31. Adair

Chapter 31

Adair

As much as part of me wanted to, it wasn't appropriate to spend the whole afternoon in bed.

Okay, that wasn't quite true. All of me wanted to do it.

But it still wasn't appropriate.

So after a while, I pulled away, sitting up and surveying the room for where I'd thrown my clothes. They were strewn everywhere, and I suspected if I put them back on, they'd be quite rumpled, but I couldn't go back to my room naked, so there was little choice in the matter.

Rain sighed. "You look purposeful."

The tone made me glance down at him, because somehow he sounded pleased and displeased at the same time. There was a smile on his lips, but he looked sad too.

"I have things to do," I explained. "I have to...I have to pack."

That seemed to bolster him, as he sat up, smiling. "Yeah? I can help. Tempest and Char can help. I'll text them. We can have it done as quickly as possible."

"You should be at the summit," I pointed out. "I'm the one who's leaving. Maybe I should go before the summit is over, and not...I don't want to ruin any chance at peace just because I'm leaving Oberon's employ for..."

We hadn't really discussed what I was going to Moonstriker lands for, I realized. It was a massive oversight on my part, the kind I almost never fell into. I thought everything through well before I acted, and I never left important considerations out in my planning. But I couldn't work for Rain, not like with Oberon. I couldn't be a Moonstriker vassal like I was here. If I was going to be with Rain, I couldn't work for him.

Instead of letting me spiral into worry, Rain smiled up at me, leaning his head on his hand. "Marriage? Is that a thing these days? Leaving a job to get married? I mean, you can't really live in Moonstriker lands and work here, and if Oberon were half as sensible as he likes to pretend, he'd understand that."

"He would," I agreed, my worry spiral falling flat the moment Rain said the word marriage. He wanted to marry me. That definitely wasn't a job offer. "The problem isn't even that he's not sensible, though he's not. It's that he's an ass who thinks he owns me."

Rain turned up his nose at the idea, pursing his lips and shaking his head sadly. "It's too bad he's not more like his son."

His son.

Of course Rain knew. "Was it that obvious?"

He glanced back up at me, eyebrows raised, but after a second he seemed to understand what I was asking. "Oh, it...well, yes, but I hadn't given it that much thought. He does look a lot like Oberon. But I know because he told me everything on the way to the bus station. I'm sorry if taking him there ruined some plan you had, by the way, but he was determined, and I thought the best way to try to keep contact with him was to let him have what he wanted and tell him to keep in touch."

Keep in touch. That was...actually not only logical, but emotionally savvy. Trying to talk Aubrey into staying, which I definitely would have done under the circumstances, would likely have only alienated him. "Do you think he'll actually keep in touch? He was really angry."

"He was, and rightfully so," Rain agreed. "I do think he'll keep contact, because I gave him a phone for it, and we'll of course continue to pay the bill on that. Even if he ditches the phone for some reason, though, I had my brother Frost tag him on CCTV at the bus station to make it easier to find him again. Arrange for the best but prepare for the worst, that's what Uncle Cove always says. He's very pragmatic."

All I could do was stare at him a moment. Arrange for the best, prepare for the worst. This wasn't even that. He'd literally covered everything and then some. He hadn't just made an ally of Aubrey, but given him a way to contact himself, and then made backup plans as well.

"You're incredible," I said, and let myself fall back down next to him. "I do need to get up, and so do you, but I don't want to."

He sighed, reaching out to run a hand down my cheek. "You were right, though. We should try to preserve the summit if we can. We need to find a way to stop Mount Slate, and walking away isn't it."

I was right. He said it like it was just a simple observation, not a revelation of epic proportions. Even if I'd said the same exact thing to Oberon, he'd have never given me credit for the observation. He wasn't capable of giving someone else credit. His cook's skill was his skill in choosing a good cook. My intelligence was his intelligence for hiring me.

I sighed. "So you need to go down to the meeting room, and I need to go start packing my bags. I should talk to Oberon, too. I won't...I won't tell him where I'm going or why. After this morning, he couldn't be shocked by it."

Rain's eyes narrowed, staring at my injured cheek, and he nodded. "What he should do is consider himself lucky you're not a violent man."

"You're still thinking about challenging him to a duel, aren't you?"

"He hit you."

It wasn't an answer, but also, it was. And while I was no wilting violet who needed someone else to fight my battles for me, it was gratifying to have him there, caring enough to want to. Still, I shook my head. "No dueling Oberon. It's not worth it. He's not worth it. I'll go tell him I'm leaving. That'll be enough."

I could tell he wasn't satisfied. That he wanted to go with me to talk to Oberon, to defend me from the possibility that he'd hit me again, but I couldn't imagine it coming up. Oberon was an ass, yes, but hitting me hadn't been intentional. Hitting Aubrey wouldn't have been so much better, admittedly, but still, it might have angered Rain less.

