Viktor pinned Theodore with a hard look. Jabbing a finger in his direction, he announced, “I’m going to get on that fucking list.”
“That’s not how that works.” Theodore shook his head. Sliding his hand down Margot’s back, he gently guided her to sit on the couch in front of Viktor. When she was settled, he sprawled out beside her, his arm slung over her shoulders. Neither seemed to care that he was sweaty, nor that Margot had clearly just come in from a day of working in the Healer’s Ward of Solbourne General, San Francisco’s premier medical institution.
They were perfectly domestic. It made him want to gnash his teeth.
“Vik, this isn’t something you would understand. She’s makingbusinessdeals, and it’s not a process open to Others.”
Gods, the idea of Camille turning her life into nothing more than a business arrangement, of her having cubs with someone because it was stipulated in the cold lines of a contract, made him feel ill.
Theodore was right. Hedidn’tunderstand it, but if he had to play this sick game to get his mate back, he would do it.
He wasn’t even sure how it would work if he succeeded. The Alliance was his pack’s chance at a new, brighter future. They could expand, stretch their power, secure a place for their descendants that would forever remain under their own authority.
All of that was already jeopardized by his public connection to the Solbournes. If he took Camille as his mate, that connection would be utterly irrevocable.
The smart thing would have been to wait untilafterhe secured their place in the Alliance. Once his pack was settled into their new territory, expelling them would be much, much harder than simply denying them entry. But he couldn’t wait. Camille forced his hand, and finding a way to have her and provide for his pack wouldn’t be simple or easy.
Doesn’t matter.
The part of him that was more coyote than man knew with the certainty of instinct that he was doing what was right. He would just have to figure out how to make it work. There was no other choice.
“Makeit open,” he insisted, a deep growl rumbling through every syllable.
Theodore rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye and sighed. “Vik, I can put you on the list. I can even insist that she consider you and follow the proper courtship protocol to secure my blessing, but I can’t actually make her give you the time of day.”
That he knew. No one could make Camille do anything she didn’t truly want to. As much as she bent to accommodate her vicious mother, and as much as she liked to please, when Camille got something into her head, she became a whirlwind of claws and teeth and fury.
Helovedthat about her. Always had.
“You let me worry about that. I just need you to open the door for me.”
He’d won her twenty years ago, despite the divisions of class and race and enmity. He could do it again. All he needed was an opening, something to force her hand into spending the smallest sliver of time with him.
“What will happen if it becomes public knowledge that Viktor is being considered for a union with Cammie?”
Theodore ran his claws through the wispy strands of hair that had escaped Margot’s updo. “I’m not sure, to be honest. I hadn’t considered it. My hope was that unions would become defunct when the moratorium on Other consorts was lifted, but we’re a stubborn bunch, so I guess I’m not surprised by its staying power.”
He looked at Viktor. The softness bled out of his voice. “If word gets out, it could swing one of two ways: Either elves could see it as a remarkable opportunity for new and lucrative unions across the UTA, or they’ll lose their minds all over again.”
And,Viktor thought, pacing again,it will tank our chances with the Alliance.
He didn’t say that, though. Theodore didn’t know about his negotiations with the Alliance, and Viktor was keen on keeping him in the dark until things were settled. What his pack did or did not do wasn’t the sovereign’s business unless their actions were in violation of the law — though the elves rarely saw things that way.
Which was why his people needed their own territory outside of the smothering oversight of the EVP. They needed their autonomy.Trueautonomy.
And that was what they stood to lose if it leaked that he was in negotiations with the Solbournes. Not simply because it would look a lot like he was double dealing, but because shifters would find the idea of an arranged mating repugnant, unnatural. It would look like he was not only betraying an instinctive honor code, but an entire way of life.
It was a massive risk. On one side, his pack — the people who had supported him, who were his family, who believed in him even when he was a boy trying to learn how to be a leader.
On the other side, Camille — the woman who made him feel a wild, fierce sort of joy that he could compare to nothing else, and the woman who made the thought of the future bearable.
The loyalty to mate and pack were never supposed to come in conflict. One was the other. To feel like he couldn’t have both made something deeply fundamental in him wither.
But if I do this right, if I win her before word gets out, then it won’t matter.Certainly, the Alliance might still reject him, but they were still shifters. If they knew she was his mate, they would understand and respect the sacred bond between them.
If she wore his bite, there wasn’t a damn thing they could say about it.
Viktor pulled himself upright, his shoulders moving back as the tension eased out of his muscles.Yes,he thought.That’s what I have to do.
