Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

L yssa's jade green eyes swept the assembled. "I need hunters and warriors. Lord Belizar, you will handle Council matters in my stead."

The Russian vampire accepted the honor with a nod. "You are aware you leave a hammer in charge."

"A hammer may be needed if we require assistance." Grim humor touched her frigid gaze. "Lady Danny is also on her way from Australia. She's cutting short the leave she took to attend to sheep shearing at her station."

When her gaze moved toward Gideon, Ruth saw that Daegan had appeared beside him, the sheathed katana over his shoulder. "I am always prepared, my lady," the enforcer said. "My servant should come, too. He may be of some small assistance."

Gideon gave him an eat shit look, but the banter didn't interfere with the grimness around his mouth. He was Kane's uncle, after all.

"I'm with you," Maddock said. "Not just as a portal conductor. You may need another magic user in the fighter category, my lady."

"No chance you're leaving me behind," Lord Mason said to the queen.

"I wouldn't dream of trying," she responded. "We go get our children together."

"I should go," Yvette said. "To reinforce Maddock." The tips of her fangs showed. ""I don't tolerate those who use the young to fight their battles. They're monsters that require putting down."

"No." Merc spoke, unexpectedly. "Your position with the Circus is too important. You're the most powerful protection for Clara and others there. I'll go with Lady Lyssa."

Yvette's brow lifted. "Though you question the blood, you may have enough angel to fall under the neutrality requirement, Merc. Marcellus?—"

"Today that is not the part of my blood that's important, except as it can be called upon to help against our enemies."

"Ruth needs you," Yvette pointed out.

"I am whatever she needs." Merc turned toward Ruth. "What do you need, Ruth?"

The Council members watched, but she knew their opinion wouldn't matter to him. "I need you to go after them. Get Kane and Farida back. And tear apart those who…dared to do what they did."

She stopped there, but he could read it from her heart. From every corner inside her.

"You will stay here," he told her. "I know you wish to fight, but…"

"I'm not powerful enough. You'd have to focus on protecting me. I get it." It hurt, but she was used to that kind of hurt. "Bring me bodies," she said. "I'll feed them to the cats."

If it wouldn't risk their digestive systems, she'd be dead serious. Some tribes ate the hearts of their enemies, to absorb their strength and establish their victory over them. She had no desire to touch any part of someone who'd murdered her parents. But she wanted to let the cats tear their earthly bodies to pieces.

"Lady Ruth." Belizar drew her attention. "Since Merc can speak in your head, you will remain in Council chambers with us, as will Jessica and Anwyn. If Mason, Gideon, Daegan or Merc can communicate their status, you will be able to relay that information to us."

"Is your ability to speak in her mind an angelic ability, or have you accepted her marks?" Lord Stewart's eyes had narrowed.

"I accepted her marks. All three of them. She belongs to me." Merc met the male's gaze. Though his expression was impassive, the menace was impossible to miss.

No violence against Council members, she reminded him. Not until we get them back.

The ache expanded in her chest, because she so passionately wanted those words to apply to someone else, not just Farida and Kane. The crippling wave of pain turned Merc's attention back to her. That cocoon in her mind steadied her. Helped her stay upright, inside and out.

"It's not the time to debate whether Council permission should have been sought first," Helga said shortly. "Save it for another day, Stewart."

"I was aware of the possibility of the marking, but it was a recent discussion," Lyssa added, her tone brusque. "It was a tactical decision, to assist in learning more about the Trad situation. I'll explain later. Now it's not relevant."

Lyssa moved on, addressing Uthe. "I know you'd stand with me. The battle I need you to fight is at Keldwyn's side, with Rhoswen. If this does not go well, if we did not anticipate our foe well enough, I need your clever tongue and wits to join with his and convince her to help her godson."

"Kel's currently with her at a High Fae event," Uthe said, "but I can send him a thought and he'll respond immediately."

"I know." Lyssa's gaze slid over the room again. "Those of you joining me, go prepare. Dress for a fight. We leave shortly."

"You'll be in the deep woods," Uthe added. "Up in the mountains."

"Shocker," Gideon said. "Maybe we can bring them a case of toothpaste. And soap."

"They won't be needing it," Mason promised.

As Lyssa moved for the door, the others fell in behind her. Jacob, at her shoulder, followed by his brother, Daegan, Lord Mason and Maddock. Mason paused next to Jessica, gripped her hand and brought her close. Ruth heard the rumble of his voice. "I will bring her back, habiba ."

