How the mighty had fallen.
He needed to wash the forest and blood off. He pulled off his boots and tossed them in the corner. His socks followed. The floor felt nice and cool under his feet. Better already.
His jacket followed, then his T-shirt, and his belt. He was about to take off his pants, when the door behind him swung open. He didn’t need to turn to look. He recognized the sound of the footsteps. High heels were rare among Elara’s crowd.
“Not tonight,” he said.
Vanessa slunk into the room. The spectacle in the bailey must’ve proved too much for her. She was hot and bothered. He wasn’t.
“I said, not tonight.”
Vanessa leaned against the wall. She wore a skintight white dress and red shoes. She licked her lips.
“We haven’t done it since you got married. Did you give Elara your balls at the wedding?”
He caught the slight tremor in her voice, fear and excitement wrapped in lust. Trying to goad him. He knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted him to grab her by the hair, slam her against the wall, and fuck her. She wanted proof that the man down in the bailey and the man in the bedroom were the same. He was too damn tired, and he had no interest in it.
Hugh turned and looked at her.
She squirmed, then threw her arms out to the side. “What? What?”
Someone knocked on the door. It wasn’t an “emergency had occurred” knock. It was brisk and pissed off, which meant Elara.
Well, that didn’t take long. From how green she looked after he started on the merc’s ears, he thought she’d take the evening off. The hopes of mice and men…
“Not tonight,” he called out.
The door flew open. Elara marched in, her jaw set, brimming with rage and magic.
Elara didn’t bother looking at Vanessa. “Leave.”
Vanessa opened her mouth. Something snapped in her eyes. “No.”
Elara swung toward her. The storm within her was straining to break out, and Vanessa had just designated herself as a lightning rod. This ought to be good. Hugh landed in a chair and leaned back, his head resting on the interlocked fingers of his hands. He wished he had a beer.
“I’m not leaving,” Vanessa said. “You leave. You’re interrupting.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Elara said. “After I’m done, you can come back and entertain the Preceptor all you want. But right now, I need you to go.”
Vanessa swung to him. “Tell her I can stay.”
“I already told you to leave,” he said.
Vanessa pushed from the wall. “I’m staying.”
Playing for keeps.
“You’re pissed off, because he doesn’t want you,” Vanessa said.
And now she decided to dig a hole.
“He wants a woman,” Vanessa said. “Not an iceberg.”
Doubling down.
“I understand why that’s upsetting, but I don’t really care. He likes me, this is his room, and you’re intruding. Go. You’re not wanted or needed here.”
Hahaha.
Elara regarded Vanessa for a long moment. She reminded him of the black-footed cat he had seen in southern Africa on a long trip to retrieve one of Roland’s artifacts. They’d had to search a wide area, and every night, once they came back to camp, he would take the midwatch, and the little black-footed cat would leave her burrow to hunt for food for her two kittens. She would sneak up on the birds and rodents, line her jump, wait, motionless, calculating distance and wind, and spring just at the right moment to break her prey’s neck. She was relentless, and she killed with a precision he had never seen in great cats. Now he saw the same calculation in Elara’s eyes. She was about to leap into a kill.
“I was going to give you time to correct yourself, but you leave me no choice,” Elara said. “First, the Preceptor isn’t going to help you. He’s here because he’s responsible for the welfare of his people, just as I’m responsible for the well-being of mine. We rose to our positions of power, because we have learned how to lead and compromise. We hate each other, but we are both cognizant of the fact that we have to work together for our mutual survival and we both sacrificed a great deal for the sake of this partnership. There is much more at stake here than sexual gratification. In an argument between you and me, the Preceptor will always side with me. I’m the bigger threat. All you can do is withhold sex, while I can divorce him and throw his soldiers out of the castle.”
Vanessa narrowed her eyes.
“Before you speak, remember that you are also one of my people. Your welfare is important to me,” Elara said. “It’s critical to your safety that you understand this: he isn’t besotted with you. He is a cold, calculating bastard. Love isn’t in his vocabulary. You don’t hold any power over him and if you annoy him enough, he will replace you with a different warm body. You must never gamble your safety on his attachment to you. There isn’t one.”
Vanessa turned to him.
“She’s right,” Hugh said. “I told you this when we started.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“I’m not done,” Elara said, her voice cold. “According to your performance evaluation and the testimony of your coworkers, you are laboring under the mistaken impression that having sex with the Preceptor excuses you from your duties. As of last night, you have a nine-day backlog. You speak down to your colleagues, you imply that you are better than them, and you argue with your supervisor. One of your colleagues described your behavior as toxic.”
“I do my work!”
“Should I ask Melissa to come up here and give you a detailed breakdown of the assignments you failed to complete?” Elara asked.
“She’s lying.”
Elara grimaced. “Please. Don’t waste time, Vanessa. You’ve decided that you are better than your current position and you’ve made everyone around you aware of it. In this community, your position is based on merit, not your choice of bed partners. Having a relationship with the Preceptor doesn’t entitle you to any additional benefits. You don’t get hazard pay.”
Hazard pay?
“You have one week to catch up on your assignments. You won’t be paid until your backlog is cleared.”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
“You will apologize to your colleagues and to Melissa for your conduct,” Elara continued.
“I won’t,” Vanessa snarled.
Elara’s face was merciless. “If you no longer want to be employed as a paralegal, you are free to look for a different job. You know our rule: if you don’t contribute to the best of your ability, you receive no support. If you don’t like it, you know where the gates are.”
An angry red flush heated Vanessa’s face. For a moment he thought Vanessa would charge her. Instead, she spun on her heels and tore out of the room. The door slammed closed behind her.
Elara glanced at him. “Any idea what brought this on?”
“She thinks the balance of power shifted in my favor,” he said. “Now, what the hell was so bloody important?”
“You found an abandoned palisade.”
He got up, poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, and drank. He missed the wine, not the alcohol, but the taste.
He realized she was waiting for him to answer. “Yes.”
“Were you planning on telling me?”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
Something peeked out from inside her. Something cold and lethal, a power coursing through her. Her hair was down again, and it floated about her like a silver curtain. Her blue dress was cut wide, leaving her delicate neck exposed.
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“It does concern me.”
“It’s a matter of safety. There is no immediate threat. If there was one, I would tell you about it.”
“We have to report it.”
He frowned. “Report it to who?”
“The sheriffs. The county.”
“No.” The harpy was insane.
She turned, pacing back and forth. “You’re not listening to me. Something weird happened in the woods on the border of our land. If we don’t report it, we will be blamed.”