Mathos rocked back in his chair and fought for patience. Two weeks on the road together, and he was ready to kill the man. Tor was quiet and brooding at the best of times; now he was bloody miserable and looking for a fight, alternating between long glowering silences and terse complaints about everything from the weather, to the state of the road, to unreasonably high levels of taxation.
It was driving Mathos insane.
He put down his watery ale and linked his fingers behind his head in an attempt not to reach across the table and throttle the huge Apollyon. There were only three other men in the roadside tavern—all just about as ancient and unwashed as the tavern itself—and they’d all been ignoring each other perfectly well. Starting a brawl would not be a good way to stay inconspicuous.
“We’ve discussed this at least three times already today. If Lucilla is there—and she wasn’t in the hunting lodge, the stately homes, or the castle that we checked already—she won’t want visitors turning up in the dark.”
Tor cracked his knuckles, one after the other. A move that was no doubt intended to be intimidating. All it succeeded in achieving was to scrape painfully along Mathos’s one last remaining nerve.
Mathos barely restrained the eye roll that would probably push Tor over the edge. “She’s a queen who doesn’t even know it yet. A girl who's been kept away from court. Coddled, spoiled, and protected her entire life. Two big armed men turning up out of the blue and frightening her won’t help. We want her on our side, remember?”
Tor looked down into his empty mug and muttered something just too low to hear.
“We can’t go tonight,” Mathos repeated.
Tor looked up through narrowed eyes. “She’s there. I’m telling you. This is the only manor house on the list with a garden designed by her mother.”
Mathos was beginning to see why Tristan never bothered to respond with more than a grunt. “The fact that we think this is the one, is exactly why we can’t go now. A queen doesn’t get out of bed in the middle of the night for mercenaries. Especially not mercenaries who watched both her father and her brother die.”
Tor cocked his head. “So let’s get in there and explain it all to her. This is the last place on our list. If we go tonight, we can get this stupid mission over and done with.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tor, if we’d wanted to terrify the girl, or better yet, start a war, we could have simply swept down here with a regiment of Nephilim. We’re trying to do this quietly.”
Mathos sighed pointedly. “You know, same as me, that Dornar’s out there looking for her. Looking for us. What do you think will happen if we stir up a pile of trouble? He’ll have our heads on pikes before the sun comes up, and Queen Lucilla will be standing next to him when he does it.”
Tor grumbled loudly, and Mathos sighed again, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “I honestly don’t understand why you even came with me.”
“Garet and Jos went east, Jeremiel and Rafe went north. We are going south.”
Mathos gave in and rolled his eyes. Trust Tor to say something both blatantly obvious and completely useless. They both knew how the Hawks had spread out while Alanna, Val, Nim, and Tristan stayed at the temple. The work at the temple was important; not only were they urgently sending messengers back and forth to Alanna’s mother, trying to undo the damage Ballanor had done to the treaty, but they were also gathering evidence to prove Lucilla’s birthright so that they could get her onto the throne as quickly as possible once they’d found her.
The only Hawk not helping was Reece. Damn the hardheaded stubbornness of the man. He had left his squad. Left his brothers. Determined to go back to Kaerlud alone, and nothing Mathos had said would change his mind.
All because of one selfish, betraying ex-lover. A good example of why, in Mathos’s opinion, it was better to never get too involved with anyone who wanted a relationship of any kind. On those rare occasions when his need for human contact was too great to ignore, he made sure that the women he spent time with had no real interest in him. Far safer for everyone that way.
And sitting across from him, staring morosely into his empty mug as if it held the answers of the Abyss, was an even better example.
Keely had chosen to stay and help at the Temple. And why wouldn’t she? Her friends were there. It was comfortable there. No one had expected her to sign up for a tour of the kingdom looking for a lost, and possibly no longer even living, woman.
What he didn’t understand was why Tor hadn’t stayed with her and resolved whatever drama was going down between them. Personally, Mathos would have walked away, no problem. If there was one thing he hated, it was drama. But it was eating at his friend. He should have stayed and sorted things out. It was bloody obvious to everyone except Tor.
He gave his friend a long look. “Why didn’t you stay with Keely?”
Tor wrapped his hand around the back of his neck, accentuating the swirling black-and-red tattoos that sleeved both his arms. “I’m needed here.”
“I can look for some pampered little girl without you holding my hand, you know.”
Tor looked away. “She doesn’t want me there.”
“Keely said that?”
“No, but….”
Gods save him. Mathos took a long sip of his ale. “Fine. You decided, without talking to her, that she didn’t want you to stay. But what didyouwant to do?”
Tor grunted, still looking away. As far as Mathos could tell, his friend had wanted to get away from the woman and whatever had happened between them but had then instantly regretted the decision and was now desperate to get back to her. Hence the surly glowers and the fight about finishing their mission immediately.
Mathos contained a groan. How did he always land up in the role of nursemaid? “Did you tell her how you feel? Did you say anything to suggest to her that you might be interested in… I don’t know, gods… whatever it is you’re interested in?”