"Bring both of you back." Jessica's delicate face was strained but held a fierceness that matched her next words. "I wish I could take down those bastards with you."

"They are the ones who will have to watch their backs." Squeezing her hip, he looked toward Ruth. Paused. Ruth braced herself. Just go. Please just go.

"It's said a certain type of memory spell can't hold once its owner is dead," he told her. "Or a certain amount of time has passed. When I return, I hope to have my memory back, so I can share better things with you. It feels...important."

Ruth fought off the ache in her throat to respond. "Come back safely, my lord, with Kane and Farida. That's what's important. The rest…we'll deal with the rest later."

"Yes." Mason looked back down at Jessica, pressed a kiss to her mouth, his hands cupping her skull, fingers in her hair. They touched foreheads, eyes briefly closed, then he released her and turned, striding away. Anwyn gripped Jessica's hand as Jessica watched his broad shoulders. Her face was pale, her composure holding by a thread.

Sometimes waiting was the hardest thing to endure.

Merc touched Ruth's face, his arm around her, a wing folded over her back. He'd gotten pretty touchy-feely of late, her angel incubus. She was okay with that. She desperately needed it. She drew on that energy, the strength of his body, and his thoughts.

You are strong, Ruth. So very strong. You hold fast, and when I come back, when the children are safe, I will take you back to the island to grieve. Until then, put it away.

He made it an order, made it a command she could hear vibrating through every muscle, every nerve. He knew she needed that order to reinforce her sense of self, to keep her from falling apart.

You will need your wits about you in this group , he reminded her.

That part she knew. No matter their sympathy for her grief, vampires respected strength above all else. She would be strong. She would be so fucking strong, like her parents were.

Had been.

Merc tipped up her chin and kissed her, a heated brand that jolted her. When he drew back and her eyes were open, he met them with one purpose. "Tell me you will do as I've said."

"I will. Just like I'll kick your ass later for trying to order me around."

He leaned in and moved his lips against her ear, even though the words came through her mind. I will use a belt to beat your pretty ass for trying. Gundar has some nice thick ones. I will borrow one from his closet.

The sexual ripple wasn't much against the other emotions she was feeling, but it reinforced what he'd said. Put it away for now. Wait until she could let it all loose, give it all to him, and figure out how to survive a pain too unbearable to contemplate.

She had her own directive for him. Merc? Let the Trads think you're an incubus. Vampires have really strong libidos. It may muddle them. And not knowing about your angel side gives you an advantage.

That was based on the hope that Asva hadn't revealed the identity of the "Truth Vessel" before dying. But if it couldn't be used as an advantage, Merc would adapt.

His thumb passed over her lips, his eyes very close. So close they chilled her, because they were more pitiless than Lady Lyssa's.

Remember I said I learned how to make it painless? I've never forgotten how to do it the other way. Make sexual pleasure the most agonizing thing someone has experienced. Purposefully crack open that subconscious layer, let them understand, at every level, their life is slowly leaving them, and there's not a fucking thing they can do except watch me rip it away.

Her savage instincts responded in kind. She embraced the surge of bloodlust, the desire to take life and cause suffering. Her nails dug into his biceps. Good. If you can make it hurt, do. But mostly, just make them dead. So I know they're no longer in this world.

There won't be enough left of their souls to cross the Veil. That is the gift I will give my vampire.

After the rescue team departed, the rest of the Council adjourned to their usual chamber, a spacious chamber with a high ceiling, crisscrossed with beams. They were wrapped with night blooming flowers that received sunlight through the sky light during the day, while the vampires slept.

Torrence, Helga's servant, showed Ruth to a chair set up in a quiet corner of the carpeted room. The Council seats were behind a horseshoe-shaped table, a dark polished wood with giant carved feet like a griffin's. The chairs matched. Tapestries of past battles and historic moments in the vampire history hung behind them and on the left and right walls. In the opposite corner from Ruth, a koi pond had been constructed, the fish swimming lazily among the rocks and under the overhang of the fountain that kept up a low rush of sound.

Someone had instructed the headquarters staff to tend to her. She was brought a tea to soothe her nerves, according to the kind-eyed Inherited Servant who brought it. InhServs were the elite of the servant class, humans contracted from birth to be trained when they came of age to serve Council and the higher ranks. The arrangement was made with their families because of bonds they had with, or debts they owed to, the vampire world.

