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“Agreed.” If anyone could bring the supernatural species together in a shared hatred, the Order could.
Glancing toward the office, Eddie asked, “They tortured her?” He didn’t need to name who he was talking about.
Alexei found his throat had gone tight, his mouth dry. “For years.”
“Stopping them won’t be enough. We’ll need to wipe them out completely so they can’t keep coming for us and those who matter.”
“That makes us no better than them with their plans to eradicate anyone not born entirely human.”
“It doesn’t,” Eddie said. “We can’t help how we’re born, but they choose to hate, to hurt, to kidnap and kill for no reason other than fearing us for being different. They come for ours; we take out theirs, right? Basic rules of survival.”
Alys came out of the office, yelling his name in a string of profanities in English, Russian, and Chinese.
As though she’d unlocked her powers to send agonizing pain through everyone in the building, Eddie winced. “I’ll get things rolling for you while you deal with family stuff.” The guard hurried away as if Alexei might be a lightning rod to draw his sister’s magic.
Family stuff. The man’s words encompassed so much—the kingdom, the horde army, the businesses, the few women in his life, but not Joelle. No, he’d learned tonight why he couldn’t dare to claim her as his mate, no matter how heartless it might make him seem. She’d survived the Order once. He’d be damned if they got a chance to come at her again, and if they’d already taken a human woman under his watch, he’d lost any right to wish for someone he didn’t deserve.
With Alys glaring at him, he told her, “Not here. Somewhere more private.” Where their voices wouldn’t carry to nosy demon hybrids on every floor. “The lab.”
“Where me throwing things at your thick head might break my new electron microscope? I don’t think so.”
Then her temper ruled out the armory as well. He wouldn’t trust her around loaded weapons. “My archives?” While he hated to let anyone near his collection of articles on supernaturals dating over a century, she would be less likely to toss a heavy album and the pages would muffle her shouting.
“I sent Joelle to your woo woo collection of weird. She’s a book addict, but the Order denied her access to anything associated with magic. You would’ve thought I’d given her the keys to your treasure room instead of your archives.”
He wanted to see her, to make sure she was okay after dealing with his pain-bringer sister. “I should check on her.”
Alys lifted a hand. “She doesn’t need you right now. She and Nita are busy planning a trip to the magical book store.”
“All right.” It wasn’t. The urge to soothe the sadness he’d seen in her eyes earlier gnawed at him, stealing his ability to concentrate. “Pick a room if you’re determined to argue.” He followed her to a training area with a punching bag, mats, and half-mutilated dummies.
She rounded on him so fast that he had to remind himself that while she could bring anyone to their knees in sobbing agony with a flick of her powers, she wouldn’t use them on him.
“How could you deny her?” she asked.
He knew damn wellwhoshe meant, but notwhat. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“She’s yourmate yet you reject her?” A brittle, sharp laugh edged out of her. “Not just by ignoring her, but openly in front of others? What the hell, Alexei?”
“She’s not.”
“Have you gone stupid? You’re calculating, cold, ruthless but never oblivious, so this has to be related to your precious need to control everything, because otherwise, it’s a fucked-up power play, and even you’re not that sadistic.”
He let his sister’s words deflect off his war-thickened skin as though he wore body armor instead of formal wear. Only a few of the ego-shredding words penetrated. His entire life he’d cultivated and refined his strict restraint over his emotions and magic to prepare for his role as king. He wouldn’t fall into the trap of responding to her accusations. No, he’d cut to the heart of the issue, or rather the lack thereof. “She can’tbe my mate.”
“Bullshit.” Alys waved his denial away as if swatting a gnat. “I argued with our goblin cousin that she’d been wrong about you and Joelle, that taking her to some stupid party wouldn’t be worth the effort, but then I saw you with her tonight. When I mentioned the bomb, your reaction, the way you protected her first, your complete possessiveness? You even talked to her dick of a dragon brother even though he’s allied with witch royalty.” She said the last as though the words tasted sour on her tongue. “Joelle’s your mate. It’s the only possible explanation.”
“You’re not listening.” His pulse filled his head with a deafeningboom-boom-boom, but he kept his tone soft, his timbre even.
“Why? Because you’re the high friggin’ lord demon prince of all who can’t bother withfeelingthings? You rejected her.”
“I had to.”
“No one turns down a mate if they’re lucky enough to find them. The attraction alone slams into you from first sight, and there’s no fighting it. Who has the self-discipline to fight against the one person in all the world who fate has chosen for you? Whywouldyou? You would have to hate yourself.”
Rage ran through him. Not the hot flood of his magic coursing through his veins, but the icy detachment he’d learned to keep himself safe. “Shecan’tbe my—”
Alys didn’t let him finish. “Do you have any idea how much you hurt her?”
