* * *
Winkler was having a second helping of ribs and grinning at me. "Do I have a bedroom at the palace, now?" he teased.
"Honey, I think you can have just about anything you want," I replied, smiling like an idiot at my wolf. We'd been talking nonstop ever since he'd folded in. The wolf I'd seen in a carved box at his funeral had been made to look and smell exactly like him. It just hadn't been him, and he'd smiled and kissed me—several times—as I wiped tears away and described the service.
I saw so much in his eyes, so many years that he'd experienced that I had no part in. We had so much catching up to do—and time enough, now, to do it. Even Gavin and Tony were having a decent conversation with Winkler—they'd seen him now and then while he'd still been the Dallas Packmaster.
"Lissa, I'd like to ask a favor," Kiarra sat nearby, with Merrill and Adam right behind her.
"What do you need?" I asked, watching as she brushed nearly white hair back from her face and smiled tentatively at me.
"We might want to borrow Gavin and Tony sometimes, if that's okay. They have good experience with things like this, and we might need their help."
"Help with what?" Gavin and Tony were both interested, but Tony was the one to ask.
"With Ra'Ak spawn. These rogue Ra'Ak won't be following the rules and it's a sure bet they'll be making spawn as quickly as possible. The vampires we have can scent them just as well as the werewolves, so it's easy for them to locate spawn. With their enhanced speed, vampires have the easiest time killing them, too. If Gavin and Tony consent to freelance for us, we'll give them
Folding
and
Looking
capability."
"You can do that?" Tony was very interested now.
"We can do that, but you have to follow the rules as far as using those gifts go," Kiarra smiled at him.
"I'm in," Tony declared.
"If Lissa agrees." Gavin's response was more circumspect.
"I agree, if you want to," I nodded at both of them. "I don't have a problem with it."
"I'll come next week, then, and we'll take care of it." Kiarra was happy, I could tell. We folded home not long after that, Winkler pulled me into my bedroom and proceeded to lock everybody else out.
"I've waited forever for this, and the good news is that I won't poison you if I nip a little," he grinned at me just before he lowered his head and gave me the best kiss ever.
A woman told me long ago that werewolves were possessive in bed. I thought she was only talking about her werewolf. She wasn't. Winkler not only had me clawing on his back and moaning his name, he had me tucked against him and was nipping my shoulder if I tried to move while he napped afterward.
* * *
"So, what's the big brouhaha Council meeting about this morning?" Winkler asked. I was watching him dress the following morning and keeping my mouth shut while I did it—it's never attractive for the Queen to drool. Yeah, I would have watched Winkler all day. If I could have. Muscles rippled in his arms as he pulled on a dress shirt.
"Oh, I'm supposed to talk now," I mentally pulled myself away from Winkler's physique.
"Yeah," he grinned.
"Well, we're pulling in all the vamps who have female vampire mates, just to make sure the female mate in question wants to be with the vampire and isn't under compulsion or duress. The idea is to make sure the mates aren't being mistreated."
"I thought the bond had to be renewed every hundred years."
"It was like that on Earth. Other worlds have less or more time, depending on their Council. However, if you think that Wlodek actually checked to see if the female—or male if that was the case—actually wasn't under compulsion, then you can likely think again. Most of those vampires on Earth belonged to the Aristocracy, and it was prestigious to have a female vampire among your many possessions. I don't believe for a minute they'd let that get away if they could help it. Part of today's meeting will be about making it unlawful to place compulsion of any kind on your mate. There's no need to hide anymore, so there shouldn't be any reason for it."
"If you'd been susceptible to compulsion like everybody thought, you'd be stuck with Gavin only, wouldn't you?" he asked. I stood and went to help button his shirt. Winkler pulled me against him and kissed my forehead.
"Yeah." I leaned my head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat for a moment. "I missed you."
"I tore down your house."
"I don't care. I won't ever get to live there, anyway."
"I get that." He tilted my chin up and rubbed my nose with his before kissing me. "And I'm getting mindspeech from Tony. He says all hands and the cook need to go to the Council meeting, in case we meet with resistance on the no-compulsion-on-your-mate thing."
"Cheedas doesn't need to be anywhere near the Council meeting, so tell Tony to leave the cook out of it."
"Will do." Winkler kissed me again before leading me from my suite and toward the dining hall.
* * *
The usual crowd was there at the table, plus a few extras. I was coming to accept it as normal—that people would just show up. What surprised me, though, was Dragon's presence. He was sitting beside Gavin, having sausage and eggs with my irascible vampire mate. Dragon stayed and motioned for me to sit down again after the others left, including Winkler, Drake and Drew. Gavin and Tony probably wanted to go over procedure in case the Council meeting wasn't a peaceful one. Dragon moved to the chair next to mine.
I watched his face—dark eyes examined my expression carefully while he wore his usual, inscrutable scowl. I waited for him to speak. "Lissa," he began, "I haven't failed to notice that you're not speaking to me." He looked away, as if that troubled him.
He was right—I hadn't really spoken to him since we'd come back from Falchan after getting rid of the REHs there—the Ra'Ak-enhanced humanoids. He'd gotten upset when I interrupted him while he was laying down the law—in a Warlordy sort of way. He'd done some yelling at me afterward, about following the orders of a superior officer (or an approximation, anyway). Dragon was the leader of our little army of thirteen, although I hadn't officially signed up. I guess that made me a draftee—and a low-ranking one, to boot. He'd yelled at Drake and Drew, too, since they hadn't explained the chain of command thing.
"You gonna yell about that, too?" I asked.
