Stupid, stupid Danek. I curse myself for my moment of inattention. Had I not been distracted by my conversation with Ruhan, I would have never forgotten to reset the sensors. The alarm tripped because of me, and now, Naomi faces a setback in her recovery.
My fault. I’m doing a terrible job protecting my mate.
She is getting better. She’s been affected by the klaxons, but she’s up again. Last time, she’d been catatonic for hours. This time, she’s shrugged off their effects in minutes.
Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe I want it to be true so much that I’m just seeing what I want to believe.
“Did you hear me, Danek?” Naomi’s voice tugs me back to our conversation. “Rannzar invited us to dinner tonight.” She holds out a red envelope. “He handed me this. He must have forgotten I can’t read Zor. Or maybe he figured you’d read it to me.” She quirks an eyebrow. “According to Rannzar, this is a small, casual dinner. Just syn-made food, he said. A written invitation seems overkill, doesn’t it?”
I take the note from her and open it. The envelope bears the Cindifin seal on it, the green almost glowing against the red paper. “Rannzar is a ranked member of a High House,” I reply. “They wouldn’t know true informality if it hits them in the face. The gathering is casual, by High Empire standards.” I look up. “Did he mention how many people he’d invited?”
“Twenty.” Her expression brightens. “That's good, right? I figured you could sneak away at some point and see if there's anything in his office about a secret prison.”
Excitement is good. It banishes the dark shadows from her eyes.
“I doubt there's going to be anything in his office,” I tell her, smiling to rob the sting out of my words. “But you’re right, I should look anyway. It's not like I'm getting anywhere with my search.” I can’t keep the frustration from my voice. “The skimmers have a two-hour range. I’ve covered every bit of ground in a two-hour radius, and nothing.”
Plague chirps encouragingly, brushes against my legs, transferring most of her fur onto my pants in the process, and jumps into my lap. Naomi giggles at my expression. “Aww, look at that. She’s comforting you.”
I roll my eyes. “She’s showering me with affection so that I’ll give her sugar.”
Giggling is good too. Thank Caeron for the pets. Pumpkin, Plague, and Pestilence are a handful, leaving behind a trail of destruction in their wake, but there’s no doubt that their antics are good for Naomi. In the Rebellion, she was somber and quiet, weighed down by the ghosts of the past. Here, she laughs often.
Until you screwed it up with the klaxons.
“What time are we supposed to be there?”
I glance again at the invitation. “Six.”
“And it’s almost three now. How should I dress?”
“Formally.”
“Of course,” she comments wryly. “Will one of the dresses I bought at Xeni’s boutique work?”
She’d twirled when she tried on her dress, and the skirt had flared out in a circle around her. It had been the first time I’d seen her eyes dance with merriment. The first time I’d heard her laugh. It’s not the clothes I remember from that day. It’s the memory of her happiness I carry with me.
A lifetime of training comes to the fore. “Any of the floor length dresses you bought would work.”
She’d bought three. I’d hated one of them on sight. It had been a deep red, the color of human blood. It reminded me of how fragile and broken she’d been when I found her. There had been an open wound on her arm, blood clotted around it. It’s not a memory I wish to revisit. Especially not now. “Don’t wear the red one?”
I phrase it as a request. She gives me a curious look—it’s the first time I’m expressing an opinion about what she should or shouldn’t wear, and she has to be wondering why—and then she nods. “Okay. Do I have to do anything fancy with my hair?”
“No. This isn’t that formal an event.”
“If you say so. Okay, it’ll take me an hour to shower, change, and get ready, which means I have almost two hours to kill. That’s great. I can finish my book.” She smiles at me, but the shadows are back. “I’m not going to be able to go to dinner until I know how it ends.”
I would do anything to eradicate the shadows forever. “I can tell you how it ends,” I quip. “The same way the other fifty-three books have ended. Your protagonist will solve the murder, making the professional detectives look like fools. They’ll thank her for her help and threaten her at the same time, and Hallowtown will have a peaceful month before the next homicide shatters the calm.”
She laughs again. “For someone who refuses to read them, you certainly know a lot about the plot.” She settles on the couch, tucking her legs under her, and pulls out her tablet. “I know what is going to happen. But how? That’s what I want to find out.”
I hand her the blanket before she can ask for it. Plague jumps off my lap in a huff, but as soon as Naomi tucks the blanket around her, she’s back up on the couch. Pumpkin claims her lap along with Pestilence, and Plague nestles right next to her, curls up in a bright pink ball of fluff, and promptly falls asleep.
She wants you to leave her alone, Danek. Take the damn hint.
I’ve attended formal dinners before. Not often. The Supreme Mother usually took First whenever one of us needed to make an appearance, thank Caeron. First enjoyed the dinners; he loved the politics and the backstabbing and the machinations of the Saaric.
Back in those days, when my presence was expected at one of these affairs, I would wear my uniform. A safety inspector, on the other hand, isn’t military, and would dress with more
