“No,” I told her, cutting in. “He’ll need to prepare for the meeting.”
Quentin frowned, but nodded her head. “I guess I’ll see you there.”
Ignacio closed the distance between them and pulled her into a hug. The jealousy scorched through my veins at how easily she wrapped her arms around him, taking comfort from my friend that she couldn’t find in me.
“You can ask,” he said, not quite letting go of her. “I would give you all my luck, but you have to ask me for it.”
Yet another thing he could do for her that I couldn’t. Ig’s gift lent itself to being something useful in this situation. All I could offer was a way to make it worse.
Quentin blanched, fingers digging into his sides. “I can’t do that to you. I won’t be that person.”
“Quentin,” I said, but she ignored me.
Ignacio was giving her a lifeline, but there was a look that passed between them that I didn’t quite understand. There was a bond between them that didn’t require words to convey their thoughts.
“I’ll see you in the chambers,” Quentin told him, stepping away.
The house grew quiet after Ignacio left. Any attempts at conversation were thwarted, and I begrudgingly understood that she needed to focus. The tatters of our relationship sank down the priority list while Quentin dealt with the matter at hand.
With five minutes left until eleven o’clock, I adjusted the crown on my head in the bedroom mirror and found her staring at me in the reflection. Turning slowly on my heel, I met her gaze.
“I can almost hear the way your mind is ticking,” I said. “Ask me whatever it is you’re thinking.”
“What’s he going to do?” she asked, with no further prompting. “Hunter. How will he test my control?”
“We’ve never had to do this before. I imagine it’d be in a similar fashion to how Ignacio has trained you.”
She stared at her lap, hands balling into fists. Her wrists were bound in the cuffs, forcing her to look submissive. “I hate going into things unprepared.”
“You are not unprepared.”
“What happens if I fail?” Quentin looked up at me again. “I don’t get to go home and he just kills me there and then?”
It was impossible. He would have to taint her blood first and that would take some time while he gathered what was needed.
“I’d murder him before he has the chance.”
Her eyes hardened at my words. It was something that I was capable of, and she’d witnessed that fact. I prepared myself for the argument, but her shoulders sagged.
Quentin was a strong woman. A bull-headed battle axe may have been a better way to describe her. But everything in Elysia over the past few weeks had taken their toll on my golden girl. There was too much uncertainty that drained her. Too much chaos that she couldn’t break through the surface in order to take a breath.
Extending a hand out to her, I said, “It’s time to go. I will be there, and even though I cannot offer you luck, I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” She would hate me more than she already did for saying it, but I needed her to know. “I love you.”
Slowly, she lifted her hands and placed them in mine before I helped her to her feet. Her words were almost inaudible, swallowed by the depths of our bedroom. “I love you too.”
The black of my aura swirled out and consumed us before it cleared away, leaving us standing in the council chambers. My hand slipped from Quen’s to around her wrists, pulling her gently to the centre of the room. I cast her one more look before climbing the steps towards my throne.
“Now that we’re all here,” Hunter said once Aria had taken her seat. “We shouldn’t waste any time.”
He left his throne and walked down to Quentin. Her anxiety rose, the bond allowing me to feel the nervous energy that pitted in her stomach until it gave way to nausea. My fingers gripped the arms of my throne. I felt Erik’s stare boring into me, but I refused to look away from Quen.
“This is simply to test your control, Quentin,” Hunter continued. He unlocked the cuffs with the key I handed him earlier and they fell to the floor with a clanging that echoed around the chambers and made Quentin wince. “I’ve invited the others because I felt it was their right to attend and witness what you are capable of. It may help their decision when we vote again.”
She gave him a definite nod, lips clamped tight.
“Call on it,” Hunter demanded. “Show us the essence of your gift.”
The fatigue she’d displayed earlier when her shoulders slumped had vanished. Quentin straightened her spine, giving her short frame an inch or so, and gentle wisps of gold materialised around her, curling and uncurling around her body.
