11. Adair

Chapter 11

Adair

The Sunrunner hadn't shown up as yet, and frankly, I was grateful.

Oberon, Huxley Dawnchaser, and Rain Moonstriker together in a room were already so much to deal with. Their threads, yes, but just as much, they were refusing to get along.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure that's what you think, but why don't you call your uncle and get his opinion?" Oberon was demanding of Rain for possibly the fifth time.

Nothing Rain said was good enough for him. He had to remind Rain that he wasn't the Moonstriker, and so his opinion wasn't as important as Oberon's. Huxley was the same, and Rain? He simply wasn't having it.

"My uncle sent me to negotiate on my family's behalf," he said, cool as a stream in wintertime. "My word, my opinion, is all that matters here. If you don't respect that enough to negotiate in good faith, then there isn't much anyone can do here, including Uncle Cove. This is not my issue."

"And yet, you aren't in command. How can you promise to move that military facility if you don't have permission?" Oberon tapped the map, irritated and entirely out of fucking line.

He couldn't shut up about the tiny military base. I thought it was a research facility, and didn't even have weapons or soldiers, but scientists. It was also almost ten miles outside the Gloombringer border, in a wooded area and nowhere near any town. There was no problem, other than that Oberon was belligerently trying to invent one.

"I am telling you, quite clearly, that I have the power to close that facility down. I could call them right this moment and have them start evacuation, if I wanted to. This isn't about what I'm able to do. It's about you treating me like I don't have the power that I have clearly stated I do."

"Prove it," Oberon goaded, like a fucking child.

Rain lifted an unimpressed brow. "No."

"See? I knew you couldn't do it."

"You're making demands," Rain pointed out. "You've offered nothing in return. I'm not giving you something for nothing, Gloombringer. If you want me to prove my ability to negotiate, then you're going to have to start actually negotiating."

I did not sigh like a schoolchild at the power in Rain when he stared Oberon down. Nope.

"Just like that," the Dawnchaser interjected, interest in his voice. "You'd close down a military base? It must not be very important." He turned to Oberon. "You should demand more. They're probably planning on shutting it down anyway, so offering it as a negotiation tactic costs them nothing."

"I have no intention of discussing our military plans with you. Either of you. And if you keep making demands, at some point, you're going to have to offer something in return, or you're both just wasting my time. If neither of you is capable of actual negotiation, then I'll leave."

"Now, now," Oberon said, holding his hands out, expression faux patient. "There's no reason to get hysterical. I know it's difficult trying to negotiate for the first time, but there's no reason to be melodramatic."

Rain finally broke down and rolled his eyes at that, leaning back in his chair. "All right. What are you offering?"

Oberon scowled and turned to the Dawnchaser. "You want it closed down too, don't you? Who knows what they're doing there. Making bombs, maybe."

Dawnchaser shrugged. "It's not on my border. Dawnchaser lands won't be destroyed if they accidentally blow themselves up." He gave a cat that got the canary grin. "Win-win for us, really. Fewer Moonstriker bombs and the Gloombringer scrambling to deal with fallout." His eyes went wide, like he was nervous. "Maybe literal fallout."

Rain looked at him for a moment, and next to Dawnchaser, the assassin was almost vibrating with pent up energy. Fear. His thread with Rain was radiating bright yellow terror. Was he afraid of his brother or afraid for him?

Finally, Rain gave a shrug and a smirk, stood, and walked over to a whiteboard on one wall. Where he proceeded to give a half hour lecture on nuclear weapons. Their power, destructive ability, and what fallout would do.

Apparently, if the facility was one producing nuclear weapons, and it exploded, the fallout would affect not only the lands of the three leaders present, but it would stretch all the way to Sunrunner lands in the south.

"Which is why," he finished, staring at the Dawnchaser, "we stopped storing, producing, and even researching nuclear weapons twenty years ago. Which we also announced publicly." He laced his fingers behind his back, stretching his shoulders, back, and arms, and then rolling his neck back and forth. "Now, Char, Tempest and I are going to have lunch. We can try this again afterward, if the two of you are ready to act in good faith. If not, do let me know. I could be home this time tomorrow instead of wasting my time giving science lessons."

