Chapter 58

Chapter Fifty-Eight

It went against everything in him to play nice, but Petra asked him sweetly, so Silas didn’t shove his boot down Theodore Solbourne’s throat when he put them under armed guard and transported them across the city for interrogation. He thought he was especially well behaved when he didn’t reach for his knife after the sovereign broke up Petra and Margot’s long, tight hug and whispered conversation.

“Right now she’s a security risk,” the sovereign informed his mate as he gently but firmly pulled her away from the embrace.

Margot, pale but otherwise apparently unruffled by the assassination attempt, raised her brows. Silas wasn’t particularly surprised by how collected she seemed. In his experience, it took a lot more than a little danger to make a healer lose their cool. His father was the calmest person he’d ever met. What part of that was training and what was natural inclination, Silas would never know.

Margot’s red hair had fallen out of its neat twist and there was some blood splatter on her white dress, but her voice was calm when she argued, “She saved our lives today, Theodore, and she’s a friend. One of the few I have.”

The air grew thick with the scent of ozone and magic as the sovereign couple stared at one another. They appeared to be having some kind of telepathic conversation, if Silas had to guess, and he was instantly annoyed that he couldn’t hear his own mate’s thoughts.

It was impossible to know what was said, but after several seconds, Margot turned to give Petra’s hands a squeeze. “I need to finish healing Aman,” she explained. “We’ll talk more when I’m done, okay? Everything is going to be all right.”

The air was charged with suspicion as an entire battalion of guards ringed the walls and manned the doors, their gloved hands resting on the hilts of their weapons. Petra kept glancing at them, her wary gaze straying to their guns, but she managed a small smile for the sovereign’s consort. “When you’re done, I want to tell you everything. All of it.”

Margot nodded. “We’ll talk over tea.” Turning to her husband, she reached up onto her tip-toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Be nice, please.”

Theodore made no promises as he guided his wife out of the room, accompanied by her own personal guards. Silas and Petra were instructed to sit on a low couch in the living room.

The sovereign came to stand before them, his cape and suit jacket discarded. His hard gaze zeroed in on Silas. The lines of his face were severe, and when he spoke, it was in a deep, pissed-off baritone. “Who the fuck are you?”

Silas didn’t like his attitude. When he simply crossed his arms and stared at the sovereign, the tension in the room ratcheted up another notch.

Theodore narrowed his eyes and slid his attention to Petra, who sat stiffly beside Silas on the ridiculous velvet couch. Silas hoped they got blood all over it. “What about you, High Priestess? Do you have something to say?”

Silas tilted his head a bit to one side. A smile curved his lips. “Better be polite to my mate, rich boy.”

Petra dropped a hand onto his thigh and squeezed hard. No doubt she would have hissed a warning for him to stop while he was ahead, but Theodore beat her to it. “Watch it, demon.”

“Or what?” Silas leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. There were tacky patches on his slacks where blood had begun to dry. It was already flaking off his claws and his face, despite Petra’s hasty spit shine in the uncomfortable ride over, so he could only imagine what he looked like when he bared all his teeth in an approximation of a grin.

“I don’t care what you think of me,” he explained to the sovereign in what he considered a very pleasant tone, “but I care very much how you treat my mate — without whom, by the way, all you motherfuckers would be dead. I would’ve let you die and not lost a wink of sleep over it. I still wouldn’t. So maybe you watch it. And your fuckin’ tone.”

Theodore put his hands on his hips and declared, “As of right now, you’re a terrorist being held under suspicion of attacking the infrastructure of my city and playing a role in the attempted assassination of my wife , so if I were you, I wouldn’t be so comfortable making threats.”

“We are not making threats,” Petra hastened to interject. She squeezed his thigh again, but Silas refused to be the first one to break eye contact. Sounding both stressed and exasperated, she continued, “Sovereign, please ignore him. He thrives on confrontation. It’s basically his favorite pastime.”

Appearing like he was rapidly losing whatever patience he’d hung onto, Theodore broke their staring contest to fix Petra with a furious look. “Then you explain what the fuck just happened. Last I checked, you were my wife’s friend, but from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re an accomplice. You knew this was going to happen. I need to know how. Now.”

“It looks bad,” Petra agreed, fingers digging into Silas’s thigh. “I totally get that, and I have a thousand things I need to explain to you and Margot about what’s been going on, but to start, we found evidence that someone within the Temple was planning an attack basically two hours ago. I think. It was a long night and I’ve kind of lost track of time.”

Silas frowned. He’d forgotten how long they’d been up. After the rut and their bonding, she had to be exhausted. He opened his mouth to tell her they didn’t need to deal with this and they ought to just leave, but when she caught his eye, she shook her head and gave his thigh a reassuring pat.

