, and that she knew of him through one of her family friends. But of course Dad didn’t have to worry about me finding that out now that Celestine was dead, did he?
He had to know about Celestine’s “accident.” The witching authorities would have contacted her husband as quickly as her daughters. Maybe, not realizing Evianna had harassed me about it, he wouldn’t have wanted to burden me with the unsettling news right now, but I didn’t see any sign that he was holding back his own grief. I couldn’t see any indication that he cared at all—about anything except getting me consorted to a man of his choice as quickly as possible.
I gripped the edge of my duvet. My head was starting to spin. “Dad,” I said, a little weakly, “why don’t we just wait on it a day or two? Just to give me time to come to grips with what’s happened. I’m not sure I want to jump right into a new engagement without a moment to breathe.”
“I know, lamb,” Dad said briskly. The echo of Celestine’s voice rang through my mind. He does love you, in his own way. You’re his little lamb, and he wants you on a leash. “I hate to leave you when we’re going through this. But we don’t have any time to spare. The last thing I want to see is you losing your magic over something like this.”
Because then you won’t be able to control it? I thought but couldn’t say. My throat had closed up. It was hard to breathe, watching him pace and make his plans, pretending he only wanted what was best for me.
He must have orchestrated everything, all along. Did that mean he was behind Celestine’s death too?
“Dad,” I said, not even really knowing what I was aiming for. Just wanting to see if I could sway him even a little. “Please, can you just stay home tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”
He stopped in front of me, with a look so fond I thought maybe I’d gotten through to him after all. But then his gaze twitched away. He touched my shoulder, but his thoughts were somewhere else. “I’m sorry, Rose. I promise this will be for the best. You want the worthiest consort I can find for you. I have to make arrangements now.”
He strode to the door. “Dad!” I called after him.
“It will all work out,” he said over his shoulder. “You don’t need to worry.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and I was left perched on the edge of my bed, with nothing but worry clamped tight around my stomach.
I’d stumbled on the truth. I knew who my enemies were. It turned out they were all around me. Spark help me, where did I go from here?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Seth
“I came so close to telling him,” Rose said, ducking her head. Under the stark lights of Jin’s gallery, she looked suddenly small. “I could have ruined everything.”
“You didn’t,” I said, sliding my arm around her. The cool air from the air conditioner tickled over my skin, and I suddenly wished we were outside in the warm glow of the sun. “You waited all this time because you weren’t sure, because you wanted to be careful, and it’s because of that you didn’t tell him before you had the chance to find out the truth. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No one blames you, Rose,” Jin said, looking uncharacteristically solemn. “Maybe I wasn’t taking the situation seriously enough before. I tried to tell you that you could just make everything be okay…”
But it obviously wasn’t. I’d never seen Rose this despondent. She rubbed her eyes, the circles under them dark from lack of sleep last night. But she refused to let me take any of her weight.
“I heard your dad talking to Matt when he was getting in the car,” Gabriel said. “He expected to be gone at least two days. You’ve got time to figure out what you need to do. What we need to do.”
Rose glanced toward him, something hopeful lighting in her face. And Gabriel pulled back—just an inch, but I saw that hope dim in response.
What the hell was wrong with him? Couldn’t he see she needed all of us now? Her whole world was falling apart.
He glanced around at the rest of us instead, like he was our leader all over again. “We have to come up with a plan of action. Quickly.”
No kidding. Thankfully my brother had a way of cutting right through to the facts. “What does need to happen?” Kyler asked Rose. “What exactly could stop your dad from going forward with this consort plan? He still doesn’t know that you know about the whole scheme, right?”
Rose drew in a shaky breath and stood a little taller. At her other side, Damon stood straight and fierce, looking ready to charge into battle on her behalf. Normally that sight would have irked me, but after our conversation yesterday, I felt a little more certain that he’d only go charging in where he really should.
He wanted what was best for Rose too, in his own way. Maybe we’d all been a little lost trying to figure out how we fit into her world.
No, really, we still were.