And he walked out.

Florian Dawnchaser stared after him with wide, fascinated green eyes. Huxley and Oberon glared.

"Arrogant little upstart," Oberon said as he was walking out, where Rain could certainly still hear him. His stride didn't even break, he simply kept walking.

"Indeed he is," Huxley said, watching Rain. He didn't seem angry, though. More thoughtful. Somehow, it didn't feel any better to me than Oberon's petulant anger.

"He's being entirely serious," I told them. "He apparently knows all about nuclear weapons, has the power to negotiate the closure of the facility if you truly care about that, and is also willing to walk away if you're not interested in discussion."

"Of course he's being serious," Huxley rebuked. "He's a Moonstriker. They don't know the meaning of the word prevaricate. Or fun."

Given the man sitting on Huxley's left, I knew that wasn't true at all. But I did suspect it wasn't in Rain's nature to lie, so I shrugged. "I'm just trying to make this easier. If we're going to come to an accord that includes the Moonstriker, we're going to have to work with him."

" We 're not going to do anything, little Gloombringer toy," Huxley snarled at me, apparently more displeased than I'd realized at having his mistake pointed out by Rain. " You have no power in this."

And there it was, the effect I'd seen the night before. The tiny, near-insignificant thread that connected me to Huxley turned a vivid red with his sudden anger. Why he was angry with me was anyone's guess. Perhaps because he realized it would do him little good to be angry with Rain, or perhaps because I'd been there to witness him being wrong about nuclear fallout. As though most people knew a damn thing about the subject.

Oberon waved him off. "He does it all the time. He doesn't mean ‘we' really, it's just part of his powers. Some nonsense about how everyone is all interconnected." He rolled his eyes, as though the tangle of threads I saw every moment that my eyes were open was some silly, frivolous child's fancy.

"Then he should learn how to use his words better," the Dawnchaser answered, still sneering.

I sighed, stood, and turned to the door. "I don't know what you're going to do, but I think I'll follow the Moonstriker's lead and eat lunch. It's nearly two, and I'm hungry."

Oberon muttered something about children and candy bars, but he didn't budge from his seat, glaring at the whiteboard, covered with the most complex mathematics I'd ever seen anyone do, let alone explain, as though it had personally wronged him. He'd wanted Rain to be an actual child, of course. Thought his presence was an insult and didn't know what to do with the clear indication that Rain Moonstriker was one of the most intelligent people he had ever met.

Frankly, watching him school the assholes using math had been a little...well. It was a good thing the current Gloombringer style in suits left lots of room in the trousers and had a jacket that covered my front. If I'd been wearing Kit Emrys's slinky suit, everyone would have quite clearly seen how much I'd enjoyed the show.

Not the math so much as the masterful way he'd shut up two grown assholes who were acting like spoiled children.

Still, I had to do something.

Didn't I?

Huxley Dawnchaser's moods seemed to turn more easily than anyone else I'd ever met and more often than not in angry, possibly violent ways. And Oberon? Well, I'd always known he was an ass of the highest degree, and he was only proving himself more so over the last few days.

Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was me, getting closer to my breaking point as he continued to act the way he always had.

Or maybe it was the fact that I'd met at least one other important person in the Summerlands I'd willingly work for, who wasn't a childish ass, despite likely being half Oberon's age.

I meandered my way back to the kitchens, where they were hard at work putting together at least three different meals. I raised a brow at the nearest maid, who was arranging plates. "Why so much?"

She winced but didn't pause in her work for even a second. "Lord Gloombringer is particular about impressing the others. He complained about last night's dinner being boring. Said he wanted at least three choices next time."

I blinked in shock. She wasn't joking. Oberon had actually given the kitchen staff trouble over the Dawnchaser's childish whining about a dish. Did he not understand that regardless of what had been served, the man would have found something to whine about? He'd shown up two minutes before dinner and then complained we served him dinner late. The asshole had been lucky the kitchen had served him at all.

"I'm so sorry," I told her, then turned to the chef, who looked harried. "Dinner was excellent. The Dawnchaser isn't going to be happy no matter what you serve."

