“Olympia,” my grandmother warned.
My cousin rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall with a huff. Nascha turned back to our guests.
“What needs to be done?” Raghnall asked, relatively calmer.
“Leave the minor houses to me,” Nascha said. “You find me witnesses.”
Raghnall nodded and rose from his seat. With a nod toward his family, they all headed for the door. Isla rose as well but hesitated, looking from her grandfather to me.
“Stay, Isla,” Raghnall said without looking back at her, as if he’d known her struggle without seeing it. “Your place is here now.”
We fell silent as the Lynx family filed out, Nick disappearing to see them to the door. Paxon and Cleo left soon after, heads bowed together in low conversation, which left me alone with the three women who seemed to plague me the most. Nascha’s gaze fell on Isla as Olympia pushed off of the wall and approached.
“Should I follow?” Olympia inquired.
Isla’s gaze snapped to her and narrowed.
“Go,” Nascha ordered.
My cousin nodded once before slipping out of the study and into the hall, off in the shadows to trail the Lynx patriarch.
“You spy on us,” Isla spat, head swiveling toward my grandmother.
“Be careful with that ‘us’, girl,” grandmother warned, tone firm. “You’re Lynx no longer.”
“I’m the Heir.”
Nascha turned slowly to me.
“A complication I hadn’t foreseen,” she mused.
“You’re both,” I informed her, striding past the women to settle into my desk. I frowned down at the blood on my shirt and realized I should have sent Paxon for a fresh change. “Olympia means no harm. So long as Raghnall’s intentions are pure and he’s capable of following instructions, no one will even know she was there.”
“And if he isn’t?” Isla asked.
“You tell us,” Nascha challenged.
Isla’s frown deepened as she raised her chin a fraction further, defiant. I sighed. This was not going how I hoped it would.
“Perhaps you’d like to get settled into your new room?” I asked my wife. “Maybe find a change of clothes?”
That made it worse. She glared at me as her jaw tensed.
“Fine,” she spat.
Then she turned on her heel and stormed from the study, slamming the door shut behind her so hard some of the books rattled in their shelves. I leaned over the desk, pinching the bridge of my nose and breathing deeply.
“That was poorly handled,” my grandmother spoke a moment later.
“Funny,” I scoffed, sitting back to look at her. “I was going to say the same thing to you.”
“Me?”
“She’s my wife now, grandmother, due to a propositionyoubrought me, I might add. She isn’t the enemy and doesn’t deserve to be treated with such suspicion.”
Nascha’s glare lingered for a moment longer before subsiding.
“Sometimes I forget how much older you are now,” she said quietly.
