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“I’m enjoying the hospitality.” Tegan’s smile was appropriately sweet and demure. She heard but ignored her cousin’s hastily muffled snort.
Delilah did not, her scowl at her youngest son was pointed, causing Sloane to lose his smile.
“You cannot take him back, if that is why you are here,” Delilah said firmly as she placed her saucer on the table. “He has been brought home as his duty as Heir.”
“And as I have previously responded, auntie, I have no intention of interfering with my cousin’s duties to hisHouse.”
Delilah’s eyes narrowed, and Tegan held her stare, her smile never wavering.
“And the Northern Headquarters can afford to lose their most gifted Elite Sentinel?” Delilah was not the kind of female to roll her eyes, but the creeping exasperation in her voice was enough to suggest it.
“You flatter me too much,” Tegan murmured. “But I am notthatgifted, merely well-trained.”
“By the Vampyre.”
“By my father, yes.” Tegan’s smile felt a little more brittle as she reached for her teacup again.
Delilah sniffed her displeasure, and Tegan marvelled at how a mere sniff could feel like a physical blow. “Bloodmakes family. Yourfatheris Salem Holt.”
“As Cord’s father is Olezka and not Cornelius?” Tegan countered quietly.
The viper glared openly at her. Tegan did not hide her smile behind her teacup but instead allowed this venomous female to see her pleasure at fracturing her composure. Breaking Delilah’s carefully crafted mask was on Tegan’s agenda of “things to do before she died.”
“Cousin,” Sloane murmured as he watched the two females battle in front of him. “I must attend my father this afternoon. We are to discuss the land and the tithes that those loyal to this House pay.”
Tegan’s eyes snapped to Sloane for the first time since they sat down and this ridiculous charade had begun. “Tithe?”
“In order to receive the honour of our House, every Akrhyn must pay their due,” Delilah said as if explaining to a child. She did not ignore Tegan’s incredulous look. “I am sure Leonid Novikov did the same, you do not need to look so scandalised.”
“I can assure you he does not. Did you know this?” Tegan demanded of Sloane, who nodded once. “Are you serious? Tithes arerare, almost unheard of in this modern world. They are not ascommonas you suggest,” Tegan snapped at Delilah.
“But not forbidden,” Delilah said as she stood, giving her niece a cold smile. “I fear the tea has caused me a headache, I shall retire to my suite. Sally, come.”
Tegan watched Sloane’s mother cross the floor, her House Akrhyn following dutifully behind her. As the door closed on both of them, Tegan turned her stare at her cousin. “Howyou are either of their blood baffles me.”
Sloane grinned as he dumped his tea back in the pot before he emptied the contents into the open fire. “I have no answer for you, my fierce cousin, but if I have to sit through this torture tomorrow, I think I may be asking one of our subjects to give me shelter.”
“Subjects?” Tegan stared at him in horror. “Are you serious? You are not royalty,heis no king, and she sure as shade is noqueen.”
Sloane shrugged uncomfortably before he reached for his dark suit jacket. His suit was dark grey today, and it hurt Tegan’s heart that he wasn’t in his usual black fatigues like she was. “Sorry, you know I don’t mean it, it’s them. Two days here and I’m already slipping back into the way they talk.”
“Well, snap out of it,” Tegan growled angrily as she rose to her feet. Two days and he was already talking like them anddressinglike them. “Or I will slap you out of it!”
“Tegan.” Sloane rolled his head on his shoulders. “Why are you here, really? Don’t give me the bull dropping answers you have been spouting off to my mother.” His steady stare met hers. “Why?”
“You don’t think it’s because you left me without saying goodbye?”
“Cousin.” Sloane gave her a long-suffering look. “What is it?”
Tegan looked around the room and then nodded to the huge French doors at the far corner of the room. Together, they left the blue drawing room and walked the landscaped gardens. When they were a good distance from the house, Tegan pulled her cousin closer.
“Your father has taken Council Elder Alexander.”
Sloane almost stumbled, but Tegan held onto his arm, and anyone watching would merely see two Akrhyn walking the gardens, enjoying an early spring afternoon.
“He is in Solitude,” Sloane said when he recovered.
“He issupposedto be,” Tegan agreed. “But he is not.”
