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“Choice,” she repeated. “You didn’t have one. Neither did they.”
“No.”
“Is that why you’re giving us a choice? Hugo, Charlie, and me?”
He turned to look at her, and his gaze was hard. “We’re at war. We won’t always be, but right now, war. I’m not changing the rules, and as a member, you will obey.” There was iron and steel in his words. The tone of a man who knew battle, who’d sent men into the field of combat and watched them die. A little shiver worked its way down her spine.
Eric must have caught the slight movement because his tone softened, just enough that she could hear it. “But there’s too much chaos surrounding us these days and there are few people we can trust. I have discovered that people fight harder when they have something to fight for. Right now, love is the only thing that’s keeping this society from crumbling around us. In peacetimes, love grows slowly because it can. You love them. And they love you. We need that right now.”
“That’s why you’re making an exception for us.”
Eric pointed at her. “I’m not making an exception. You’re marrying them because I’m ordering you to.”
Sylvia smiled. “Even though I’d do that anyway?”
“Don’t make me regret this. I am now the godlike ruler of your universe.”
“Mmmhmm.” Sylvia planted her feet and tried to push the porch swing. He was too heavy and it didn’t move.
Eric rolled his eyes. “If you come with us, if you get on that plane, then you’re agreeing to all of it. Joining the Masters’ Admiralty, and marrying Hugo and Lancelot.”
“Charlie,” she corrected. Then Sylvia leaned back, considering everything he’d said. Not because she was deciding. She’d made her choice the moment Eric issued the invitation. “It’s going to be hard for me to leave my family.”
“I’d say you could come back and visit, but Juliette Adams is pissed she lost you. Not my fault she didn’t think to woo you with some sexy man-bait.”
Sylvia chuckled. “They are sexy. It’s going to be hard.”
“Two cocks? Never tried it, but I know some ladies you can go to for advice.”
Sylvia hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I mean moving away from home to live with two men. It’s a lot of change.”
“You’re worried about what people will think? Fuck ’em.”
Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “You’re offering to explain all of this to my very protective, very Southern, mind-your-P’s-and-Q’s mama?”
Eric feigned a horrified look. “How about we just get on that plane and put a few thousand miles between us and her before she finds out?”
She laughed as they stood up together. “Coward,” she teased. Wait, was she allowed to do that? To tease him?
Eric shrugged, apparently fine with her comment. “I’ve been called much worse.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sylvia perched gingerly on the edge of Alicia’s hospital bed. It hadn’t occurred to her to question how they’d get someone they were holding against her will onto an international flight. The answer to that unasked question was that they were pretending Alicia was being transported for medical treatment.
Alicia—asleep, thanks to a heavy dose of sedative—had been loaded onto a private plane they were taking to the Isle of Man by the paramedics from the private ambulance company they’d hired to get her from the hospital to the private airfield. Sylvia had watched this woman who’d shaped her life, whom she owed so much to, but who was now a dangerous stranger, being wheeled in—hospital bed and all—to the plane that would take both of them away from their homes.
As she’d been thinking that, Hugo had taken her hand, and her jangling nerves calmed enough that once it was their turn to board, she was able to gawk at the ridiculous luxury. It was Sylvia’s first time on a private plane, but this one wasn’t like those jets she sometimes saw on TV. This was far bigger than those, a Boeing 747-8, with the cabin divided into three sections—a small first-class cabin with those cool individual pod-like seats that turned into beds, then the part with large airline seats where they’d been for takeoff. Instead of rows facing forward, there were sets of four seats arranged to face each other over a small table, similar to the first-class carriage on a train.
Toward the back of the plane was a small hall, off which were two plush bathrooms, a self-service bar, and the private bedroom that took up the back section of the cabin.
They were somewhere over the Atlantic. Sylvia tried not to think too hard about the fact that they’d waited until they were out of U.S. airspace to do what they were about to.
“I’m sorry you must do this.” Hugo had escorted her to the door of the bedroom, his face grave.
“I want to help.” Sylvia had looked at her new fiancé—one of two—smiled, and then opened the door.
Now she was perched on the edge of Alicia’s hospital bed. The older woman looked sickly, her complexion pale against the stark white sheets. Restraints had been added to her wrists and ankles, tethering her to the bed.
