Margot slowly removed her hand, though Camille’s skin tingled with warmth for several seconds afterward. Even when they weren’t actively healing, a healer’s touch was a balm.
She turned her head to look up at her guard. Her brows pinched with a look of obvious concern. “Yes, Aman? Did you or Erez want something to eat?”
Speaking through the distortion of the smoky glamour obscuring his face, the man Camille knew to be one of Theodore’s most loyal soldiers and the newly promoted Captain of the Consort’s Guard said, “No, madam. You have an unauthorized visitor requesting access to your table.”
Camille tensed, her eyes swinging toward the entrance. She couldn’t quite see anything except the shoulder of another Guard stationed by the maitre d’s little stand.
“Who is it?”
The glamour hid things like inflection, but Camille could swear she heard a note of annoyance — and the faintest southern drawl — in Aman’s voice when he answered, “Your brother, madam.”
Camille felt her eyebrows nearly hit her hairline.“Olivier du Soleilis here?”
“Ugh.” Margot looked vaguely dismayed. “Did he say why?”
“Only that he wishes to see you, madam. Would you like us to escort him away from the building?” Again, Camille thought she detected more than a hint of eagerness in that strange, inflectionless voice.
Margot made a soft sound of annoyance in the back of her throat. Shooting Camille an embarrassed look, she answered, “No, no, I should see what he wants.”
Aman nodded sharply before he rose to his full height and lifted an arm to gesture at the guard across the restaurant.
Margot leaned over the table to whisper, “I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d show up or else I would have said no to going out completely. If you want to leave, you can. I won’t blame you.”
“What is Olivier even doing here? Doesn’t he mainly stay in Malibu?” she asked.
A heavy sigh drifted over the table. “He bought ahousehere, Cammie.”
“Is that so bad?” As a twin, she couldn’t imagine being upset by her sibling’s nearness.
“Yes,” Margot answered, surprisingly mulish. “It means he’s never going to leave me alone now.”
Camille watched the guard by the entrance step aside. Immediately, the imposing figure of Olivier du Soleil strode past him.
As clean cut as an ice sculpture, Olivier was devastatingly pretty and equally untouchable. She’d never met a man as cold as Margot’s half brother, and amongst elves, that was saying something.
All elves were born hungry — for power, for touch, for prestige, for the stability of hierarchy — but some wore that hunger closer to their skin than others. Olivier was one of those people. He walked like the universe had personally wronged him, and he intended to eat it all up, one bite at a time, as recompense.
Wearing a black on black suit with a distinctly elvish half cape slung over his shoulders, his pale gold skin and white blond hair stood out like a beacon across the room. Chair legs screeched as people hastily moved out of the way of his long-legged stride.
When he arrived at their table, Olivier took a moment to stare down his nose at Camille, the black lenses of his sunglasses hiding his expression, before he turned to address his sister. Every line of his body was sleek, powerful, and elegantly adorned. Even the air around him simmered with a biting sort of sophistication that set her fangs on edge.
When he spoke, his voice was as cold and sharp as a knife’s blade. “I’m having lunch with you.”
“Olivier, you can’t just crash our lunch!” Margot’s tone took on a tartness that Camille rather liked.
“I can when you stop answering my messages.” Olivier pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them neatly into his breast pocket, revealing eyes of the same striking red-gold as his sister’s. In the shade, they looked almost like copper. In the light, they glowed with Glory’s topaz.
He dropped into the chair to Margot’s left. Helping himself to the waiting cup of coffee there, he took a long sip before he leaned over to cup the back of his sister’s head and plant a firm kiss to her hairline. It was a startlingly warm gesture for one so cold.
Pulling back, he commanded, “Stop avoiding me.”
“I wasworkingyesterday.” Margot wrinkled her nose and sat back in her chair. Despite her retreat, Camille thought she spied a cautious softness in her eyes.
“And you could have answered me today, but you didn’t. My point stands.”
“Don’t you have better things to do? Have a business empire to run? Dreams to crush?”
“Nothing is more important than family,” he replied, quick and unbothered. “Besides, I am between meetings and currently out of innocent dreams to crush. I fly back to Malibu this afternoon. I wasn’t about to miss a chance to spend a moment with you.”
