Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The woman knocked on a door, and Theo opened it. "What was the problem?"

"I was enjoying a hot chocolate. Something that was actually done well. I'm surprised." Everest answered instead of letting the woman speak.

Theo's eyes flashed with annoyance. "Are you always this difficult…" his face contorted as if using the title hurt. "Your highness."

"According to my teachers, yes. Though they were more diplomatic." Everest tilted his head. "I trust you summoned me for a good reason?"

"To continue negotiations. And to prove I keep my word."

"Ah, the phoenix. Very well." He lifted his hand. "Proceed."

Theo's face tightened as if he was about to refuse, then he stepped back. "Come in."

Everest stepped across the threshold and something akin to a magical dampener tightened over his skin. He put his hands behind his back and pushed a flame to his fingertip. Just one, as a test.

Cadel shut the door and grunted. He felt it, too.

"Everything all right?" Everest said without turning.

Cadel stepped closer; his finger brushed Everest's palm, acknowledging the flame. "Yes, though it would've been nice to know dampeners are being used to prevent shifting."

"Necessary," Theo said.

"You didn't want your phoenix to leave. Interesting. So he didn't choose to be bound." Everest fixed Theo with a glare, the fire in his eyes proving that he was more witch than shifter.

"He has been a valuable asset." Theo licked his lip. "Though not every witch is able to draw on him."

"Because it's the same as drawing on another witch. I imagine that is very different drawing on a shifter. Yet not one of you paused to question what you were doing."

"He's been handed down for generations with instructions."

Everest studied the older man. "Again, did no one stop to think?"

"You are phoenixes. You can understand why we believed your kind to be shifters."

They were both. Two of his brothers had found their fated mate, and that mate was a witch, proving they were shifters. Or at least shifter enough to have a witch as a mate. Not something anyone was advertising. And something he had left out of his reports to the Shadow Board.

"Well, now you know better."

"And when we have our safety, we will hand him over." Theo gave him a cold smile. "Hand you over."

"Of course…I understand how these kinds of negotiations work. But we all want the same thing; paranormals to come out of the shadows. "

"And that would've happened if the Coven hadn't stopped us."

Everest shook his head. "The Board tripped itself up. What were you thinking, trafficking people? Better Coven than the human authorities."

"They are also involved," Theo snapped.

His lack of patience and his unwillingness to bend were common among Board members. They were so convinced of their own superiority that they believed their own propaganda.

Everest leaned a little closer to the witch and lowered his voice as if they were friends sharing a secret. "Be glad the Coven is stopping the exposure of witches and shifters from that mess because that is not the coming out we deserve."

Theo didn't take the offer. "We could have had power."

Everest lifted his eyebrows and rocked back. A smarter man would've taken the chance to befriend him and gain more power. Hastings had been smart like that. "But you were tripped up by greed. It took centuries to create Mont de Leucoy. We could've done it faster if we had seized an existing country, but people remember and resist and resent. Do you play chess?"

"Cards."

Everest sniffed and sneered. "Pity. I find the game quite educational." He glanced at Cadel. "You can tell a lot from the strategies a man does or doesn't use. And how far in advance he plans."

"We had plans."

"Clearly not good ones, which is why we are standing here." Once again, Everest was grateful his brothers had done their jobs. "We don't make plans for a decade or even a lifetime. We make plans over centuries, trusting each other to enact them. From what I've seen of the Shadow Board, there were big plans made, but there were squabbles and political deals, all of which undermine the foundations of any plan."

"You have a plan for paranormals to come out."

Everest nodded. "It is what we have been working on since the television was first turned on." That was a lie. They had recognized the threat but hadn't started to make plans for another twenty years. If he hadn't been trying to get Olier back, he could've spent more time planning a way for paranormals to reappear in modern society. "Technology has raced ahead, even for us."

"Mobile phones. That's what made us plan. We didn't want witch hunts, and some wanted to give humans a taste of what it meant to live in fear." Theo said confident that Everest would agree.

"People who are afraid do stupid things. That's how we will end up with another round of witch hunts. Do you know what the shifters did last time?" He turned to Cadel, making it clear that he expected him to answer.

"Shifted and disappeared into the forests. It was the witches who burned, mostly," Cadel said, his face grim, but his nose wasn't twitching. No doubt the damper was more unpleasant for him, pressing on his skin and leaving his shifting heat nowhere to go.

"You might have controlled the humans for a little while, but they outnumber us. They would've risen and revolted. I do not want to live looking over my shoulder. Nor do I want to live in hiding. If we are agreed on that, negotiations will be easy."

"The sticking point with your father is the binding of shifters."

"I imagine it is." He didn't want to spend much longer with the dampener pressing on his skin. It was hard enough to keep his thoughts together without the added weight. "Show me the phoenix, and then I will talk with my father. "

"This way." Theo led them to another door. An adjoining room? Or a trap?

He shot Cadel a glance. Could he smell another phoenix?

Cadel scowled as if he wanted to lay Theo out.

With Theo's back turned, Everest checked his nose. It was fine. For the moment.

Theo unlocked the door but didn't enter the room.

If he wasn't entering, neither was Everest. But he wanted to with every fiber in his being. On the bed sat a dark-haired man at least a few years older than himself. His hair was in one long braid, and around his wrists were metal cuffs, but they weren't joined.

"Cuffed?"

"To suppress his fire."

"Would you like your magic suppressed, Theo?"

"It's necessary. Isn't it Oliver? You have a dangerous magic."

Oliver . Obviously, the instructions had included the bastardization of his name. Everest wanted to wrap his hands around Theo's throat and incinerate him. Slowly. And damn the personal consequences.

"I killed. I can't be trained, and I can't be trusted. They keep me safe from the Coven." Oliver stared at the ground.

Everest put his hands behind his back. Hands curled into fists. If he killed Theo in front of Olier, he would prove the Board right that their magic was dangerous. Though he was one hundred percent sure the danger Olier possessed had been manufactured to gain compliance with his captivity.

"McKeon, is he a phoenix?" He couldn't keep the bite out of his words.

"Yes, sir. And he hasn't bathed in several days."

"I've seen enough. "

"What's happening, Lord?" Oliver asked. The trust in his eyes when he looked at Theo was heartbreaking.

"I am negotiating safety for all of us. Prince Everest wanted to make sure you wouldn't be a danger."

Everest turned and glared at Theo. He'd burn the witch's tongue off for that lie. "Tell him the truth."

Theo took a step back. "He knows we can't protect him."

"He is a fire witch in need of training. The lack of training is not his fault but yours. I cannot blame the student when the teacher has failed to offer even the most basic lessons in control. Lessons every witch gets."

Theo swallowed loud enough for Everest to hear.

"I am untrainable, Prince. I killed my first teacher." Oliver said.

It took everything Everest had not to wince. Instead, he lifted one hand, letting a fireball form. "You are the same as me, a powerful fire witch with the ability to change into a being of fire. A phoenix. You are not untrainable. You were lied to by the people who sought to control you."

The amount of self-control it took to extinguish the ball instead of cramming it down Theo's throat almost broke him. He had not come this far to fuck up the last couple of plays.

"We protect him, bleed off the excess magic, so he isn't a danger to himself or others," Theo said. His face was red and puffed with anger.

Everest lifted his chin and glared. "I will speak with my father now."