3. Remy

3

REMY

The chill of the night does little to calm my blood no matter how much time I take to get to my destination. My wings are numb save for some painful throbbing. My mixed heritage makes me more susceptible to the cold than other gargoyles.

I land silently and open the balcony doors of the Firefly. We’d purchased this skyscraper in the Leonid territory last year. I’ve had my eyes on this territory for years. Lorenzo’s time was running out. That he’d made an enemy of Kalos had worked well in my favor and sped up our timeline.

The penthouse had been empty last week, but my closest people are moved in now and ready to work. Our original territory is stable, and the Leonid holdings are well placed for us to merge it seamlessly.

Everything had been planned for and considered. Even my mate .

She’s mine now. From every fiery strand of hair to her soft-parted lips.

I thought I’d accounted for everything.

But my reaction to her was more distracting than I’d expected.

The sensation brewing in my chest isn’t foreign, but I don’t want to dwell on it enough to name it.

Stacks of paper disrupt the clean lines of the dining table. Not that Silas would care. We have a place to do work like this, but he’d rather sprawl out in areas of his choosing. His attention is devoted to his laptop until he notices my presence.

My second-in-command raises a scaly brow. “And just what are you doing here?”

“Give me the progress report of what we found with Lorenzo’s holdings,” I order, ignoring the lizardman’s disbelief. I sit in a lounge chair facing the open area of the dining room and built large to accommodate my wings.

“You’re supposed to be consummating your marriage,” he says.

“She’s bitten. That will do for now.” Eventually we will need to consummate the mating…perhaps once I get my reactions under control it will be easier to convince her of that. Though the last sight of her cheeks reddening with rage attests that may be more difficult than I counted on.

He sighs and leans back in his chair. “What did you do?”

I scowl slightly, not liking his tone. “Exactly what needed to be done. The Council found someone to interrupt us. Just as we assumed they would.”

The mating is as good as consummated if the Council believes it is.

Silas’s lips thin. “And you left her there?”

I couldn’t stay. The wounded look on her face stabbed at me in an unexpected way. The discomfort is an unwelcome discovery. “We have guards posted, and I was done with her.”

Softening for Stella Elderflower would be a miscalculation.

He makes a gruff sound to vocalize his disbelief. “Your lust is choking the air, old friend. You’re lying out of your ass.”

“That doesn’t matter.” I tap my talons on the furniture, waiting for the report I requested.

Silas’s gaze narrows. “ Years , Remy. You’ve kept track of her for years, and now that you have an opportunity for something real, you’ve left her alone after an intimate act that will undoubtedly make her feel vulnerable.”

Something real was never on the table. Especially not now.

“We kept track of her because it suited our needs for this strategy,” I say, gesturing to the penthouse our operation is set up in.

He rolls his eyes. “We could have figured something else out. You wanted her .”

I bare my fangs, but don’t deny it. Silas knows me better than anyone else. He’s been with me since I usurped my first territory. He’d been managing the district while the actual leader had been living without a care in the world, cashing in favors he could never have paid back.

Silas had been the one who had kept the place as secure as it was but doing that without support was impossible. The territory was ripe for the picking and practically fell into my hands.

At my silence, Silas removes his reading glasses and starts cleaning them. The tension in his shoulders gives away that he isn’t going to drop the subject. “Mates are to be cherished.”

“And now I have her. We needed the mating. I don’t need her.” I only needed to possess the firefly that had caught my interest. That’s it.

He puts his glasses aside to glare at me. “Actually, you do.”

I clench my teeth in denial as he continues.

“This isn’t a takeover by might. The Leonids are shifters and have more unity than any territories you’ve claimed in the past. They require the stability of your mating to accept your sovereignty. Perhaps even an heir.”

Something sparks in my chest at that, and I stamp it out.

“It won’t come to that,” I say.

“Either way, we need her on our side to keep mutiny from happening. It’s not like you to discount an asset.”