This InhServ also brought a blood-laced concoction from the Council's secured stores of second mark blood, to fortify her strength. Inherited Servants would be solicitous of any vampire. However, Ruth wished they'd treat her with the dismissive indifference more powerful vampires usually treated a far lower ranking one. Too much kindness would break her.

She held onto Merc's order, though, and mumbled her thanks. When her link to him vanished, it jolted her, but it meant they were in the portal. When it didn't resurface, it told her the destination might be beyond her range. Maybe Merc could amplify it from his end, but there'd been no time to suggest trying that option.

A bitter pill, but there was a lot of bitter to choke on right now. He would be in contact as soon as he could. She kept reaching out for Adan as well. Nothing. Damn Guardian business.

She needed her twin, but a separate part of her dreaded taking away his ignorant bliss. She wanted him to have that gift as long as possible, before he learned the foundation of their world had dissolved like a sandcastle before water.

Her numbness was a precarious glue. Sitting upright in the chair seemed almost more than she could do.

Pull it together . She gave herself that savage instruction, even as the vulnerable part of her cried for Merc, for her brother, for dawn, so the sun could knock her unconscious. She hoped she wouldn't dream, though it was probably a futile wish.

Jessica sat to her right, Anwyn on her left. Ruth wished the three of them had been told to sit outside chambers unless they received information from their mind links. She didn't want to hear the Council handling business as if life was supposed to go on the way it always did.

Anwyn was so close her shoulder almost brushed Ruth's, a show of support. She didn't want it. She wanted Merc. She wanted Adan.

She wanted her mother and father.

A tiny whimper caught in her throat, and her fists clenched. When Anwyn looked her way, Ruth snapped her spine straight, and gave her a nod. She was okay.

She was going to be fucking okay if it killed her.

"It is a difficult day, but before we received the news of the kidnapping, we had a full agenda," Lord Belizar was saying brusquely. "As Lady Lyssa noted, Lady Danny will be here shortly, but we have a majority of Council present. We can handle many things to lighten the load. There may be far more difficult challenges ahead."

Like the queen dealing with the loss of her son. Or Lord Mason his daughter. Ruth gripped the mug of tea, and her stomach heaved. She set it back down on the small round table between her and Jessica.

"Lady Carola," Lord Belizar said. "You have the first agenda item."

"Yes. It is a straightforward matter. Conveniently, Lady Kaela was already en route to this location, and arrived a short time ago."

Stewart frowned. "She was questioned extensively by phone. Why did Lady Lyssa request a personal audience?"

"She didn't," Lady Helga put in. "Lady Kaela's loyalty to our queen inspired her to come and offer her in-person support, if she needed another powerful ally at her back."

"Commendable," Lord Walton noted.

"Yes. But unfortunately bearing little support for the agenda item to be addressed." Lady Carola motioned to her servant, Wilhelm, standing at the door. "Have Lady Kaela and her servant brought before us."

The words jerked Ruth out of her numbness. When the Council chamber doors opened a few moments later, her stomach, already in a precarious state, bucked painfully.

Kaela wasn't escorted in as a dignified overlord bringing business before Council. She was hauled in, by the four vampires who served as honor guard when Council was in session. Guarding the door, or doing work like this.

Bringing a vampire prisoner before them.

Kaela's clothes were torn and bloody, hair snarled, makeup smeared from sweat and tears. The blood and the pallor of her skin said she'd sustained injuries, though she was strong enough they were no longer apparent, except from the location of the bloodstains.

The odd angle of Garron's right arm told Ruth it was broken. When he was shoved to his knees, the way he guarded his right hand, catching himself with the left, told her the fingers and wrist were also out of commission. The rattle of his breath said his ribs were damaged.

A third mark could heal from most things, just like a vampire, if they had each other's blood. He'd not been allowed to draw blood from his Mistress, or her from him.

If their battered state was an indication, the four guards hadn't had an easy time of it, either. Their wary stance toward Kaela said they were braced for more of the same. Kaela's attention had turned to Garron, though, as she tried to get him to stay down. He was having none of it. With great difficulty, he rose and positioned himself behind her and to her left. As a servant would in such circumstances.

"You continue to pretend." Carola's voice dripped with contempt. "As if your deceit is to be admired."

"Why are they in this condition, Borgas?" Lady Helga demanded.

