Or at the least, ruin your life.
But the Scribe Virgin save her soul, she was incapable of not going to make sure Xcor was okay.
At the King’s audience house, Paradise smiled at the elderly male in front of her desk. “Oh, you’re welcome. I’m glad that we got you in tonight.”
“You have been most helpful.” He bowed to her, his cap in hand. “Be of well hour unto the dawn.”
“Yourself also.”
As he walked out of the parlor, she sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. Last appointment of the night. Wrath had seen between two and four people an hour for eight hours, so that was at least sixteen, maybe up to thirty people. And for each of them, she had followed the protocol her father had set up: the check-in, the registration if they had never been to see the King before, the offer of food and drink before they were summoned. Then afterward, she had bid them good-day and entered into the database the notes her father gave her about the discussion and any decisions that had been made or permissions granted.
She wasn’t just exhausted. She was wrung-out. So much to learn, so many names and issues, family trees and bloodlines, and there was no room for error.
Plus, she had had to be welcoming to everyone and engage them in conversation while they waited, especially if they came alone.
Not that that had been a requirement of the job set out by her father. But she had felt like it was important.
Maybe because of her stewardess outfit.
More likely because of her glymera training.
“Lot of empty chairs here.”
Her lids popped open and she jumped. “Peyton! Jesus, can’t you knock?”
“I did. And one of the Brothers let me in—which nearly made me lose bladder control.” He glanced back at the open archway. “And you don’t have a door in front of your desk or I woulda done the knuckle thing. Sorry I scared you.”
Jogging her mouse to the side, she cleared the computer screen of multicolored, transparent bubbles. “What do you want.”
“You haven’t answered any of my texts. Or calls.”
“I’m pissed off at you.”
“Parry, come on. Don’t be like this.”
“I’ve got a question for you.” She shifted her glare from the Excel spreadsheet she’d been working on to his blue eyes. “How’d you like it if you were denied making a choice because you have blond hair.”
He threw up his hands. “Whatever, we’re not talking about hair color—”
“I’m serious. Stop arguing with me and answer the question.”
“I would go to CVS and buy some black hair dye.”
Shaking her head, Paradise picked up the notebook with her punch list on it and checked off a couple of things she’d already done.
“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal,” Peyton muttered. “Why do you want to be in the war anyway? Aristocrats are going to get killed out there, too, you know. Why don’t you want to be safe—”
“Behind a desk, right? Or more likely in a dress in a big house. Right?”
“It’s not wrong to look out for the fairer sex.”
“Don’t you have to get back to your bong.”
She could feel him glaring at her from his greater height. “Don’t you remember the raids, Parry? Don’t you remember what that was like? People were slaughtered in their own homes. They had pieces of their bodies hacked off of them while they were alive. They found Lash’s parents sitting around their dining room table, the dead bodies arranged so they were upright in those chairs like they were having dinner. Why do you want to be a part of that?”
Paradise met that hard stare again. “I don’t!”
“So why are we having this fight!”
“Because I want to choose. I want to be able to assume the risk if I want—and don’t hit me with the recap on those deaths like I don’t recall every single thing that happened. Members of my bloodline were murdered, too. Am I not allowed to want revenge? Or is that a dick-only thing as well?”
He planted his hands on the desk and leaned into her. “Males can’t give birth.”
She stood up out of her chair and met him jaw-to-jaw. “You got that right. I’d like to see even one of you try to go through that experience. You’d be crying like a little bitch in ten minutes.”
Peyton’s stare dropped to her mouth for a split second, and the distraction surprised her.
In all the years of friendship, that was something that had never happened.
It hadn’t even been approached, actually.
“Fine,” he said grimly. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
“Excuse me?”
“Join the program.” He swept his hand over the desk. “Come out from behind here, put your application in, and try to pass the physical test.”
“Maybe I will—”
At that moment, her father walked in. “Oh, hello, Peyton. How are you, son?”
Immediately, Peyton disengaged. “Sir, I’m well, sir. Thank you.”
As the two shook hands, she was pretty sure her father was clueless as to the undercurrents in the parlor—and very sure Peyton was not. His shoulders were still set tightly, as if he were arguing with her in his head.
“…kind of you to come and support Paradise.” Her father smiled at her. “Especially on this first night. I must say, you have exceeded my expectations, my dearest one. This is going to be a wonderful way for you to keep busy before your presentation.”
“Thank you, Father,” she said, bowing.
“Well, I must needs depart. Peyton, perhaps you will keep her company until the dawn?”
Those sharp blues shot back over to her. “You’re not at home anymore?”
“Do not be alarmed,” her father interjected smoothly. “She is fully accompanied and properly chaperoned. Now, if you will excuse me, I must depart.”
To check on their “visitor,” no doubt.
“The Brothers have escorted the King off the property,” her father said as he came around the desk and embraced her. “The doggen shall be cleaning for an hour, at least. Call upon me if you need aught?”
“I will.”
And then he was gone.
“I can’t believe he’s letting you stay here,” Peyton said.
“It’s not necessarily his choice.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing.” She pulled a hand through her hair, shaking out the waves. “You don’t have to stay. As a matter of fact, I wish you wouldn’t.”
She could feel him staring at her, and when he didn’t reply, she glared at him. “What.”
Those eyes of his were heavy lidded in a way she’d never seen before. “You’ve never been so…”
“Obnoxious?”
“No,” he muttered. “Not that.”
“Well, what, then.” When he didn’t answer her, she shook her head. “Go home, Peyton. Just go home and light up and get ready to big-man all over the campus at the training center. It’s the role you were born to play.”
With that, she walked around him and left the parlor. She didn’t care what he did, whether he left … or kept standing there at her desk until the doggen Swiffered him out with the dust bunnies.
She was done.
For the night. And with males, in general.
FORTY-ONE
“No. Here. Put him by the fire—”
Xcor broke himself loose of the holds upon his arms. “I am not an invalid.”
As he limped across the shallow room of the cottage he had bought for Layla, he kept to himself the fact that he was cold to the bone, and he did, in fact, appreciate the warmth of the flames that boiled around the logs at the hearth.
“Your leg is broken,” Zypher said.
Whilst he settled himself upon the sofa, a sharp nausea threatened to empty his stomach, but he buried that response as well, swallowing down the risen bile. “It shall mend.”
“There are victuals here.”
He didn’t know who said that. Did not care. “Where is the liquor?”
“Here.”
As a bottle of God only knew what appeared before him, he took what was proffered, shucked the cap, and brought the open mouth to his lips. Vodka it was, the white bite burning the back of his throat and lighting a second set of flames in his gut.
It had been a very, very long trip home, with him dematerializing mile by mile because they had no motorized conveyances at their disposal. And now, all he wanted was to be left alone—and he feared, given that all of them were here and worrying over him, it was going to take more energy than he had to get his soldier to go in peace.
“You were nearly killed,” Balthazar said from by the door.
He drank more of the spirit. “Yourself as well—”
“Someone is here,” Syphon said by the bay window. “A car.”
Immediately, all guns were unholstered and trained upon the glass—except for his. Beneath his thin jacket, his arm was hanging limp, the joint most likely dislocated.
And he was not putting down the vodka.
“Who is it,” he demanded, thinking it was likely the doggen he had sought to hire.
“’Tis a female,” someone breathed. “And not of the servant class.”