But again, there was no reason to bring Rain into it. Oberon had to know he'd made a mistake. He wasn't just losing the possibility of Aubrey for it, which was obvious, but Titania and me as well. He had to realize it had been a mistake.

Right?

Somehow, I had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to work out like that .

Still, I forced myself out of Rain's bed, as much as I didn't want to, and dressed in my suit. It wasn't as bad as I'd half expected, a rumpled mess, just not quite as crisp as it'd been when I'd dressed that morning. It was plenty.

Rain redressed as well, and somehow, his jacket looked just as perfect as the first time he'd worn it. Incredible.

I straightened a button after he finished and held my arms out as though waiting for inspection. "How do I look? Presentable?"

"Delectable," he corrected. "But you look fine to go talk to Oberon. Assuming he's not in the meeting room glaring at the clock and demanding to know where I am."

I rolled my eyes at that, sighing. "That does sound like him. You go down to the meeting room, and I'll go to his parlor, and we'll see who finds him first. Sound good?"

He didn't look like it sounded good to him, but he nodded. "I just know it's going to be you. If he hits you again, I am going to hit him back."

"Not if I do it first," I offered back cheerfully, and then headed out through the shared room and into the hall. I didn't think I was going to hit Oberon, but who knew? Maybe I'd surprise everyone, myself most of all.

I was already abandoning my entire life to run off and...marry? Marry Rain Moonstriker.

I couldn't seem to keep a grin from splitting my face, even though it made my injured cheek ache. At best, Oberon was going to think I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had, but I found that I couldn't regret it.

I stopped in my room first, to grab the paper Titania had left with her phone number on it. I could worry about packing my bags after I figured things out with Oberon.

He was in his parlor. I wondered about that. Had he gone to the meeting room and found us all missing, because Rain and I had completely ignored our duties in favor of having sex in the middle of the morning?

I considered as I slipped into the parlor, where Oberon was pacing back and forth in the empty space between it and his bedroom. I'd never even imagined ignoring my duties in favor of sex before, and I sincerely doubted Rain had either.

Match , Rhodri said, her voice almost making me jump in surprise after how quiet she'd been all morning. Matches change everything. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. But either way, everything .

What about this? I asked her, watching Oberon pace. Is it good or bad?

She snorted at me. Don't be ridiculous. You and Rain are perfect. Plus I'll get to see Iri in person again. She's a pain in the ass, but I mostly like her. She's...a friend .

A friend. That was probably for the best, that she liked the Moonstriker stone.

Oberon finally seemed to notice me and stopped to scowl. "Where have you been?"

I lifted a brow, staring at him for a long, silent moment. What would he do if I said I'd been off getting medical attention because he'd hit me? Call me a prissy prima donna or something, no doubt. "Titania and I went to see if we could talk to Aubrey."

He scoffed and waved dismissively. "Don't waste your time on that. No point in talking to him. He's a weakling."

I'd been expecting insults, yes, but that was odd, wasn't it? How was Aubrey standing up to him, giving as good as he got from Oberon, "weak?"

I crossed my arms over my chest and just looked at the man .

He crossed his own arms, bracing his legs wide and scowling even darker, annoyed that I wasn't backing him up, petulant and defensive.

No doubt if I suggested that he should give a damn about his own son, he'd scoff and say something else childish, like how caring was for women and children.

"You don't need to bother talking to him," I said when it became apparent he wasn't going to explain his nonsense opinion. "He's gone."

"Good," he shot back immediately. "If he can't handle the truth about his mother, he certainly can't handle being heir to the Gloombringer name."

Incredible. In-fucking-credible.

Was he serious?

"I'm sure he has no remaining interest in being the Gloombringer," I said, shaking my head, exasperated. "And Titania's gone, too, for the record. She was on her way to pack a bag last I saw her. Said she's not coming back here as long as you're alive."

He scoffed. "That's just fine. What good did she ever do, anyway? Besides, she'll be back as soon as she runs out of money."

There was no reason to point out that she'd told me she would be fine. He didn't care to know, whether it was true or not. He'd made a decision, and that was the end of it, for him.

"I am too," I said, and for some reason, that came out with less emotion than when I'd told him his sister was gone. Like it didn't matter to me. "I'm leaving."

Again, he didn't seem to care. Or maybe he didn't believe. He gave a little click of his tongue and shook his head. "What, just because you got in the way with that ungrateful brat at breakfast? Don't be a child, Adair, it's not becoming."

The light in the room seemed to shift, suddenly oddly bright, and it took me a moment to realize no, it wasn't the light. It was...it was Oberon. It was Oberon's mass of thousands of threads, every single one of which had just turned pure white, as though a switch had been flipped.

I took a step back, and he huffed. "Really? What, you think I'm going to attack you because you're being a petulant child?"

"You never could see past the end of your own nose, Oberon," Huxley Dawnchaser said as he slipped into the parlor, locking the door behind him. "I presume his song is telling him that you're about to die. Is that about the size of things, dear little moon tear?"

I couldn't catch a breath, and all I could do was nod.