Borgas had long dark hair and a mix of Asian and Anglo facial features. His eyes were frost blue. "They resisted when we brought the order to confine them to quarters," he said. "They didn't respond well to the charge."

" They didn't respond well to it," Kaela snapped. "They attacked my servant."

"You were quick to defend him, weren't you, my lady?" he responded, the title marinated in venom.

"Enough." Lady Carola's expression locked on the guard. "We will address your misconduct later. While your disgust is justified, you are required to act with restraint, until you are ordered otherwise."

"Yes, my lady." Borgas set his jaw.

"Take up your position at the door."

Until the guards complied, Kaela watched them with a sword in her gaze and tight lips on the verge of a snarl. Then she saw Ruth. That sword sliced down with an accusing heat, telling Ruth what the charge was.

Kaela thought Ruth had betrayed them.

Agony bled into Ruth's heart, a place with no room for more agony.

Ruth.

She grabbed onto Merc's voice. They were out of the portal, and they weren't out of range. I'm all right. It's not related. Where are you?

We're hiking through the mountains, heading for the Trad compound. Nothing yet to report. You're very distressed.

I'm okay. The shittiest day in the world has just become the shittiest one in the universe. Something happening at Council, with Kaela and Garron.

She gave it to him in a nutshell and added, Lyssa needs to know. I think she's always known about Kaela.

The time isn't appropriate, but as soon as it is, I will inform her. Help them however you can in the meantime.

Yeah, because she could stand against Council.

Yes, you can.

His certainty of it, no matter how misplaced, helped.

Kaela's lip curled away from a fang, a scornful sneer, before she dismissed Ruth and faced the Council. She drew herself up as if she wore a queen's robes. Ruth thought of her history as a spy, where she'd known she could end up in front of a tribunal like this and sentenced to hang.

"Lady Kaela, you know the charge brought before you," Lady Carola said. "You have an unnatural relationship with your servant, where you submit to him as your Master. Proof has been provided to us by a member of your territory who recorded you in the privacy of your rooms. Do I need to play it?"

It was a rhetorical question, because she'd already pressed the button of the small device.

Garron's voice. "How will your serve your Master tonight, my lady?"

"However you desire. Please…" Kaela's voice. Trembling with yearning.

"You need me to be strict with you? Use you hard? Bring you peace? Open your mouth, my lady, stretch those beautiful lips around my cock. You know where they're supposed to be. Put yourself to work for your Master."

What two people shared in sexual intimacy, aired this way, made it tawdry and humiliating. Especially under the shocked and condemning eyes of the Council members.

Kaela was being subjected to the worst part of Ruth's nightmares.

The overlord had proven she could control her emotions. However, blood hunger and stress put a crack in her armor. A quiver passed through Kaela, and she became even paler. Garron's expression was murderous.

"Turn it off," Helga said, and Carola complied. The Councilwoman who'd brought the accusation stared at Kaela.

"I'm disappointed. The tiresome assumptions that a female vampire's more ‘emotional' constitution makes her vulnerable to a male servant will once again be given weight. Your weakness has set us back, Lady Kaela."

"She is a made vampire," Lord Stewart pointed out. "Her craving for submission survived her transition."

"Which makes it a rare birth defect." Lord Walton dipped his head toward Carola and Helga. He had the slim, muscled body of a dancer and the level gaze of a tactician. "Not a reflection on our vampire females who are exemplary leaders of our race. It does not have to be perceived as a step backward, Lady Carola. We have progressed that much, I think."

Kaela's fists had clenched. Garron's eyes were now lowered, but Ruth was sure it wasn't an attitude of submission. It was so the killing light in his gaze wasn't as obvious. She expected there was a great deal of conversation going on between him and Kaela. He would keep his focus there, on what would strengthen and support his lady.

The way Merc had done for her, ever since she walked into her family home only a few hours ago.

"The accused is allowed to speak on her own behalf," Lady Helga noted. "Lady Kaela?"

"I've been an exceptional overlord," Kaela said. "You know this."

"It's what we have believed." Carola tapped the folder under her hand. "This member of your territory has many complaints. Perhaps you've just been clever at concealing the things you're not doing well."

"A resentful and ambitious vampire." Kaela's voice dripped with disbelief. "That's who you consider a valid witness?"

Lord Belizar drummed his large fingers on the table. "A valid point. Lady Carola, our kind will take advantage of opportunities to undermine and rise higher in our ranks. A vampire can manipulate voice recordings as easily as any human. Have you had the tape verified?"

