There’s no need for pleasantries or small talk when I’m in this office.
Standing in the middle of the room, a respectful distance back from his desk, I keep my hands clasped behind my back as I wait for my marching orders.
He shuffles through a few of the papers on his desk, brow furrowed.
“The jewel thief from the frost realm we were hired to apprehend, how did that—”
“It’s done. Payment and report left with your secretary.”
He hums, unimpressed. “And the missing vials of drakonbane you were seeking in the northern provinces? What updates can you give—”
“Retrieved and returned to their rightful owner. Payment filed.”
He hums again, with a distinctly irritated edge to it this time.
I’m pushing my luck.
Myron doesn’t care for insolence or insubordination.
He likes to believe he can command a room, that he’ll speak and people will listen, that he has the respect of everyone within earshot simply because of his own natural gravitas and authority.
Most days, I have no interest in divesting him of those notions.
I’m more than able to bite my tongue and stomach it, to stand here and receive my orders and keep the disdain off my face until I turn and leave and am free to stew in my bitterness privately.
Today, though, my usual control has slipped.
Today, I’ve got more pressing matters.
It’s been nearly a week since I’ve seen Seren. It’s been a week since the hunt began, and I’m no closer to discovering any clues about either the whereabouts of the fae queen’s heart, or where my mate might be in her quest for it.
But sometimes I feel her.
Just behind my sternum, I feel the bright, vibrant pull of my mate. Even across realms, she’s there, and the essence of her tugs at me unexpectedly, seemingly with no cause or purpose.
I felt it earlier today—a bright spark of my star. A heady pulse, with an edge of purpose to it, though I’ll be damned if I have any idea at all what that purpose is.
What I know it’snotis me standing here, listening to Myron, waiting to be ordered to some corner of some realm far away from my mate.
“Well, then,” he says, hands laced indolently behind his head as he reclines in his chair. “You’ll have to find some way to occupy yourself on my behalf. What news from the realms? Anything lucrative?”
“I’ve heard no recent news.”
The lie slips easily from my tongue, easily enough that for a moment I want to believe Myron hasn’t heard it.
But for all his faults, he’s adept at reading people, and his brow lowers as the falsehood lands.
“Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all.”
He pauses, astute gaze raking across my face for a few taut moments before he turns back to the papers in front of him.
Parry won, my desperation overtakes my caution.
“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to request a brief leave.”
Myron’s eyes snap up, hard and inscrutable. “A leave? For what? Are you ill?”
