Jacob's Trial [Forbidden Legacy 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (23 page)

Sometimes, just the appearance of weakness gave her an advantage in a negotiation. Many a man had succumbed to the weakness of a tipsy woman.

“You wished to speak to me, directly. You insisted it was important enough to schedule before the Council convened. But after our last encounter, I would be remiss to allow you the opportunity of privacy.”

“You expect us to speak openly in this venue? With so many ears attuned to us?”

Cassie smiled, swallowing a sip of wine and setting the glass down. “They aren’t paying any attention to us. In fact, they barely know we’re here. They are all watching Helcyon. Waiting to see how he eats, how he drinks, what his facial expressions tell them. So be wary if his smile slips. They’ll take notice of who caused that.”

Helcyon grinned, and Cassie’s heart did a fist bump with her ribs. A titter passed over the crowd, and it took every ounce of control not to laugh at the woman swooning three tables away. Actually swooning. Damn if her Elf wasn’t a heartbreaker.

The older Wizard surveyed the room. His bushy brows drew together briefly and then relaxed. Surprise edged across his guarded expression.

“You are a dangerous woman, Ms. Belle.” The low-voiced compliment sounded like anything but.

“If that is what you came to discuss, we could have traded barbs via phone.”

“You look like your mother.” If he’d hoped the observation would throw her, he was mistaken. She’d heard the comment her entire life. She was the image of her mother. They even shared many of the same mannerisms. She’d often compared herself to images of her mother at the same age and found no discernible difference except in hairstyle and clothing trends. “But she was kinder than you, far less jaded.”

“She didn’t survive her assassination to become cynical.” She took no pleasure in the dig striking home.

“That was an unfortunate misunderstanding.” His expression tensed.

“Unfortunate can be rectified. Tragic usually can’t.” Cassie’s foot began to bob beneath the table. It was the only manifestation of distress she allowed herself.

“Fair point.” The Wizard pushed his water glass to the side and leaned forward. “He was not under orders from me to perform such actions.”

“And I have only your word for that.”

“Yes.” He nodded once. “I bore your mother no ill will, nor her mother or her mother’s mother. They were not involved nor should they have been involved in this.”

“I take it you do bear ill will toward me.” She ignored the bonding attempts. Before her mother’s death, she never spoke of Cassie’s father other than to say he was a complicated man. It was hard to imagine a complicated man as a child, harder still to picture what could possibly have been so complicated that he never called nor wrote nor made the token appearance in her life.

Until now.

If he’s even my father.
A thought she wasn’t completely sold on.

“You are too young to understand the consequences of what you are doing. What danger you have opened the world to once again.”

“Since the Fae went Underhill in the late 1500s there have been thirty-six major armed conflicts and two hundred million deaths related to those wars, not the least of which occurred in the years leading up to and out of those wars, more than any other numbers we can account for in history.”

“Those wars did not happen because the Fae weren’t here.” The Wizard’s face flushed.

“Of course not, they happened because you were too busy holding onto your job you forgot to do your job. Wizards are supposed to be the protectors of humanity. What’s your excuse for more than two hundred million deaths on your watch? Or would you like to blame the Fae for global warming? Drought? Starvation? Genocide?” Cassie swirled the wine and took another long drink of it.

“Humans started those wars, Ms. Belle. Humans exercising free will.”

“Semantics.” Cassie waved her hand. She agreed that on some level humanity did need to take responsibility for its own fate. The Wizards, however, were not blameless as the numbers suggested they preferred sanctioning genocide rather than outing themselves to the rest of the world.

“Not semantics. You are interpreting facts to support your own conclusions.” The older Wizard’s hand clenched on the table, and while none of the men around her visibly moved, Helcyon’s leg tensed against hers.

“I am doing no more or less than you. Wizards are dedicated to the protection of humanity, fact or interpretation?”

“Fact.” He nearly spit the word.

“In exiling the Fae, was humanity protected?”

“From their interference? Yes. From their political disputes? Yes.”

“How many humans died in their wars?” Cassie raised her eyebrows. But the waiter chose that moment to deliver the food, and she leaned back, relaxing the hostility knotting through her shoulders. Thankfully, the inquisitor general did the same. The waiter refilled their glasses and left them to the meal.

“We have no numbers to support any assertion.”

It was a concession, a small one, but Cassie was gracious enough to merely nod.

“So we cannot debate the merits or benefits based on human casualties. I will agree to that if you will stipulate that the benefit of their exile is inconclusive when applied to humans.”

The Wizard cut into his steak, his mouth a thin, grim line. “I will so stipulate.”

Helcyon gave the slightest of jerks next to her, and she spared him an inquiring look. At his quick head shake, she refocused her attention on the inquisitor general. The Wizard chewed a bit of steak as though it were a chore rather than a delicacy.

“This is not why I asked to meet with you.” The words were so low, Cassie actually had to strain to hear them.

“No?” Cassie took the time to pick up her fork and spear one piece of the pasta. The last thing she wanted was food, but the Wizard took the first bite, so it was up to her to continue the dance.

“No. I came here to speak about you. About your involvement and my desire for you to absent yourself from what is coming.”

There was an air of absolute sincerity about him. The first actual sense of it she’d seen since they sat down at the table. He puffed out his napkin and dabbed at his mouth as though ill familiar with the action. His gaze flickered once to Helcyon and then back to her.

“Believe what you will, but I cared for your mother. I did not plan to leave her with child.” He paused, a flush staining his neck. “It was never my intention to leave her with child. We had heard rumors, rumors about the Danae, about the Fae. I was investigating those rumors.”