"No," Carola admitted. "I had not thought of it, Lord Belizar."

"Understandable." Lord Walton spoke. "We older vampires have a tendency to forget the technological tools at our fingertips." At Carola's searing look, he lifted a hand and added, "I'm not insulting you, my lady. Merely pointing out what I know to be true of many of us at this table, including our absent queen."

"It took an act of God for Lord Mason to agree to use a cell phone," Helga said, "and he still views them with great suspicion."

Kaela's expression remained blank during the hatefully wry exchange. Ruth swallowed the ache in her throat, remembering her father's aversion to technology. And how she and Adan liked to tease him about it.

"You are correct." Lord Belizar spoke to Kaela. "We do not generally take the word of vampires of lower rank over the word of our overlords, unless far more compelling proof than this is presented. So…does this tape lie? Has this vampire manipulated the information to defame you?"

He'd just given her a chance to refute the relationship. Deny Garron was her Master. At the least, she could ask that the tape be tested, which would buy her time. Time for the matter to be settled when Lord Mason, Lady Lyssa and Lady Danny were present, all of whom were known to have closer relationships with their servants "than comfortable."

But none of them were submissive to those servants.

Ruth's gaze slid between Garron and Kaela. As Kaela's stoic mask started to slip, Ruth remembered the tired despair in her gaze in the study.

It wears you down. It wears us both down.

Ruth knew what her answer would be, even as she willed Kaela not to say it. Just as she was sure Garron was doing furiously in her mind, every muscle of his big body rigid.

But Kaela was done with lying.

She met Lord Belizar's gaze. "I submit to Garron for my personal needs. When I was human, I was submissive to my husband, and cherished him as my Master. As I cherish Garron now."

Her gaze slid to Lord Walton, and the edge to her voice was unmistakable. "It is no birth defect, my lord. Garron serves me as a vampire's servant, credibly, extraordinarily. He also serves me, the woman, as my Master."

Dismay gripped several faces, but the Council did not appear moved beyond that. Lord Welles addressed the Council as if Kaela had offered only one word.

Guilty.

"There are two choices in such cases. We can give Lady Kaela the option of dying with her servant, or require that she be put under the direct supervision of a Region Master who can recondition her to serve a useful purpose in our society."

"Which she has done up until now," Lord Walton noted. "On that point at least, I am inclined to doubt the vampire who maligns her. She has been an excellent overlord."

"Reconditioning is prolonged torture and blood hunger to reset the mind," Lady Helga said. "Don't dress it up, Lord Welles."

Lord Welles's brown eyes sparked at the challenge. He was as tall as Belizar, though not as broad. He wore an Armani suit, the dress shirt open at the throat, the silky tips of his ash brown hair brushing his collar. Since the rest of the Council was in what humans would call business casual, he must have joined the Council from another engagement. "The two choices are laid out, Lady Helga. You can choose the former if you don't have the stomach for the latter."

Helga tapped a finger bearing a ruby ring on the table. "I might rip yours out first. You can apologize to me as you're pushing your intestines back in. It would ruin that expensive suit."

Lady Carola waved a dismissive hand. "Stop this. His words were poorly chosen, but the situation can't stand, Helga. It's against everything that a vampire is."

"How am I different?"

Every head swung toward Ruth as she erupted from her seat. Anwyn caught the tea before it could tumble off the table.

Challenging the Council would have scared her shitless, if not for what had happened tonight, hundreds of miles from here. This was senseless. It was all senseless. She wasn't steady enough, level-headed enough to do what she was doing, but she couldn't let it stand, what Kaela was thinking about her. Or what Council was considering.

Anwyn's hand was on her wrist, a warning squeeze. Lord Belizar shot Ruth a ball-breaking look. "Lady Ruth, heed Anwyn and take your seat. You have no leave to speak unless you are communicating matters related to the rescue party. But in answer, you gave your marks—albeit without seeking proper permission—to a being far stronger than yourself. Much as Lord Uthe…" He cleared his throat. "Much as we have acknowledged there is a component of that in Lord Uthe's relationship with the Fae Lord Keldwyn."

"Speak truly," Lord Stewart put in. "Would you countenance bowing to a being weaker than yourself? A human?" He cast a pitying look at Kaela, then an unfriendly one toward Garron. "I know your father. Your brother. It would be against your nature."

