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ChapterFour
Lefric
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to the meeting. That wasn’t it at all. The prospect of spending an entire afternoon sitting by Olympus’s side, pretending that I was an important representative of Good Port was thrilling. I got to attend a meeting that would shape the future of the frontier, not as someone’s pup, forced to keep quiet and look pretty and fuckable, I got to be there as part of a delegation. I might even be allowed to speak up and share my opinion.
I loved that idea, but after what Sebald had said about the things his aunt told him, all I really wanted to do was find a quiet corner with Olympus and discuss the terrifying possibility that whoever had killed Gregorius was connected to the Old Realm. And possibly Gomez. And maybe even the death of the old king and the ascension of Magnus’s brother, Julius, to the throne.
Oh, God! What if Magnus’s brother was actually the one behind everything that had happened on the frontier for the past two years? What if Magnus’s brother was responsible for Gomez, and the Sons being sold to the wolves, and the Dying Winter and, well everything? How fucked up would that be? Did King Julius even know Magnus was a king on the frontier?
“Lefric, did you eat a sour piece of fruit or something?” Olympus asked, shaking me out of my thoughts and forcing me to glance his way as everyone started moving around the side of Sebald’s cottage to head to the meeting. “You have a funny look on your face.”
“I was just thinking,” I said, scrambling to catch up to him.
Olympus grinned at me and squeezed my ass when I reached him. “I can always tell when you’re thinking,” he said as we followed Sebald and Jace out to the street—Gennadi had asked to stay back and help Avenel tidy up—where we were supposed to meet Magnus, Peter, and Neil—once Magnus finished scraping Peter off the ceiling after his earlier outburst. “When you’re thinking, smoke comes out your ears,” Olympus went on with a teasing wink.
“It does not,” I said, but reached up to touch my ears anyhow.
Olympus laughed at me. I elbowed his arm hard, making him yelp, then laugh harder.
“No, but seriously,” I said. “What Sebald told us his aunt said has my mind racing. It makes too much sense that the Old Realm is involved in Gregorius’s death. Especially if they were also involved in bringing Gomez to the throne.”
Olympus scrunched his face, as if he was being forced to think about something serious when he would much rather have joked around. “As I understand it, the Old Realm has far bigger problems than Good Port. They fought a war that killed tens of thousands of men, depleted their supplies, and ended a stalemate, they dealt with a plague, and they had a famine. Or something like that.”
“Do you think Sebald’s aunt was lying about Gomez getting help from the Old Realm, then?” I asked. A little too loudly, as it turned out, since we’d reached the street and Sebald and Jace had turned back to listen to us.
“My aunt isn’t the sort to lie,” Sebald said, a tad defensive.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I rushed to apologize. “I don’t even know your aunt.”
“She’s not a liar,” Sebald repeated in a flat voice.
I winced. It was supposed to be fun and exciting when the Sons all got together, but already Peter and Sebald were fighting, Jace was in a rotten mood thanks to his family, Gennadi was acting strangely, and now Sebald showed signs of being pissed off at me. But I guess after the way Peter had attacked him over Avenel, he would be a little sensitive. He probably thought I would be angry about his pup situation too.
“I’m really sorry,” I said, holding out my hands to him. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on. You know, in the bigger picture.” I glanced to Olympus, then continued with, “Olympus’s secretary, a man named Gregorius, was murdered just a few days ago. Right after I discovered he’d been embezzling from Olympus’s company. Only, according to Mrs. Ali, Gregorius’s wife—well, his widow now, I suppose—there was at least one other person involved in the embezzling. Maybe two. We have the letters that passed back and forth between the two or three of them, though we haven’t really been able to analyze them yet. But if whoever that was had something to do with the Old Realm, and if the whole point of the embezzling and the murder was to somehow push the Hakobyan family out of power, it would stand to reason that someone from the Old Realm or someone connected to them wants to take over Good Port, because that would be—”
“Fuck’s sake, Lefric, stop!” Jace cut me off. “Too many words.”
“Sorry,” I said with a lopsided grin of apology.
Olympus clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll have to excuse my lover. Having his ass pounded on a regular basis seems to have reverberated all the way up his spine and loosened his tongue.”
I twisted to gape at Olympus in horror, but strangely enough, his comment had both Sebald and Jace bursting into laughter. Which lightened the mood in an instant. So much that I was certain he’d done it on purpose.
“So, wait,” Sebald said, still snickering a little. He shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “This Gregorius person was murdered, and because of what I said, you think the Old Realm was involved?”
I exchanged a look with Olympus. He looked as though he didn’t want to believe it…but might.
I turned back to Sebald. “I don’t know. It might make sense. There could be other things going on.” I paused, then asked, “Did your aunt say anything else about Gomez’s connection to the Old Realm? Like, why was Gomez connected to the Old Realm to begin with?”
Sebald shrugged and shook his head. “Only that the same people who had disposed of the old king were also the ones to help Gomez take control in Hedeon.”
“But why?” I asked. “Like Olympus just said, the Old Realm has so many problems of their own right now. Why would they get involved in frontier politics?”
“An excellent question,” Magnus asked as he strode up to join our group. Peter and Neil stood on either side of him, and he held their hands. “One that we shall all give a great deal of thought. Later. Right now, we have our first negotiation with King Sai and Jorgen Iceblade to attend to. Come along, boys. And Olympus.”
“Please, consider me one of the boys,” Olympus said, laughing, as we all walked on toward the palace. “It makes me feel like less of an old man lurking around the schoolyard with his cock out.”
Magnus laughed out loud at that. “How do you think I feel?” he asked, lifting Peter’s and Neil’s hands that he held. “These two have me feeling like a scandalous old lecher most days.”