“And you tripped over something and fell on her?” Was this supposed to make her feel better? His lack of intention to father and then abandon a child?

“Of course not. Don’t be a child.”

The verbal slap only served to irritate her. “My apologies. I’m sure you used birth control.”

The Wizard didn’t bother to disguise his reaction to her verbal sally. He merely narrowed his colorless eyes and glared. “Your mother would not have wanted you involved in this.”

“My mother would have wanted me to know my father. I guess she learned to live with that disappointment.”

She took a bite of a mushroom, and despite the delicious white sauce, it tasted like ash on her tongue. Setting her fork down, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. The time for games was over.

“What do you want from me, Inquisitor General?”

“I want you to avoid the Council meeting.”

Of all the things he could have said, that was not what she expected.

“You told Jacob he had to present me.”

“Immaterial. The issue of Michael no longer exists, therefore his accuser need not be present.”

“And the charges against Jacob?” The hum of the room faded, the intimate dining room shrinking to include only the Wizard across the table and her.

“Also immaterial. Simply stay away from the proceedings.”

“They’re not immaterial to me, and it’s obviously not immaterial to you if you don’t want me there. So give me one good reason why I should even consider your suggestion?” She’d already dismissed it, but she wanted to hear what he had to say.

The older Wizard shook his head and looked directly at Helcyon for the first time. “If she comes to that Council, we will be forced to include her in the charges. If you want your mouthpiece to survive, you’ll keep her in her place and out of our affairs.”

Standing abruptly, Jude shifted next to her, his side brushing her shoulder as he folded in closer and allowed the inquisitor general to exit but never actually touch her.

They said nothing as the Wizard made his way out of the restaurant. A wave of disappointment rolled through her. She’d told herself not to hope for anything. To not put any weight into this meeting. It was for scouting purposes only, to take the inquisitor general’s temperature and his measure.

Helcyon’s hand covered hers on the table. “It’s going to be all right, Cassie.”

Chewing the lipstick off her upper lip, she nodded once. The man—Wizard—whatever he was didn’t deserve her tears. He’d brought up her mother to forge a familial bond with her. When that failed, he tried to intimidate her.

“He’s afraid of something,” Cassie said softly, the truth in that floating above the morass of conflict swamping her.

“We’re going home now.” Helcyon rose, his manner reserved. He tugged her chair out and took her hand as she stood, threading it through his arm. Jude met her gaze with an encouraging smile, and she found the energy to give him a small one in return.

She was proud of the remarkably steady feet she walked out on, arm tucked into Helcyon’s. A precipice yawned in front of her, but she skirted it. Terror for Jacob dug its icy fingers into her heart. If the inquisitor general was afraid, what the hell did they plan on doing to her man?

And how could she stop it?

The din of the restaurant roared back into focus. Jude preceded them with Paul covering their backs. They waded through the sea of photographers as Domoir glided back into place. Jude opened the door and gave her hand a quick squeeze as he helped her inside and then backed up so Helcyon could join her.

As soon as the door closed, she crawled into Helcyon’s lap and wrapped her arms around him. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You were magnificent.”

She said nothing all the way home, her mind running through the possibilities. Even safe in the security of Helcyon’s arms, she couldn’t get out of her mind the flash of fear that echoed in the inquisitor general’s eyes before he uttered his final warning.

At home, Jude opened the door and Helcyon slid out, carrying her with him, and he ignored her half protest as he strode across the yard to the steps and into the house.

In her room, he joined her on the bed and his mouth silenced any conversation. His hands neared frantic as he stripped away their clothes. His cock thrust inside of her, and she stopped worrying about tomorrow and surrendered to his feverish caresses.

Dawn arrived far too soon, and not even a shower helped clear the buzz of worry from her mind. Her body ached, but the bruising from Jude’s training barely compared to the too-tight, stretched feeling tugging at her skin.

She wasn’t alone in her nerves. Helcyon’s demanding caresses throughout the night left her limp with pleasure and unable to compose a coherent thought. She’d wanted to talk to him about the meeting, but every attempt to engage him led to another bout of fierce sex.

Not that she was complaining. The delicious ache between her thighs was a bruise she wore with pride. Unfortunately, Helcyon abandoned her bed before she woke. With the Council meeting set to convene at noon, she didn’t have time to hunt him down.

Turning on the blow dryer, she picked up her comb and went to work putting herself together. There wasn’t a lot of ritual in drying and styling her hair or in putting on her makeup. Yet, both activities soothed the vagaries of her thoughts and brought the day into sharp clarity.

An hour later, dressed in a cream-colored suit and warm-gold shirt, she descended the stairs. The Wizards already gathered below. Paul with his cool, expressionless face, Miller with his too-old eyes, DuPois with his ancient air of superiority, and Dalton, who looked more beach boy than Wizard, while Jude hovered on the outskirts of the group, young, enthusiastic, and her favorite of the five. The Wizards formed a loose semicircle around Jacob.

It was Jude who glanced up and gave her a welcoming smile. She grinned, having already forgiven him for the previous day’s lesson. Jacob glanced up and rose to hold a hand out to her. She threaded her fingers through his and smiled into the sound kiss he slanted across her mouth. Wrapping her hands around his arm, she leaned into him with a small smile.

“Everything okay?” Jacob murmured. He’d shaved, and his cheek was smooth where it rubbed lightly against hers.

“I wanted to talk to Helcyon before we went.” She was all too aware of their audience, but with Jacob’s arm around her, she didn’t care.

“Sorry, sweet. He’s already off.”

Her heart sank, and she exhaled her disappointment with a sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Jacob rubbed her arm soothingly.