The Solbourne family’s enemies wouldn’t think to be wary of one single, intimidating orc in elvish territory. By the time they realized their mistake, it would be too late.
Lowering the bottle back onto the scratched bar top, Kaz curtly answered, “Yeah. Hands and feet. Why?”
Cal looked down at his own hands and scowled. “I want something like that. Then she would know every time she looks at me that I’m hers.”
Kaz let out a low, weary rumble. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fated shit.” Kaz’s voice was its usual sonorous purr, but there was an edge of bitterness in it that Cal had never heard before. “The biological imperative bullshit. A lot of people revere it, but it’s not like we’re given a choice.” He lifted his left hand and made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his fingers. “See this hand? It could take the kohl for anyone. I wouldn’t get to choose, or decide I’m ready. One day, I’ll walk into the wrong room or breathe in a scent from across a park and it’ll just happen. Choice? Gone.”
Cal drummed his fingertips on the bar top. His hair swirled over his shoulders as he worked through his confusion. “But doesn’t that make things easier? If you know that person is your mate, there is no talking or deciding or negotiating. No deals.”
Kaz arched a dark, winged brow. “Deals?” He shook his head. “You think it’s a simpler way, but it’s not. Neither fate nor biology give a shit about anyone. You know what the kohl brought my mother? Fucking Mad Thad, a bastard, and an early death.” Kaz paused to take another sip of his beer. Muttering into the rim, he added, “If I stay unmated for the rest of my life, it’ll be a godsdamned blessing.”
It was hard to argue with that, even though Cal heartily wanted to. Now that he new the comforts of a mate — the feeling of knowing he never had to be alone again, the bone-deep contentment of her nearness, the roar of lust when he was blessed with her touch — he thought that he might have a better grasp on the benefits than his friend did.
Of course he also understood the risks. He wasn’t sure what it would be like to live your life knowing you could, at any second, have your health and happiness tied to a stranger. Cal counted himself extremely lucky that the only woman he’d ever desired was a good, compassionate, intelligent witch. It was entirely possible that Kaz would not be so lucky.
Of course he won’t be as lucky as I am, he thought, sitting up a little straighter on his stool. The best mate is already taken.
“Well, whether you want a mate or not, I do,” he said, firmly steering the discussion back where he needed it to be. “I need to know how to make Elise mine forever.”
Kaz barked out a husky laugh. “You and every other lovesick motherfucker.” He tipped his beer in Cal’s direction and grinned. Large upper and lower fangs gleamed against the jewel tone of his skin even in the dim, smoky bar. “Tell me the story and I’ll see if I can help.”
When the bartender walked over to ask if he’d like something, Cal turned her down. He didn’t eat or drink much at all. A meal every other month usually did the trick, and he preferred the taste of saltwater to any of the bottled bile Kaz loved to drink. Besides, if he did want to consume something, he vastly preferred to be with Elise when he did it.
When his friend had a fresh beer and the bartender walked back to the other end of the bar, Cal asked, “First, what do you want from me?”
It was a familiar game between them, this dance of negotiation and exchange of favors. It was how they came to be friends in the first place, though neither could pinpoint exactly when it happened with any sort of certainty.
Kaz ran his claws through his loose hair. He looked tired. “Lot going on back home,” he explained. “I need you to keep an eye out for anyone talking about what happened at the Healing House tonight. Any word about a bomb, or someone looking to hire someone for a job. Anything, and I mean anything, about it or Margot Goode.”
“Margot Goode?” Cal frowned. He knew who the Goodes were, but he’d never heard the first name before. “Who is that?”
His friend snorted, but Cal couldn’t figure out what was funny about his question. “She was the healer in residence. The redhead who almost died tonight.” He leaned in close and dropped his voice until Cal could barely hear it over the music. “She’s family.”
“You said that before.” The longer he stared at Kaz’s grim expression, the more a suspicion niggled at him. “She’s not an elf, so she’s…”
The orc inclined his head, his eyes hard. He looked pissed, and Cal finally began to understand why. “Teddy’s.”
Cal leaned back and blinked hard, absorbing the information. At the other end of the bar, the shaggy-haired were stood up and hustled out, his hands shoved into his pockets and his head down. The bartender darted out after him, a towel thrown over her shoulder, as she called, “Roger, wait! You can’t just—”
They disappeared out the swinging door. Cal watched them go before he turned his attention back to his friend. “Someone tried to kill her?”
“Looks like.”
Well, that cleared up the mystery of why the Sovereign’s Guard were watching her house. If that little woman was Theodore Solbourne’s mate, he pitied whoever tried to hurt her. Elves weren’t exactly known for their mercy, nor their tolerance for threats. He would know.
“I’ll help you however I can,” he promised. He would have agreed to almost anything if it helped him keep Elise, but now that he was fighting for his own mate, he discovered a newfound kinship with the sovereign. If it were his mate in danger, he’d do far worse than ask for help from a friend.
Kaz reached back to clap him on the shoulder. The blow would have knocked a human man off of his stool. Cal wasn’t human, but it still came close. “Thank you, fog man. We won’t forget it.” The orc gave his shoulder another wallop. “Now tell me about your mate.”
“Her name is Elise Sasini,” he proudly explained. “She’s a writer.”
“Sasini?” It was Kaz’s turn to lean back on his stool, his eyebrows arching high. “Daughter of Robert Sasini, the crime writer? International bestselling author of A Golden Land, the not-so-flattering history of how the elves took over this territory? That Elise Sasini?”
Cal flicked a floating tendril of white hair out of his eyes and answered smugly, “Yes. She’s my mate.”