“Again.”Pallas smirked.“It takes one to know one.”
Pallas and Kira glared at each other, neither willing to give ground.
“Enough,” Alexander interrupted with an irritated frown.“Kira, we’ve agreed to provide an introduction to a few of the forty-three.”
Kira snickered.“No, you didn’t.”Her laugh congealed as her gaze traveled from Alexander to Pallas to Graydon, reading their serious expressions.A sticky, icky feeling lodged in her chest.“Wait—you’re serious.”
“To quote a human saying—as a heart attack,” Pallas answered grimly.
Kira stared at them in shock.Time and time again, the forty-three had made their boundaries known.They wanted nothing to do with the Tuann or their former Houses.
Even to save Roake, Kira had never considered using them as a bargaining chip.
Except now, here they were, offering themselves up on a silver platter.
“Why?”Kira asked.
Alexander’s gaze was very serious as it met hers.“It’s time.”
From the way he said it, it was clear he didn’t plan to expand any further than that.
Uncomfortable, Kira glanced at Graydon.
He shook his head at her, telling her to hold the rest of her questions.Reluctantly, she did.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Graydon said.“Roake will need its heir for what’s coming.”
Kira balled up all her fear and uncertainty, tucking them away to be examined at a later time.
With this attack, war was no longer a maybe.It wasn’t a possible future.It was here.Real and inescapable.This wasn’t the time for second guessing or infighting.It was the time to stand firm and unyielding.
Graydon caught her arm when she would have moved toward Pallas and Alexander.“One moment.”
“We’ll give you some privacy,” Alexander said, ever the diplomat when Graydon shot him a look.
“We will?”Pallas asked.
Alexander glared.“Yes.We will.”
There was a frown on Kira’s face and a tight feeling in her stomach as Pallas and Alexander excused themselves.
When the silence dragged on, Kira lifted her chin.“Go on.Say what needs to be said.”
There was obviously something weighing on him.
He’d closed down, emotionally speaking.All those pesky thoughts and feelings tucked back behind the impartial mask he’d worn when they’d first met.
Until right this second, she hadn’t realized how far inside his defenses he’d allowed her to venture.She’d gotten used to being able to read what he was feeling on his face.So much so that it felt jarring to look up and see the emperor’s Face staring back at her.
“There have been allegations made regarding my partiality toward you—and, by extension, Roake,” Graydon stated with all the carefulness of someone trying to defuse a bomb.
“Ah ha.”
“I’ve been ordered to distance myself.”
Kira’s heart was suddenly pounding.Prickles slid under her skin.A wave of heat flushing the back of her neck and arms as she tried to stay calm.
The only thing that kept her from lashing out was the look in Graydon’s eyes.A ferocity and desperation that managed to burn through the detachment he was trying to project.
