“Wow…” Jace breathed. “You look nice.”
Khoth smoothed his hands down the front of his outfit. “It is similar to some of our formal, religious clothes. It is perfectly sized, though this is not surprising. The Osiris has, undoubtedly, scanned me multiple times.”
“Scanned you… yeah… right, of course!” Jace shook his head to clear out the image of Khoth’s naked body being minutely recorded. It probably had been and if Jace asked, Osiris would let him see it.
“Oooh, your food is coming!” Gehenna said as she hurried to the door, leaving them alone with thoughts of naked Khoth in his head.
“I suppose we should eat at the meeting table. That’ll be easiest,” Jace said, feeling awkward around Khoth, which he didn’t want.
They both moved to the table. Khoth held out the head of the table chair for Jace. Jace stared at it.
“Why don’t we just sit opposite one another for now,” Jace said. “I’m sure I’ll be in that seat soon enough. When it’s just us… we should be… you know, normal.”
Khoth nodded and held out another chair for him. Jace sat down and felt strangely touched as Khoth helped tuck him up against the table. He sat opposite Jace and folded his hands on the table, fingers interlaced. Khoth stared down at them, saying nothing.
“So you talked to your mom,” Jace prompted.
“Yes.”
Hmmm, one word answers like the Osiris, Jace thought. That’s not good.
“How did it, ah, go?” Jace asked.
“Not well.”
Two words. Improvement or no? Jace wondered.
“What did she--” Jace began.
But then Khoth burst out, “She did not accept it! She acted as if I had not said it! She… she promised me…”
Khoth stopped. He closed his eyes and his hands fisted on the table. This was the most emotion that Jace had ever seen from the Thaf’ell.
This is bad. This is really, really bad. He faced death with less emotion than this, Jace thought.
Khoth’s voice continued so softly that it would have been hard to hear him if not for Jace’s superior hearing, “She is out of control. So desperate that I fear she will do something she cannot take back.”
Jace, the Osiris’ voice was clipped, the Thaf’ell fleet is preparing aggressive action towards Earth and us.
“Damn,” Jace breathed.
Khoth’s head snapped up. “What is it?”
Jace gave him a weak smile. “I had been hoping to talk to your mother before showing her the might of the Osiris. But time has already run out.”
Lunch And A Coup
Jace’s words punched Khoth in the gut though he did not show it as a human likely would. He merely went very still. His outburst as to his mother’s actions before had been bad enough, but now that he knew she was betraying everything the Alliance stood for--that she had stood for--had Khoth wanting desperately to act perfectly. To be the Thaf’ell one should be in that moment. But, if he were honest with himself, he was simply frozen.
Unable to act.
Unable to think.
Only able to dread.
“What is she doing?” Khoth finally managed to ask.
“Let me show you,” Jace said with a twist of his lips.