Those who didn’t know Silas wouldn’t be able to read the concern in his features. Much of his emotion comes through the twitch of his eyebrows and the flare of the nostrils in his snout.

I’m behaving irrationally.

Fuck.

I can trust that she wants the power that she gained along with this revenge plot of hers. Perhaps that will be enough for her to overlook my actions…

Silas’s worry morphs into suspicion. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with her rejecting your proposal, would it?”

“That was years ago,” I try and scoff, but it doesn’t trick him.

We sit in silence for a moment as heat prickles the skin of my neck.

His eyes widen. “You’re unhinged.”

“She doubted my ability to obtain her revenge,” I snap.

“Which was logical since you were an upstart with an oversized ego. That ego is still oversized,” he mutters.

“You backed me.”

Silas rolls his eyes. “After you proved yourself. She didn’t even know you. You can’t hold that against her.”

Shouldn’t would be the more accurate term. The wisdom of that doesn’t dispel the distaste of her rejection any…or rather that she rejected me and accepted another.

The years we’ve kept tabs on her didn’t produce much reason for jealousy.

Not until recently.

“There’s another,” I growl. The register of the sound is nowhere near what I’d used with Stella. Those growls had scraped down deep in my chest, making my blood surge with need in time with the arousal I’d lit in her. This sound is fueled by an emotion I hardly want to acknowledge. Jealousy.

Silas makes a sound of understanding. “Ah, Kalos’s man? I thought our alliance was going to be dead in the water.”

Barnes had not hidden his emotions well. Which is odd for his position. One does not come to be right-hand to a dragon without having a certain amount of discipline.

“It’s a wonder that he made the offer at all,” Silas continues. “Though I suppose they had little choice.”

I wouldn’t have made the offer. I’d have crushed the Leonids before giving away the woman I’d claimed no matter the Council’s response.

“She says they aren’t lovers,” I say. Which would explain why the demon had made the deal.

Silas tilts his head. “Do you believe her?”

I consider that. I don’t not believe her. Not with her denials when her body bowed to my will. But whether they were physical lovers doesn’t matter in the realm of emotions.

There’s something between them?—

“You can’t kill him,” Silas says, breaking my train of thought. “Kalos is not an enemy we can afford.”

“I won’t kill him.” No matter how much I want to crush any ownership he thinks he has over my wife. I slow the tapping of my talons as I consider. “That would be a waste. He could be of use.”

“I don’t know whether to be upset with your scheming—” Silas sounds tired. “Or to be glad that you’re acting more like yourself again.”

“He can teleport,” I muse aloud, ignoring Silas. The skill is very rare. If he doesn’t keep clear of my mate…

I’m lost in possibilities when Silas interrupts again.

“By the way, some luggage that I think is Stella’s was left with the doorman earlier.”

I frown. “Her items have already been dropped off.”

Barnes himself had been the one to do it and scowled the whole time. The man had been busy with putting together a wedding in a matter of days but had made the time to glower at me and ensure that Stella would be comfortable in her new life.

Silas shrugs. “There were no spells or charms on it, so I figured accepting the delivery was for the best. It’s in the entranceway.”

The oddity is enough for me to start moving. Two bags rest where Silas said. One of them is familiar because it’s mine.

I clench my jaw before running my tongue over a fang, wanting to enforce my will on this new territory as soon as possible.

“These are the bags that should have been at the hotel,” I say.

“What? That can’t be right.” Silas is next to me in the next moment. Grim exasperation lines his face as we exchange a look. “Someone wanted to inconvenience you.”

We are both used to this type of testing. We took over this territory bloodlessly. This type of prodding is meant to see just what my reaction would be.

“Find who did this.” The knowledge will be instrumental to the consequences. Something like this seems low-level, but… “And maybe you’ll actually have that report when I get back.”

I grab the pink bag next to mine and shake the lingering cold from my wings. I left my mate coated in my seed and alone in a hotel room, possessing only a wedding dress that I destroyed. No matter what past sins I blame her for, she doesn’t deserve this.

She had better be alone anyway.