Which reminded me, westillneeded to talk.
But that would have to wait, yet again, till after what I had to say. All the guys deserved to know about Bayn’s “offer.”
Koar stood between the couch and the chair on which Rook sat, ever vigilant.
“So, something’s come up, that you all need to know about,” I began.
“Something to do with the titan, Bayn?” Rook asked. He’d seen Bayn and I leave the auditorium together.
“Yes. And since there’s not a lot of time to sugarcoat it, I’ll just say it. He’s proposed an arranged marriage between him and me.” That elicited several stunned and shocked reactions. I hurried on. “I haven’t accepted, and Koar’s come up with a bit of a work around, but the meat of the issue is that the titans probably won’t go to war with us against Valnea unless Bayn is essentially in charge: king, general, what have you.”
“A titan? We’re at war?” Myel asked, even more dismayed.
Right… Vyns and Myel didn’t even know how the fight with Saldrea had ended and Myel had no clue we’d teamed up with the titans against Saldrea.
I quickly caught them both up on Saldrea’s defeat and Valnea’s preparations to deal with me and everyone here on campus.
I ended with, “It seems we’ll have some time to prepare. Valnea doesn’t seem concerned about us amassing any great force to resist her. She’ll take all the time she needs to make sure she crushes us, which I won’t let happen, if I can help it.”
“And having the titans on board would certainly help,” Vyns finished. “Which means entertaining Bayn’s offer. He looked at Koar. “What was your work around?” Vyns seemed to be handling this information well. I was glad he wasn’t freaking out, like Myel was.
“Giving him what he wants only after he brings the titans to the table,” the big man responded.
It occurred to me then, that if Bayn joined my growing harem, Koar would no longer be the biggest man. Could I still think of him as “the big man?” He was still objectively big, but Bayn was… massive. And that was in his shrunken form.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined myself a queen, facing a political marriage with a forty-foot-tall giant.
“Yeah, that seems fair,” Vyns responded. “I have no issues with this, as long as Izzy’s okay with it.”
Really?
“Just like that? A titan, my husband, and you have no qualms?”
“Well, I assume you made it clear that we’d all be your husbands as well, or at least prince consorts. None of us are going anywhere and if that’s a deal-breaker for him, we should find that out as soon as possible.”
Huh.
Vyns was right.
One of my deal-breaker conditions had to be that my men would stay in my life, no matter what relationship Bayn and I had.
“I… this is all… I don’t know how I feel about this,” Myel said, still shocked. He sank back into the cushions of the couch.
He didn’t like it, that’s how he felt. Our mate bond toldme as much. Myel, though tall and lean and far from “small,” was still the smallest of my guys. And having a massive titan join the crew…? I already knew Myel had insecurities and self-doubt around me not needing him, especially once I was queen. He thought my desires would change, because I had changed, getting stronger, developing my elven abilities. But as much as I’d come into my power, who I was at my core was still the same, and Myel was still my bondmate. I could break the bond between us, but I had absolutely no inclination to do so. I wanted him in my life. But I could see how adding another extremely big, strong man to the harem might make him feel insecure.
“We should talk,” I said reaching out to Myel, taking his hand in mine. The contact helped. Our bond was stirring rather heavily now that he was awake. We’d both been through a hell of a lot since the last time we’d been together and it needed some reassuring as well.
“First, I need to talk to Rook,” I said, glancing over at the lithe, languid form of the relaxing incubus. A mane of flame red hair framed his sharp features. Two horns above his ears curved around his head before peeking up a little at the back. He gazed at me with eyes like smoldering embers and nodded, wordless. I turned back to Myel, “Then we can… have some alone time, okay?”
The shifter smiled tentatively. “Yeah, okay, thanks.”
The smile was fake. I felt his uncertainty and a growing anger. Yeah, we really needed to talk.
God, handling all these relationships and emotions was practically a full-time job. When would I ever have time to lead an army or rule as queen?
I turned back to Rook. “Your thoughts on Bayn?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure if I get an opinion… until we’ve had our talk and worked things out.”
