I swallow, then massage my temples, where the throbbing is steadily intensifying.
“You see how this is odd, right?” Andreas asks.
I hesitate. Watch the thin line of his lips. Nod, because things are changing. My body. My mind. What I want and what I need. I don’t know how or why, but I’m no longer the person I was twenty-four hours ago.
And my head is about to fucking explode.
“No offense,” I say gently, “but I think this might be a conversation I should be having with Gabriel.” And with Lennart, I try to force myself to add. But the name simply won’t come out of my lips.
“No offense taken, Sofia.” His hand lifts to pat my back, but instantly falls back at his side, as if he remembered himself. As if he realized that I belong to another Alpha, and that it would be impolite for him to touch me. “I think so, too.”
Chapter 16
THE MEETING Gabriel
I take the meeting Lennart requested in the same operations suite that was stormed just a few days ago. Despite the attempt at cleaning, the stench of blood still saturates the air.
I’m attempting to make a point and hope it will come across bright and clear.
“I don’t believe you and I have ever talked face-to-face,” I tell Lennart after he sits across the table from me. I can smell the sweat of his palms, see him wipe them over his trousers. “Although I remember you standing behind your mother, back when she was demanding that I leave Kuznetsov’s funeral.” He glares at me, tight-fisted, and I smile behind my face mask.
“Gabriel—”
“That’s not how you address the general of the military system that keeps you alive, is it?”
A tic in his jaw. Clenched teeth. His brown hair is mussed, as though he ran his fingers through it one too many times. If anyone who is not a member of the military wants to access this wing of the keep, they need to use a complex system of tunnels and elevators. How convenient that today they were all out of service and only just got repaired.
What a stressful few hours he must have had.
“I want her back,” he bites out.
“Her?” I ask, as if Sofia’s name hasn’t been pounding in my veins from the second I first saw her sitting on my bed.
“My mate.”
“Ah. Her. Well, then you should have come to fetch her this morning. Now she is asleep.”
He leans forward. “The Right of the First Night, by definition, applies only to the first night. You can’t keep her here.”
“And that’s why I will send her back as soon as she wakes up.” By now I know that it’s a lie, and he must suspect it, too. Sofia is not going anywhere. The certainty has been growing inside me like a weed, taking over every little empty corner.
Lennart flushes. “If you send her back with child…”
For a moment, the desire to slash his throat is so intense, I can almost smell the iron of his blood. “A cold Omega? With child? That’s not very likely, is it?” When Lennart’s expression twists into something carefully blank, I know I’ve struck a nerve. So I continue. “Then again, Sofia doesn’t smell so cold lately. Maybe you haven’t had a chance to notice, but I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experience that change.”
Lennart stares, jaw so tense, it trembles. And that’s when I’m certain of it: he has done something to her. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. But I do know what I am going to do to him once I finally figure it out.
“General,” he says, “when you accepted your mandate, you mentioned wanting to be just and equitable. Do you remember?”
I drum my fingers. “Vaguely.”
“Then explain to me how you went from that to violating my mate and killing my brother in cold blood, all because of this war between you and my father—”
“I didn’t kill your brother in cold blood, Lennart.” It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. “I punished him in a way that was appropriate and proportional to his infraction.” I lean forward, elbows over the table. “You know he deserved it. House Larsen—no, the entire fucking world—is better without him.”
“You could have sent him to the prisons.”
“I could not. It was not a first offense, or a second, or even a third. After what he did to those Omegas, any other Alpha would not have been given a second chance. Why should your brother—”
“Because he was a Larsen.”
There it is, loud and brazen as it echoes in the empty room. The reason I wish I’d slipped and ran my sword through Lennart and the rest of his family when he was a child.
I let the contempt I feel for him wash over me. Then I sit back, slowly take off my mask and smile. “You would like to be treated like a Larsen? Then, Lennart, that’s exactly what I will do.”
It’s a promise.
Chapter 17
THE DECISION Gabriel
Once Lennart leaves, my brother enters the room, and I don’t waste time with a preamble before announcing, “I’m keeping her.”
I feel remarkably serene about my choice. Sofia is not safe with any member of House Larsen. Just as importantly, I want her with me—now and at all times. The rest is just a matter of ironing out the details. Or of killing whoever won’t accept my decision.
Ivar, of course, disagrees. “Are you— You cannot keep her, Gabriel. She’s not a pet. It’s called the Right of the First Night, not the Right of However Fucking Long You Want to—”
“I’m not going to return her,” I repeat.
Ivar takes a deep breath. Pinches the bridge of his nose. “We have a plan. A plan that involves provoking House Larsen into an insurrection while acting aboveboard, to convince the council to side with us. The plan doesn’t work if you give Lord Larsen a legitimate reason for a coup. You already stretched it by holding the girl one more night—”
“I. Am. Keeping her.”
“For how long?”
I smile. “How long do you think?”
Ivar claws at his scalp, takes several steps away from where I sit, then abruptly turns around. “Tell you what.” He points his middle finger at me. “You give her the option. Tonight, you go to her and do…do whatever the fuck it is that you want.”
“If I stayed on her the entire night, I wouldn’t be able to do a thousandth of what I want.”
“I don’t—I didn’t ask, Gabriel. All-father.” He grimaces. “You keep her for the night and do your thing, no questions asked. But before, you tell her that she can either go back, or she can stay with you. And if she asks to go back, you let her.”
“I don’t fucking want to let her—”
“Gabriel, damn it.” My brother’s palms are suddenly planted on the stone table. His face is an inch from mine. “If we want any semblance of our plan to work, we need to obey the law. We need to be spotless in front of the council. If she asks to stay with you…then maybe we can massage the messaging. We could argue that you’re removing her from a situation she never wanted to begin with.”
I clench my fists. Release them. “She doesn’t know what she wants. They did something to her. She wasn’t given a chance to—”