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Keeping his gaze on the proctor, he slid the silver spikes slightly closer to the woman’s tightly closed eyes.As if that could protect her.She was pressed, tense and terrified, against the high back of the chair, with nowhere else to retreat, clawed fingers digging into the arms of the chair.Someone whimpered.
“Gabriel,” Nic said, her voice warm, pushing through the sharp silver roar of his magic.“I’m asking you to stop now.Trust me.Stop it here.”
A bit of sanity returned with her steadying presence.“I want her out of my house,” he gritted out.“Now.Tonight.House Phel doesn’t dine with its enemies.”
“She’ll go straight to the Convocation,” Nic warned.
“Let her,” he growled.
“Proctor, I apologize for the inconvenience, but would you be willing to depart without staying the night?”Nic asked with elegant manners, sounding for all the world as if she were offering the woman dessert.
The proctor squeaked out an affirmative, barely moving.
“All right, Gabriel?”Nic asked.“Drop the spikes, and she’s gone.”
With effort—not magical, because his blood sang with furious power, but emotional, denying himself the visceral need to kill—Gabriel drew back the spikes.He didn’t drop them, however, as Nic suggested, but sent them spinning through the air, circling the gathering.
“Anyone else?”he demanded.“If you are an enemy of House Phel, declare yourself and die, or leave now.”
His gaze settled on Jadren, who held up empty hands in clear surrender.“I am trapped by my mother’s machinations as surely as you are, Lord Phel,” he replied in a steady tone.“I will sign your documents, no matter what they contain.”His lips twisted wryly.“Surely there’s no greater loyalty than from someone who has no choice but to throw in with you.”
Gabriel glanced at Nic, who nodded slightly.Jadren marked the exchange but said nothing.
“Under the circumstances,” Nic said to the room at large, using her gracious, highborn manners to the hilt, “I’m afraid we’ll hold dessert.I’m asking a page to circulate our very simple NDA.Lord Phel requires everyone to sign, whether you stay or depart, if you haven’t already.”She bestowed a dazzling smile on Asa and Laryn.The boy who Nic had apparently conscripted to serve as a page was distributing copies of the NDA.Gabriel had missed when she’d given that instruction.“Once you’ve signed, as Wizard Asa and Familiar Laryn have, you may collect your dessert and carry it back to your rooms, along with some brandy.”
Another servant was setting out individual snifters of brandy on a side table.Gabriel noted that with additional bemusement.
“Familiars, too?”someone muttered in incredulity.“Is that even legal?”
“Lord Phel’s house.Lord Phel’s rules,” Nic replied.
“And if we choose not to sign?”someone else asked.
“Absolutely your prerogative,” Nic answered smoothly.“You may depart with the proctor.I’m sure she’d be delighted to share her conveyance.Isn’t that so, Proctor?”
The woman nodded stiffly, her eyes wide and glassy, fingers still clawed into the arms of her chair.
Nic laid a hand on his arm, and Gabriel started slightly at the contact, his magic reaching for hers with instant greed.He found himself glaring at her, enraged for no reason at all.“Lord Phel,” Nic said with infinite gentleness, meeting his gaze with deep forest-green calm, no fear in her at all.She used to be afraid of him.He’d sensed that fear in her from the beginning, and it had lasted up until just a few days ago.Now, when she should be truly alarmed, she gazed at him with calmness and perfect trust.“Lord Phel,” she repeated, as if speaking to a wild animal.“Your instructions are being carried out.You needn’t remain if you don’t wish to.I know you have a great deal requiring your attention, and I can handle this.”
“No,” he ground out, taking her by the wrist.She gasped, just a little, a sound only he could hear, her magic heating and bowing in submission.His own magic, that greedy, fearsome beast in him, leapt in ferocious glee at her response.“I have need of you.”
“I’ll take care of this,” Asa offered.“Laryn and I can, as we’re under contract.Might as well start delegating to the minions,” he added cheerfully, but there was a note of wariness in his voice.
“Thank you, Wizard Asa.”Nic kept her gaze on Gabriel, watching him like a beast about to attack.“Shall we, Lord Phel?”
Without a word, he turned and strode out of the room, nearly dragging Nic with him.He didn’t care what any of them thought.He wanted out of that cloying room, away from those shocked and staring gazes.I don’t even recognize him.All I see is a monster.His mother was right to loathe him.
“Gabriel!”Nic hissed, and not for the first time, he realized, as she uncharacteristically resisted his pull.
He wheeled around, glaring at her.“Nowis when you decide is a good time to cross me?”he demanded in a hoarse, whispered shout.“After all your talk of—”
“No!”She laid her free hand on the bare skin just below the hollow of this throat, where his shirt parted.Her magic swam into him, calming rose, soothing like a draught of fine red wine.“Never,” she averred, holding his gaze.“Drop the spikes, or they’ll be too afraid to move.”
He gazed at her for a long moment, uncomprehending.The spikes?
“Circling the air above the dining table,” she reminded him, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, “like a pair of hawks eyeing their prey below.”
Ah.Right.He hadn’t even realized he was still feeding their flight.With a thought, he dropped them, their clatter on some dishes followed by a small scream of dismay, quickly silenced.“Anything else?”he gritted out.