Dragon sighed as he turned and focused eyes so dark they were almost black on me again. His boys—all three of them, had gotten his genes and good looks. All had dark eyes, black hair they kept braided down their backs and all wore dragon tattoos. "Lissa, we're family," Dragon sighed. "Your family. We pulled you out of here too fast, so you wouldn't have the opportunity to argue or turn us down. Belen said it was important to take you with us and we didn't have time to explain that."
"Well, why don't you have a talk with Merrill and Wlodek about sending Lissa in to do the dirty work without any information." Yeah, it pissed me off whenever I was asked to do something with little or no instruction or information.
"Lissa, I did have a talk with them, and they explained how much you hate that. I also know that you hold yourself back from them—like there's a barrier between you that they may never be able to tear down. They regret that reserve you have with them. They want to count you as family so bad they can taste it."
"Yeah? Too bad they didn’t see things that way before," I grumped. "With them, their objective was to send Lissa here or there and get her to do this or that, they just wouldn't tell her anything, because heaven forbid she might learn big, bad, vampire secrets or something."
"You were a young vampire, and they generally don't give out important information to vampire young. You might have been given more after the five years was up."
"Well, gee, too bad that sort of turned to shit, then, huh? I've never finished my five years of instruction. Feel free to tell Merrill that if he thinks he and Gavin are going to start teaching me again, to forget that idea right now."
"Lissa, I didn't come to stir up old wounds and grievances," Dragon looked down at his hands. A tattoo of one of Grace's Lace-feathered Eagle feathers was at the base of one of his thumbs. "I came to make things right between you and me," Dragon went on, looking at me again. "This way family dinners and vacations will go a lot smoother."
"What family vacations and dinners?"
"The ones Devin and Grace are asking for."
"Dragon, you came just to see if you could give me a headache, didn't you?" The migraine was coming on—I had a knot between my eyes, now. I was worried enough about the Council meeting; it was beginning to make my skin itch. Now, Dragon wanted to clear the air. It's funny that clearing the air always involves clouding it up, first.
"No, little vampire." He reached out toward my forehead with his fingers. I jerked back, but he already had the back of my neck cupped in his other hand, soothing the headache while light formed around his fingers. "I am First among the Saa Thalarr, Second before that and Warlord on Falchan before that. I am used to giving orders and demanding the full attention of my underlings. I failed to remember that the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis is not an underling. I also failed to let her know that in order for us to appear as an ordinary band of warriors, that one had to lead and the others follow without question or interruption. Things might have gone better if that information had been passed along first thing. I allowed my temper to stand in the way of more prudent judgment. I'll try not to let it happen again. And just so you know, Caylon Black says he should never have been fool enough to spar with you to begin with."
"I'm not upset with Caylon."
"Just with me, is that right?"
"You told me once that you would have slept better while you were Warlord if I'd been guarding the nights," I said. "That's what I do, Dragon. I try to keep the people I care about safe. Sometimes I open my mouth before I think, but that isn't a sign of disrespect. Not for you or your brother or Caylon. I'm still waiting for people to accept what I am. While I was human, and as a vampire." I snorted at my human comment. I'd never been human; I just hadn't realized it before.
"When I went to see Howard Graham," I went on, "he still felt it necessary to point out that I wasn't his—like I hadn't gotten that message long ago while he was beating it into me."
"Lissa, these people aren't Howard Graham. They're waiting for you to accept their love. I think you're holding yourself in reserve with all of them so the pain won't be so bad when they betray you. Gabron betrayed you, I know. That has dealt a blow. I wish there was some way to make you trust us. Some way that you might be able to listen to me have my little fit after you interrupted my instruction and know that underneath it, I still love you. I think I loved you the minute you dropped several Solar Red priests and their van in the street from fifty feet above their temple. If there was ever any way to get those fuckers' attention, that was the way to do it."
"They were about to go into a house where a couple and their five children lived. They had guns, Dragon. No way was I going to let them kill any babies if I could help it."
"I know. I'm asking you now not to measure all of us against Howard Graham. I might yell at you, but if you think I would ever lay a hand on you, then you need to think again. Merrill says that one of the biggest mistakes he and Wlodek ever made was the decision to hand out a beating as punishment. I think he would stand naked on the dome of your palace and scream an apology if it would make any difference."
"Interesting visual, but I don't think that'll help," I muttered, leaning my head into my arms on the table.
"For now, I'm asking you to forgive me. I want things to be better between us when Grace and Devin ask you to dinner. I owe you my life, Lissa. I just forgot that for a while. Tell me you don't regret saving me—and Refizan—all those years ago."
"I don't regret it, Dragon," I straightened and looked at him. "And I'd do it again, even if I do feel a little grumpy at you."
"Good. I don't like needing my ass saved, but if it needs saving, I'd prefer that you did it." He grinned before standing and stretching.
"Anytime," I said, smiling back. When I stood, Dragon pulled me into a bone-crushing embrace. "Just don't forget we love you," he whispered and disappeared.
* * *
"Where is the Raona?" Roff asked when Flavio led him into the Council chamber. Gardevik Rath, Lissa's High Demon mate was currently presiding over the Council, logging names of attendees as they arrived. He was Prime Minister on Kifirin, under his brother Jayd's rule. Of all Lissa's mates, he had the greatest amount of experience in governing.
"The Raona is on her way; I just received mindspeech from Gavin and Winkler," Flavio explained as Roff took a seat next to his vampire sire. "Both are escorting the Queen to today's meeting."
"Is she well?" Roff asked.
"She is quite well. Winkler returned to her and I believe they spent the night together."
"Someone else spent the night with my Queen?"
Flavio lifted an eyebrow at Roff's statement—he'd made
my Queen
a proprietary statement. "Child, are you trying to tell me something?" he asked.
"I wish to spend the night with the Queen. I see all the others with her and I want to be one of them."