The future sovereign didn’t get to be normal. He didn’t get to be unobserved. He didn’t get to show weakness or reveal how tired he was.
Especiallywhen no one wanted him to take the job.
But when he stepped into the family’s private elevator, his brother by his side, he wasn’t just the sovereign-in-waiting. He was Teddy, and Teddy got to breathe.
Leaning against the elevator’s wall, he unsnapped the silver thistle pin that kept his starched collar in place. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Kaz about his team of feral assassins, but Theodore smothered the impulse. It was a holiday. He’d spent too much of it working already. For one night, he wanted to just… be.
“Is Sam in yet?” he asked instead.
“Landed an hour ago,” Kaz replied, pocketing his phone. He tucked his big green hands into his beaten leather jacket and matched Theodore’s pose on the opposite wall. “So you know Winnie has him setting the table or something already.”
Theodore cracked a smile, but it was brief. “How long is he staying?”
Kaz shook his head. “Not long enough. A week, I think.”
Disappointment soured his stomach. Running his tongue along his upper fangs, Theodore tried to tamp down the impulse to complain.
Samuel had valid reasons for not wanting to stay in the city for even a moment longer than he had to, but that didn’t mean it hurt less every time he escaped to his compound in the desert.
Looking at his brother out of the corner of his eye, he asked, “You’re sticking around, right?”
Kaz shrugged. “Sue called and asked if I’d spend some time on the ranch, but I told her no.”
“She could come here,” he offered, as he always did. “Your family’s always welcome. I would love to?—”
“Teddy,” Kaz gruffly interjected, “I know. But you can’t fix this for me, no matter how much you want to. Frances would never let Sue step foot in elvish territory, let alone comehere.”
It wasn’t like Theodore could blame Kaz’s grandmother for her hesitation — or outright hatred — but it went against something fundamental in him to just sit back and do nothing.He didn’t work as hard as he did because of some inherent love of responsibility or patriotism. He did it for the people he loved.
But what good did any of it do if his brother couldn’t embrace both sides of his family? Or if Samuel couldn’t bear to show his face in his own home? Or if Valen stayed up for days at a time, terrified of what would happen when the public learned of Delilah’s abdication?
What’s the point if I can never find her?
A sharp pain slid between his ribs as he reached out through the haze of great distance toward the beacon of light and warmth that was his consort.
Was she well? Was she surrounded by loving family, warm and safe during the darkest night of the year? It drove him mad to not know.
Theodore stared at his warped reflection in the elevator’s doors. They were slowing to a stop after the long, smooth climb toward the penthouse, but he felt like he’d left his stomach somewhere on the ground floor.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. He looked up at his brother just as the elevator doors began to open.
“Hey,” Kaz rumbled, giving his shoulder a hearty shake. “Let it go. It’s a holiday. You’ve been working yourself to death. Just enjoy the night, huh?”
Theodore looked into the hard lines of his brother’s striking face. Sometimes he wondered what it would’ve been like if his mother lived, or if his father never met Amira. In a perfect world, his bastard father would’ve gotten his head on straight after he met his consort and abandoned life in elvish society. Then they could’ve had it all: his mother alive, his brother unscarred, and Kaz still in their lives.
But it hadn’t worked out like that, and he wasn’t selfish enough to be ungrateful for the gifts he’d been given.
“Yeah,” he replied, summoning a smile. He clapped his brother on the shoulder with a playful growl. “C’mon. I’m hungry.”
They stepped out into the warded hallway. One never truly got used to the oppressive, sinister air of that protective barrier, but they had a lot of practice ignoring it. The men chatted amiably as they passed under the bloody sigils and into the much more hospitable main atrium of the family’s quarters.
Kaz let out a low whistle as he beheld the towering silver moon that had been erected in the center of the floor. It was surrounded by what looked like every pillar candle in the city, as well as bouquets of seasonal flowers. Garlands dripped from the massive glass dome over their heads, scenting the room with spicy pine.
Across the atrium, the door to the family’s main living quarters opened with a bang. Golden light spilled out across the floor, silhouetting Winnie.
“Boys!” she called out, her gorgeous face split with a grin. “Come on! Your brother brought a board game he says is Foresight and psychic-proof. We have to start soon so your grandfather can’t beg off with an excuse about an old man needing his beauty sleep again.”
Theodore tossed his head back with a dramatic sigh but he didn’t stop walking toward the woman who was, in all the ways that mattered, his mother. “Can’t I change into something comfortable first?”