“We rushed back to the city as soon as we realized that something might happen at the ceremony.” Petra ran a trembling hand through her hair and let out a slow exhale. “I was hoping we were wrong, but we obviously weren’t.”

Theodore’s expression was a stone wall. “And why didn’t you get in contact with Patrol? Or try to tell my consort beforehand?”

Swallowing hard, she glanced around the room at the rigid, faceless guards. Her voice dropped to something just above a whisper when she answered, “We thought there might be a traitor inside the Tower and couldn’t take the risk when I had no way of speaking to either of you directly. I only had her secretary’s number, and what if she was in on it? Gods know something even worse could’ve happened. There just— there just wasn’t time to figure anything else out.”

There was a beat of silence. Theodore’s expression didn’t change one iota as he stared hard at Petra, taking her measure. Then, like the cracking of an ice sheet, something a little more human came through the severity.

Theodore sank stiffly onto the opposite couch. The air shifted. The change was nearly imperceptible, but every guard loosened their stance just enough to not appear as though they were ready to shoot on command.

“Fine. I believe you,” he announced, sounding suddenly exhausted. In the span of a blink, he went from a man on the brink of violence to one deeply shaken. His blue skin was chalky and his eyes slightly too wide, like he was going into shock — or might throw up on his tacky carpet.

Theodore fisted his hands between his knees. The line of his shoulders rounded ever-so-slightly when he peered at Petra from beneath his brows. “Tell me what’s going on. The whole story.”

Sitting up slowly, like she had to will some steel back into her spine, Petra answered, “When we first met, I… Well, I came to San Francisco to solve Maximilian Dooraker’s murder. He was my uncle.” She blinked hard and something tender in his chest squeezed.

Acting on instinct, Silas wrapped an arm around her shoulders and dragged her into his side. She pressed her hand to his heart. Slowly, the tension in her muscles loosened. “I believed that he was killed when he confronted a man named Antonin Vanderpoel. I didn’t know what for or why, but I knew that was what he’d planned the last time I spoke to him. Just before he was announced dead and cremated with no investigation, no ceremony, no… No nothing.”

“Antonin Vanderpoel?” Theodore’s brow furrowed. “Why do I know that name?”

“He’s the Protector of the Gloriae,” she answered. “Or he was.”

The elf’s heavy brows rose. “Was?”

Brushing self-consciously at the bloody handprint on her chest, she answered, “He shot me a few weeks ago. He’s dead now.”

Theodore’s gaze wandered back to Silas, who offered him a glib smile. The sovereign’s frown deepened. “Is that why you disappeared?”

“Technically I did announce I was going on sabbatical,” she hedged, “but yes. I was injured, so my mate took me somewhere safe to recover. Honestly, I thought that was the end of things. I figured if Antonin was dead, then…” She waved a hand in the air. “But obviously that was naive.”

Turning to Silas, she murmured, “Do you have the file on you still?”

After a quick pat of his slacks, he discovered the folded up and slightly blood stained file. Petra passed it to the sovereign, who wrinkled his nose when he gingerly accepted it. “Antonin was in charge of intelligence for the Temple. He collected blackmail on just about everyone you can imagine, and we took almost all of it with us when we left,” she explained. “He was also head of the Ardeo, which we believe he and another person were using as their personal army.”

Still holding the bedraggled file with the very tips of his claws, Theodore scoffed, “The Ardeo hasn’t?—”

“Yeah, I thought so, too,” Silas interrupted, just for fun. “But you’re wrong.”

Theodore scowled, but before he could tell Silas to shut his mouth, Petra jumped in to explain, “I don’t believe it’s what you’re thinking, Sovereign. It’s not the massive, kitted out army the Temple used to have. It’s more like— It’s more like a shadow squad.”

Every elf in the room tensed. Sitting up straight, Theodore demanded, “Explain.”

“I don’t mean to offend or bring up bad memories,” Petra replied, holding up her hands, “but I’m not being hyperbolic. Your father had his shadow squad, who answered only to him and were used to collect intelligence, silence dissenters, and disappear people. That’s the Ardeo we’re talking about now. I think it’s like your father’s shadow squad, but on a much smaller scale. Antonin spent gods know how long using them to amass information and power, and when the time was right, we believe he intended to use his soldiers to stage a coup.”

She nodded toward the file in the sovereign’s rigid grip. Speaking in a gentler tone, she said, “He even had information on people close to you, Sovereign.”

Theodore looked down at the file. His jaw hardened as he slowly peeled apart the wrinkled pages. His lashes obscured his gaze as he took in the contents of the file for several long seconds.

Carefully, he extracted the old black and white photograph of Sophie Goode and her sister from the file and held it to the light. One edge had been slightly stained, but it was otherwise mostly unharmed.

A single guard, utterly indistinguishable from the rest, peeled away from the wall behind the sovereign and bent to whisper something in his ear.