“My dad doesn’t know I’m onto him,” Rose said. “But as long as he still has any control over my life, he’s going to be trying to marry me off. It seemed really important to him. I guess it’s not just about making sure I don’t use my powers in some dangerous way but also… having those powers for him to use however he wants? He wouldn’t even listen to me when I tried to ask him for a day or two before he went running off to find someone to replace Derek.”
She swiped a stray strand of her black hair back from her face. “If I displaced him, he’d have no authority over the estate at all. It’d all come to me, like it was supposed to when I was twenty-five anyway. As long as I don’t give anyone reason to displace me. So I guess… I need to expose what he’s done. While he’s gone, I can go looking through his things for proof again. I found that proof with Celestine. He has to have slipped up somewhere.”
“No one can cover their tracks perfectly,” Ky said. “We’ll find it.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“The same thing I was planning to do with Celestine and Derek,” she said. “I’ll present the evidence to the Assembly. They’ll prosecute him—at the very least he should lose any claim on the Hallowell properties in deference to me. The witching women always get priority anyway. And then… I’ll wait out the time. Pretend I’ve decided I don’t care to come into my magic. Dismiss Mrs. Gainsley and her husband from staff, have only unsparked people working at the house. I could even hire you all on, and that’ll give you an excuse to be here. We’ll manage.”
“Is that the best you can hope for?” Gabriel said. “Living your whole life hiding what you are, what you can do?”
Rose shook her head. “I’ll keep investigating the Assembly as well as I can—with you all.” She shot a smile at Ky. “If it’s just a small group within the witching government that’s so against unsparked relations, maybe there’s something I can do to change that. But I don’t know how long it’ll take. Or if it’ll happen at all.”
“I don’t want you to have to live like that,” Ky said. “If I can find anything… I’ll go back to Seattle, and maybe together we could find ways around their security...” He paused. “When I was looking before, I saw a reference to a different sort of consorting. A soul-bound ceremony? It sounded like it’s more serious—if it’s something more we could do to give ourselves over, to give you more power—”
“No,” Rose said, so sharply my brother’s mouth snapped shut. Her jaw tightened. “Hardly anyone does the soul-binding consorting anymore. I doubt they ever did. It does mean sharing more energy, faster, but it’s also unbreakable. Until death. And if one partner dies, the other does too.”
“I’d be willing to take that chance,” Damon said.
“You don’t have to.” Rose glanced around our group. “I have all the magic I could ever want, with all of you.” Her gaze lingered for just a second on Gabriel. When their gazes met, his twitched away. I frowned.
“We’re here for you,” Jin said, echoing Damon’s earlier comment. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. She hugged him back tightly. As Ky and Damon converged around them, Gabriel drew back a s
tep. I followed him, motioning him toward the far corner.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said under my breath when he turned to face me there. “Can’t you see she’s looking to you for support too? Why are you acting so cagey?” I didn’t for a second believe it was lack of interest.
Gabriel played it casual, shaking his head with a flash of his dark red hair as if in disbelief. “She has my support.”
“Not totally,” I said. “And she can obviously tell.”
“I’m here,” Gabriel said, and smiled. “This is why it’s a good thing she’s had you. I can see the way you’ve been holding everyone together, providing that voice of reason.”
The compliment should have warmed me, but it niggled at me instead. He meant it, I believed that, but he was also trying to deflect me with it.
“She needs all of us,” I said. “She needs you.”
Something flashed deep in Gabriel’s eyes. “I’m the last thing she needs,” he murmured.
In the past, I’d always trusted Gabriel to find the right path, to steer the rest of us right. Now, for the first time in my life, I found myself wanting to shake him. But Rose was stepping out of the ring the other guys had formed around her, glancing toward us. So I settled for saying, “Don’t you think deciding that should be up to her?”
“Is everything okay?” Rose asked. Again, her gaze lingered a little longer on Gabriel.
“Nothing to worry about, Sprout,” he said in that easy tone that right now rubbed me completely the wrong way. “No more than you already know about, at least. Which of us do you think should head back to the manor first?”
She’d been looking for something in him that she hadn’t gotten. Disappointment flickered across her face. It made my gut clench. And I found myself saying, without having planned to, “You should go on ahead. There’s something I want to show Rose.”