Page 18 of Forge the Blade

Fuck. Why couldn’t the Merchari just attack again? That, at least, would be straightforward.

Shopping. They should go shopping. Bring dinner. Lunch. New pants to replace the ones that were destroyed yesterday. Cake. Get better soon cards. Check on Linda and her celery city. Give Dana a sewing lesson.

Ellisandre closed their eyes and growled behind their teeth as they locked their door.

They hadn’t raised themselves to be a coward. They weren’t going to start now. One stop at the cafe for coffee and baked goods, and that was all the procrastinating they would allow.

How long would it take to have the entire display case wrapped and ready to carry out?

Ellisandre

Ellisandre strode into the Bolthole with only three reusable shopping bags hanging off their arm. Remarkable self-constraint, considering. Through the surveillance audio, they had realized Lisa was calling someone he addressed as master, and so Ellisandre had stopped in a shop around the corner to give him time. And of course they’d bought something.

Sevastyan was sitting on the couch in the living room with Rei curled up in a half-asleep ball against him. The coffee table was rolled forward and Lisa was sitting with his back to the couch at Sevastyan’s feet, still holding the phone. Perfectly timed.

“Don’t get up,” Ellisandre ordered. They set the bags down and pulled off their combat boots, then brought all the bags to the coffee table. “Drinks, if you want them. Coffee. Hot chocolate. Hot apple cider. Orange blossom tea. And baked goods for later.”

“That’s . . .” Sevastyan looked at the spread of drinks.

“I don’t know what Lisa and Rei drink, and they’re both thin. You need to make more blood.” Ellisandre retreated to the kitchen with the baked goods.

“You put more blood in me last night,” Sevastyan remonstrated to their departing back.

Ellisandre swallowed. They didn’t want to think about that. Watching Sevastyan struggle to load the bodies into the van had been grueling. Knowing that he had been somewhere, in a pile of trash, unconscious and bleeding out while they were only blocks away, blithely hanging curtains with Dana, was going to haunt them. Sevastyan was lucky they had enough self-control not to put him in a collar and chain him to a wall until the Merchari were dead. They’d only just got him back.

Nope. Not thinking about it. There was a whole mountain range of things they were not thinking about today. They were going to get intel. They were going to plan. They were going to do what they did best and then they were going to kill a whole lot of people and sleep better afterwards.

Ellisandre marched back into the living room and plucked one of the drinks off the table. It just happened to be coffee. Black like their soul. They dropped down on the stool facing the couch. Fuck, Sevastyan looked touchable. There was something about seeing him being protective and caring that made them want to mess him up and bite him senseless. Ellisandre’s palms itched. There had never been anyone else between them before. Except for the few times they met in public spaces and then left to find privacy, it had only ever been Ellisandre and Sevastyan. They’d never needed to navigate sharing him. He was theirs. Completely.

Except now he was not.

They’d known. They’d guessed at the signs, but this was the truth of it, inside their own most private, protected space where they had never let anyone enter before Sevastyan a few weeks ago. And now there were absolute strangers in their space.

Linda needed to start thinking about buying a house. A large one, with like eight bedrooms. Or they could buy conjoined condos and put internal staircases between them. Then they could nest with all their people in one place, count noses before bed, and lock them all in safely at night.

I’m losing it. Ellisandre breathed out their nose. For years and years it had just been Linda, with some of Richard and his men on the side. But now life was messy. Teenagers. A kid. Their boy Sevastyan. And now his boys. There was too damn much to care about. And too many people wanting to fuck their people up.

Ellisandre lowered the cup of coffee to their lap and kept their back straight. Maybe they should talk to Richard. Find out how he kept his calm all the time. Linda said he got at least one death threat a month and he never seemed to have the need to put bullets in people to feel better.

“So, I heard you introduced me to your men,” Ellisandre said in Russian. “Introduce them to me, and then tell me about Dirk.”

Rei

Rei kept himself relaxed and still beside Sevastyan. He could feel the tension coiled in his master’s body. It had been there while Lisa spoke with Alexi, but grown when Ellisandre entered.

Lisa pushed himself up off the floor. “Not my conversation. Rei.” He held his hand out to Rei.

Rei’s eyes widened. He strained his neck to look up at Sevastyan for direction.

“There’re about fifteen things the two of you aren’t saying and aren’t going to say with us here. So talk, fuck, scream, but just do whatever the fuck you’re going to do. Hi, I’m Lisa. I’m a Merchari slave. Think we covered that. I speak Russian, bit of German, bit of Mandarin, and bit of English. This is Rei. Same, except he speaks more languages than me.”

“Go with Lisa,” Sevastyan murmured to Rei. “Get some rest.”

Rei’s chest exploded with pain. He sat up, taking Lisa’s hand and holding his ribs to stand. Lisa guided him out of the living room, past the bathroom, and into the bedroom. Lisa closed the door behind the two of them and motioned at the bed. Rei’s foot stuck to the floor just inside the room.

Lisa pulled down the covers and looked back at him. “Rei.” His voice was softer than it had been in the living room. Rei couldn’t answer him. His heart was in his throat. Something terrible was about to happen. It wasn’t in his gut. He didn’t know it for certain. That, he could have dealt with. It just felt like something terrible might happen. And that was worse. As long as it was a “might happen” there was a chance he could stop it, if only he could figure out how, if only he was brave enough to do what needed to be done.

But his hands were empty. No tools. No knowledge. And Sevastyan had sent him away.