Speaking slowly and with his gaze still on the photograph, Theodore murmured, “Patrol just found a large group of men with weapons in one of the locked areas of the Tower.” His eyes flicked upward. There was no softness in them, no mercy, when he finished, “You said there was a traitor working with Antonin. Who?”

“I… We didn’t have time to dig more,” Petra explained, looking relieved but also a little sick, “but there were mentions of elves and trips to the desert. Las Vegas, too. There was too much information for us to sort through so quickly, but we’ll hand it all over to you and your people. Hopefully you can find the truth and you can figure out what to do with all the men roped into the coup.”

Silas balked. “We will?”

“Yes,” Petra replied, giving him a look, “because we’re the good guys, remember?”

“They have all the soldiers in their custody,” he argued, deeply vexed to be giving up the ace in their pocket. “We saved their lives and their territory. I don’t see why we can’t keep some insurance.”

Somewhere in the sprawling apartment, a door opened and shut. Silas went on alert, but when none of the elves in the room appeared concerned — or more concerned than they already were — he didn’t immediately reach for the knife in his boot.

He almost wished he had when a familiar green face appeared not a moment later.

Kaz, a hulking orc dressed in a beaten leather jacket and shit-kicker boots, came in like a hurricane. Stomping across the room to point a kohl-darkened finger at Silas, he demanded, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I tried to call you,” Silas replied mildly.

“And when I didn’t answer, you knocked out the electrical grid?”

Silas shrugged. “At least I left a note, right?”

Though they’d never been in the same room before, Silas didn’t need to be familiar with Kaz’s expressions specifically to recognize the look of a man who wanted to hit him. It happened frequently enough for him to know it on sight. He did think it was interesting, however, how very similar Kaz and Theodore’s particular brand of that look was. If he didn’t know better, he might’ve thought they were related.

“What did the note say?” Petra asked, though she didn’t sound particularly eager to hear the answer.

“Coup incoming. Answer your phone,” Kaz told her, “signed, S.”

Rounding on Silas, Petra muttered, “Seriously? I thought you meant an explanation or a warning, not that.” Petra rubbed her eyes, but he could see the corners of her mouth twitching with an irrepressible smile. “You know what? That’s my bad. I should’ve known better. Sorry, everyone.”

Squinting at Kaz, Theodore asked, “Do you know this guy?”

Kaz ran his tongue over his teeth and glared at Silas for a moment longer before he answered, “This is Shade.”

There was a weighty pause, then, “The criminal?”

“Allegedly,” Silas clarified, deeply pleased by the renewed attention, “and if I was, I wouldn’t be anymore. I happen to be engaged to a High Priestess now.”

“That doesn’t make you not a criminal,” Kaz snapped.

“It does if you can never prove I did anything illegal.”

Kaz leaned in close to hiss, “You knocked out our power grid.”

“Only for a minute,” Silas argued. “And the lockdown probably stopped an invasion of the Tower. So you’re welcome.”

“What do you want?” Theodore demanded.

Petra frowned. “We don’t want anything. We were just?—”

“No offense, Priestess, but your mate here said he would’ve let us all die and not lost any sleep over it. You might not want anything in exchange for this, but forgive me if I don’t believe he feels the same way.”

Silas settled back into the uncomfortably stiff couch cushions with an easy smile. Propping his ankle on his knee, he rubbed soothing circles on the exposed skin of his mate’s arm when he answered, “I want three things: first, to be given a full, blanket pardon for any alleged crimes in my past, no matter how heinous, negligent, or malicious they might’ve been. Second, permanent residency here in the city so I can live with my mate without having to constantly look over my shoulder. And third… a favor.”

Both Kaz and Theodore hadn’t looked tremendously pleased after his first two requests, but it was the third that really set them to scowling.

“What kind of favor?” Theodore asked, suspicion practically dripping from each word.

Silas offered him a benign smile. “The kind we can talk about later, when my mate has had some rest and a hot meal. She’s had a tough day, what with all the saving you and your mate’s lives out of the good of her heart.”

Petra dipped her chin and muttered under her breath, “Laying it on a little thick, demon.”

Across the marble-topped coffee table, the sovereign let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I can grant you the first two, but the third one has to come with conditions. I can’t just?—”

He was interrupted by the buzz of a cellphone. Kaz cursed and pulled it out of his pocket. His brows dropped into a deep furrow as he read whatever message he’d received.

Theodore opened his mouth, probably to ask what was going on, but Kaz barked, “Teddy, where’s Margot?”

Theodore shot to his feet. “She’s in the spare bedroom putting Aman’s arm back together. What’s wrong?”

Kaz looked up from his phone. The grim expression on his already brooding features sent a shiver of unease down Silas’s spine. Instincts blaring, he sat up straight and reached for the knife in his boot.

“Because,” Kaz answered, “you weren’t the only leaders hit today.”