Her smile was strained, and she didn't answer aloud, but gave me a small nod. "Your usual sandwich or something different, Lord Courtwright? We made a Moonstriker specialty for their party and it looked intriguing, so I made enough for the kitchen staff to share too. You can have some if you like." She motioned to a pile of thin sandwiches and a tureen of soup. "Tomato and cheese, mostly. Apparently they don't eat all that much meat up there in Moonstriker lands."

Interesting.

I wandered over to the food and found a creamy smooth soup with tomatoes and hot gooey cheese sandwiches. Frankly, it was delightful. So I stood there and ate directly off the tray while they worked on their other meals, rushing around until finally one of the servers took the options to Oberon and came back with two plates. Apparently, just to be difficult, they had chosen the main course from one and the side from the other.

What followed was a mad rush to get new plates, replate every dish, and send it off to the dining room before the kitchen staff almost crumpled in sheer exhaustion.

"And we start again in an hour for dinner," one of the chefs sighed.

The head chef looked at me, eyes sad. "You don't think the Moonstrikers are hiring, do you?"

I didn't know, but I was starting to wonder for all of us, frankly, so all I could offer her was a sad shrug. I finished my sandwich and went on my way, following the lead of the new thread in the center of my chest.

It was quite thoroughly a pink and purple striation now, the purple having intensified while I'd watched him school the others on nuclear science.

There really wasn't anything sexier to me than clear, confident expertise. Maybe it was an odd thing to find sexy, but the moment I found him, standing on the ramparts overlooking the front courtyard, it spiked again. His Moonstriker garb was beautiful, as always. Today's jacket was embroidered with a crane in flight, its red crown the only pop of color in a gray and white suit. The same light blue stone was there, not in the coat, but on a black choker at his throat. But all that wasn't what had my attention. It was beautiful, yes, and the style was growing on me with each artistic piece of clothing, but more than that was the sheer strength of him.

He was mad, taking on Oberon and Huxley—the heads of two houses with at least as much power each as his own family. Let alone taking them both on at once. But he'd done it without flinching or backing down.

And there he was, overlooking the front of Gloombringer Castle, standing tall.

Like he wasn't even worried.

Me? I was worried. I was fucking terrified. Not of this situation, but of what came next. Of what happened when Oberon and Huxley walked away, and no agreement was made.

"You can't do that," I told him, some bizarre smashup of all the things running through my head, giving him the conclusion instead of the thought process that had led up to it.

He turned in my direction, lifting both brows, but not in the unimpressed way he'd been doing it to Oberon and Huxley in the meeting. More in invitation. He wanted me to tell him what he was doing wrong.

"I know they're arrogant asses, but you can't—they're in power. And we need them. We need this. Mount Slate will kill us all, no matter what family we're in." I sighed and leaned against the stone crenelation, my whole body already exhausted from being held so tense all morning. "They're treating you like you're a child and you're not. I get it. But you need them to work with you."

"I agree," he said easily, like it cost him fucking nothing at all. "Mount Slate is more important than anyone's opinion. It's a real threat, and we need to handle it. All of us need to put aside our petty egos and work together."

All I could do in the moment was stare at him. Had he just called his own ego petty? He hadn't said "their," he'd said "our." I was sure I hadn't misheard him.

He sighed deep and leaned against the stone across from me. "The problem is that unless they can at least pretend to respect me, they can't give anything. And while I agree that we need to set aside our differences, I'm not going to negotiate away my family's rights and holdings to get that. We need them, yes. But they need this too. They need us."

He was right, as much as I wanted everything to be simpler than it was.

I also assumed that by us, he meant his family, but for a wild moment, I imagined that he was including me in that statement. I wanted him to be including me in it. There he was, calm and patient and so damned clever, and entirely willing to give in if the others did the same. Flexible in a way Oberon Gloombringer had never in his wildest dreams imagined being .

I wanted to drown in that, in Rain Moonstriker, in that moment, and his complete lack of stubborn douchebaggery. I didn't know what look I was giving him, but it had to be something, because his pale cheeks flushed slightly, and he glanced away, then back again.

And then, he was kissing me.