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CHAPTER 52
Be nice, I implore silently as Nathan stares Xiao down across his desk. I sit beside him, close enough that I can feel how tense he is. It makes me want to give him a neck rub in sympathy. And sympathy for Nathan isn’t my default.
“It’s not a common spell.” Xiao is in the middle of explaining “everything” as Nathan demanded. She’s remarkably cool under pressure; Nathan isn’t just the king of the pack, but he holds power over thralls, as well. But she delivers the facts like she’s teaching a class. “Thralls use it sometimes when the spark is going out of a relationship or, in more unscrupulous cases, to trick someone into a relationship with them.”
“And you practice this magic on werewolves? Without our permission?” Nathan growls.
“I’ve never heard of it before, but I’ve trained in defensive magic and combat, not love spells,” she replies.
“Why didn’t you mention this to us before?” I wonder aloud. “Why haven’t any of the thralls mentioned it?”
“I can only speak for myself, but I thought you were aware of it.” Xiao shrugs. “If I had known—”
“You couldn’t have,” I assure her quickly.
“The hierophant should have.” Nathan’s hand closes to a fist on the desktop. He reaches over and hits the intercom button. Rob, dragged from his sleep by his demanding royal boss, answers in what sounds like slow motion. Nathan barks back at him, “The hierophant. All his acolytes. I want them taken to council chambers at once—”
I reach over and slap my hand down on the button. “No. It can wait until morning.”
Nathan’s eyes narrow.
“Tell him,” I insist. “And we don’t need acolytes. The fewer people who know about this, the better.”
With an exasperated exhalation, Nathan hits the button again. “Scratch that. Have the hierophant summoned to the council chambers first thing in the morning.”
Good. We’ve had enough of black vans and midnight condemnations.
A thought occurs to me. “Is there any way to tell who put the binding on us?”
“I’m sure there is,” Xiao answers. “But it would have to be someone far more acquainted with magic than I am.”
“That’s a good question for the hierophant,” Nathan tells me, so I file it away in my brain and hope I remember.
Because it’s so easy for something like, “who put a spell on me” to slip one’s mind. I silence my internal critic.
Nathan turns back to Xiao. “Thank you, for your help in the matter. And for the excellent care that you’ve show the Queen.”
“It’s my honor, Your Majesties.”
“You’re relieved for the night. The queen and I will retire.” He gives me a raised eyebrow. “She’s clearly very tired and not resting as much as she should.”
Great. Now, I’m going to get bitched at for fainting.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Xiao stands and bows, then leaves the room. Nathan motions the thralls at the door to follow suit.
“You’ll sleep in my room, tonight,” he says, not really offering me a choice.
I don’t mind sleeping with him. He’s warm and good to snuggle and the connection between us, the binding, apparently, gives me all sorts of giddy, sexy feelings when I’m around him.
But I do like to challenge him, just to keep him aware that I’m not an employee. “What if I don’t want to sleep with you?”
“Then I suppose you can go on staying up until all hours of the night, endangering yourself and our child,” he says cheerfully, opening the secret passage bookcase to reveal the stairs that lead up to his room.
“I was going to stay with you, anyway,” I tell him, and go up the stairs ahead of him.
Knowing that the connection Nathan and I feel for each other is a trick doesn’t lessen its power. I can’t take my eyes off him as he starts to undress.
I sit on the end of the bed and toe off my pumps. “I can’t help but notice that you’re lecturing me about getting enough rest, but you’re still wearing the same clothes you wore to work today.”
He doesn’t look up from unbuttoning his shirt. “So are you.”
“But I’m not scolding anyone.” I lean back with my hand braced on the mattress.
“I can’t believe they would do this,” he mutters under his breath, pulling his arms from his sleeves. The muscles of his big shoulders and broad back ripple as he tosses the shirt aside.
“It’s fucked up,” I agree, admiring the way his forearms flex as he unbuckles his belt. “But think about it… would we have ended up here if not for the binding? I mean, your personality is a real turn off. Basically, all that’s keeping me here is the magic dick spell.”
He stops pacing to face me. “You’re accidentally making a good point. We wouldn’t be together if not for the spell. You wouldn’t be queen. You’d have two hands.”
“You don’t know that. I can be clumsy sometimes. It might have been inevitable.” When he doesn’t go along with my joke, I point out, “I wouldn’t be pregnant with your child.”
