AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, we’ve had calls today, mostly from the press and a couple leaving your basic hate messages. I suggested they call back later and that you were currently in meetings.”
“Well done.” He sipped his coffee, glancing at Nathan again. “You taking care of Hannah?”
“I prepared her a spinach omelet, and she said it was to die for. She didn’t refuse one of Abigail’s cupcakes either. Or the bacon. Not being light-sensitive, she’s now out on the balcony, taking advantage of the last rays of the day.”
He groaned inwardly. No doubt someone was taking pictures of her every move. ?
?Stay with her and remind her that there will probably be photographers across the lake snapping away.”
“I already told her, but she said she didn’t care. She’s pretty steamed. I like her.”
When Nathan left, Jude scanned the article and it was what he’d come to expect from the Chronicle. There was a lot of shit about how Jude had let Kellcasse down yet again and how the mysterious mist at the wedding – also photographed – left a thousand unanswered questions. The newspaper had also made use of a really bad double-entendre in one of their photo captions. ‘Was Mastyr Jude still UP to the job?’ And of course, that was the exact phrase below the picture of the kiss. Bastards.
Jude was used to it, though. But right now he hoped Hannah had a thick skin because the fall-out had just begun and would get a lot worse before it got better.
Setting his mug on the dresser, he went back to de-tangling his hair. He pondered the difficulties of managing the mist situation as well as the volatile press that wouldn’t hesitate to arouse public opinion against him so long as the articles sold more newspapers.
Even after he’d finished with his hair, he grabbed his coffee again and moved to sit on the end of the bed, holding his mug for a long time. He finally called the PR team leader, Frida, and had a brief discussion with her about tactics. They could easily head off the negative campaign, but Frida said the problem would be best handled with a show of increased Guard force, and that just adding the Shifter Brigade wouldn’t be enough, especially since they were untried in the field. Could he bring in forces from another realm?
He gave it a lot of thought, and though he really didn’t like the idea of having another mastyr around because of Hannah, he believed Frida was absolutely right. The papers would stir up a lot of hysteria, but troops on the ground would go a long way to easing the minds of most Kellcassians.
He called Malik, Mastyr of Ashleaf Realm, whose terrain, though denser with fewer canals and waterways, most resembled Jude’s woodland and forest landscape.
“Malik, I need your help.”
“Thought that might be why you called. The access point communication centers have already broadcasted the PR disaster in your realm. So what the hell is going on and what’s with this mist, anyway?”
Jude gave him the rundown, adding that the wedding had been in the Chelana town square, a very public place, and photographers had taken pictures of much of the nightmare. When Margetta chose the public location, there had been no way to contain information about the current threat. “Mostly, I need a presence in Kellcasse, for the sake of helping my people to feel safe, and I’m asking if you’ll come and bring part of your Ashleaf Vampire Guard with you.”
“Of course I will. Ashleaf is very quiet at the moment, and it sounds like Margetta has her sights set on your realm.”
“Great. Thank you. Go ahead and move your men into the bunkrooms at my training center. But hell, I’d really like a face-to-face, even for just a few minutes. If you could come to the castle grounds, say the peach orchard, then contact me telepathically, I could meet you there.”
Malik chuckled. “I take it the rumors are true, that Hannah is a blood rose?”
Gossip traveled fast through the Nine Realms. “She is. There’s no question about it.” He put a hand to his stomach, stunned all over again that he had no pain anymore.
He told Malik about her essential fire-gift that Vojalie had said was very rare in the realm-world.
Malik whistled, then asked, “What’s it like? The blood rose thing, I mean?”
The remaining mastyrs no longer asked whether their time would come, but when. Jude heard the anxiety in Malik’s voice. None of the bonded mastyrs he knew had been prepared for the arrival of a blood rose, and each had faced a challenge in bringing a woman into his life.
So much had happened in the last two days that Jude had barely had time to process much of anything, and he really wasn’t sure what to say to Malik. “It’s extraordinary to have the blood-starvation resolved, I will say that. But I’ve never been so confused. I had my goals laid out, and you know my situation, but now everything is as unsettled as hell. But it’s also true that you’ll have a drive toward Hannah because I haven’t bonded with her yet.”
“Hence, a meet-up in the peach orchard.”
“Exactly.”
He’d confided in Malik more than once which was one reason he often called on him for help. He and Seth were his closest mates. Malik had known his wife and had been godfather to his daughter. He’d taken their deaths hard and like Jude had basically chosen to remain unattached while the Invictus and now their creator, Margetta, held sway.
“Just let me know when you’ve arrived and about when can you head over here?”
“Give me an hour. When I’m on my way, I’ll contact Longeness and let him know.”
“Sounds good.”
He made his last call to the leader of the Kellcasse Civic Coalition, asking for a meeting with the twenty district leaders of his realm so that he could fill them in with accurate information. He also thought it would be a good thing to talk about Hannah and what she’d already done for the realm.
