“Thank you,” Keith said. “I appreciate your understanding and generosity. With your permission, then, I’ll call my team and invite them here.”
Marianne nodded. As head of the Council, she didn’t have to check with anyone else. Her authority here was absolute. The only thing she was beholden to was tradition.
“It’s an expedient way of dealing with your concerns,” she said begrudgingly. “Besides, hospitality is a virtue we rarely get to practice. We can’t live up to our principles if we’re never challenged. And I suppose you’re right that your colleagues would like to meet Iris.”
Of course they would, Keith’s unicorn said, chafing at this.Whowouldn’tlike to meet our mate? Only terrible monsters, and our team is not made up of terrible monsters.
“I assume you can vouch for their behavior,” Marianne said, arching her delicate eyebrows. “I will not hold them to our standards, but I’m sure they’re capable of honor, decorum, and discretion.”
That riled up his unicorn all over again. His friends were the most honorable people he’d ever met, and they were kind and generous and caring in ways Lady Marianne would never understand.
There was a steely calm in his voice as he said, “I vouch for them without reservation.”
Marianne nodded again. If she sensed the new chilliness in his manner, she ignored it.
*
As always, Iris feltan invisible weight lift off her when Lady Marianne left the room.
This time, though, there was another weight—maybe even a heavier one—that came crashing down to take its place. She was alone with her true mate.
A long, long time ago, she used to daydream about this. Back then, the idea that she might someday have a Council-assigned match had seemed just about impossible, so she hadn’t even bothered fantasizing about a betrothal meeting. Instead, she’d imagined what it would be like to lock eyes with a man and know right away, beyond any doubt, that he was the one for her. Surely they wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other, no matter where they were. As soon as their eyes had locked in mutual recognition, he would sweep her into a passionate embrace, and all her inhibitions—and all her clothes—would come tumbling down.
Reality was not living up to that fantasy. Not only were her inhibitions still intact, they were practically girded on her like a suit of armor, one so heavy she could barely breathe.
Keith was more gorgeous than any daydream, but no matter what her unicorn said, he wasn’t really hers. He was too good to be true, and she couldn’t wrap her arms around him any more than she could fondle some priceless sculpture in a museum. If she tried, security guards would swoop in out of nowhere and remind her not to touch the art.
But she had to findsomeway to relax around him, at least a little. She couldn’t spend a week giving him the cold shoulder, and she didn’t want to. He hadn’t done anything wrong; he didn’t deserve to be shunned.
He just deserved someone better.
You still have to talk to him. Don’t be such a coward.
She took a deep breath. “Does your family still live here?”
It was the most innocuous question she could think of, unless she got desperate enough to ask him about his favorite color.
A half-smile flickered over Keith’s face. There was something strangely sad about it.
“They never lived here,” he said.
“Really? But I remember you a little from when we were kids.”
A brick-red flush crept into his face. Iris hoped it wasn’t because he was remembering what a troublemaker she’d been back then.
“I lived here,” Keith clarified, “but my parents never did. The last I heard, my mother was in Scotland and my father was in Egypt. They fostered me out here, and I was raised as a ward of the Council.”
Iris couldn’t help noticing how formal he sounded when he talked about it.Mother and father, notmom and dad.He didn’t even name anyone specific who used to take care of him. He’d just beena ward of the Council.
Her own childhood had been rocky sometimes, but at least she’d had one. She wasn’t sure Keith could say the same.
Keith noticed her silence, and it seemed to make him squirm.
“We still talk,” he added defensively. “They didn’t abandon me.”
Iris murmured some agreement even though she wasn’t at all sure that he was right.
“They were both mobile tributes, that’s all. You know, their assignments changed a lot, and they weren’t usually placed together. They wanted me to have a more stable upbringing than that. It’s how they were both raised—their parents were all tributes, too. They thought that if I had the same kind of childhood they had, I’d become the same kind of person they are.”