Ruth didn't resist Anwyn's touch, but she wouldn't let her pull her back into her seat. "Did you dispute the bond between my brother and his Fae servant?" she demanded. "Did you oppose the Fae sentence that was intended to kill him?"

No. They hadn't. Adan had survived the Guardian training that no one had thought he would survive. In so doing, he proved that things didn't have to be what people expected them to be.

But still, they persisted in acting like they did.

Lady Carola and Lord Belizar's expressions said Ruth was about to get a more strident set-down, though for Belizar she thought her offense was the protocol breach. The color in Carola's cheeks, the thinness of her lips, said Ruth was disagreeing with what was beyond dispute, and that wouldn't be tolerated.

"She's endured enough today to earn some latitude, I believe," Lady Helga interjected smoothly, drawing attention away from her. "She's young, but she's correct on one thing. It's not the first time we've had to come to grips with different relationships. Lady Lyssa herself set the precedent with an open declaration of her love for Jacob, her bond with him."

Lady Carola and Lord Stewart gave her a frosty look. Apparently, it wasn't something they wished to be reminded of.

"That's a far different matter, as Lady Lyssa herself has proven," Carola said. "She holds the upper hand with Jacob and never allows his influence to change the decisions she makes as queen and member of this Council. To suggest otherwise would imply the Council needs to take a further look at it."

Helga's eyes narrowed. "We didn't always believe that, Carola, or do you not remember? And do not threaten our queen. You've seen how well that turns out for Council members. She has not hesitated to deliver that lesson, even during a meeting. You were there, I believe?"

Carola blew out a ferocious breath. "What point are you trying to make?"

"Anyone we bond with has the opportunity to help us see things differently. In the right way." Helga glanced toward the opposite end of the chamber. The servants of the Council members stood in silent formation along that wall. A straight line could be drawn between each servant and their seated Master or Mistress. Helga's gaze lingered on her own servant, Torrence, before it returned to Kaela, then came back to the rest of the Council.

"As Lady Kaela said, she has proven herself an exemplary overlord. Brutal when needed, fair always. We've heard from many in her territory supporting that. Voices that far outweigh one malcontent who leaves recorders where they might document incriminating information."

"The matter with Lady Kaela is written into our law," Lord Stewart said impatiently. "The evidence has been provided, and it only requires a Council majority to pass sentence."

"You've brought up an interesting philosophical debate, Helga," Welles noted, "But Stewart is correct. The law stands as it stands. I support sending her to Lord Zixin in China. She's too valuable and intelligent to lose, and he has the right disposition to handle the matter."

Ruth's trembling knees couldn't hold her any longer. She'd sunk back down into the chair, Jessica's hand on her back, Anwyn's still resting on her arm. She felt their sympathy, saw in their faces they didn't agree with what was happening. But none of them had any standing to impact it. If she spoke again, she would be removed. She knew it.

Maybe that would be preferable.

The Council voted in favor of Welles' motion, with only one dissenting vote, Lady Helga. "You would vote for the first option, for her to die with her servant?" Lord Belizar asked. "It should be clarified for the minutes."

He nodded toward a scribe, an Inherited Servant at a small desk to the right of the Council horseshoe.

Lady Helga gazed at Kaela as she spoke. "Yes. I also think we should change the law going forward, to give the vampire the choice to refuse conditioning."

Kaela was so pale Ruth wasn't sure how she was standing, except Garron stood close enough that her back brushed his chest. She wasn't leaning, but the contact said she was aware of the support. The servant's eyes lifted and locked with Belizar's. "For being this goddamn stupid, your race will eventually be annihilated. And no one will fucking miss it."

Kaela's head had bowed in an attitude of defeat. Of exhaustion. Garron's undamaged hand went to her shoulder, holding. Ruth couldn't speak, the lump in her throat too large. Oh, Great Father…

Lord Belizar's expression had gone flat. Emotionless. He motioned to Borgas. "Escort her servant to the courtyard. We will adjourn there for his execution. Which will be handled quickly and painlessly," he added, giving Borgas a look that said he'd be heeded, or there'd be hell to pay.

Kaela's head snapped up, her anguished eyes meeting the Russian's. Lord Belizar's jaw tightened. "I will grant you a mercy, Lady Kaela. You may choose to carry out the sentence according to our laws, or return to your rooms to prepare for the journey to China. The honor guard will handle it. That choice is yours."