The Consort, Chapter 11
DG was having a rough day. She had cramps from hell, and Azkadellia had taken to her bed with crippling vertigo, a recurring ailment the physicians couldn’t seem to cure. Coming out of her sister’s bedroom, she’d tripped on a wet patch in the hall and fell headlong into a side table, bruising the hell out of her forearm, and as if that wasn’t enough, there was an ever-growing army of disgruntled expatriates massing in Flornistan to invade her country. On top of the constant undercurrent of domestic disgruntlement from citizens who still didn’t trust her, it just made for a damn stressful morning. What made it worse was that Cain wasn’t around for her to vent to. He was at the Forum of Government meeting with the council. She didn’t even really need his advice or his help…what she really needed was for him to hold her and tell her it’d all work out in the end. He was the only one who could say things like that and make her believe it.
She paced in their office like a caged animal, reading security briefings and intelligence reports and threat analyses with growing concern. The scout squads along the border had placed men inside the Longcoat army, but one of them had been discovered and now the entire operation was in jeopardy. Longcoats had been venturing back across the O.Z. border to hunt for scouts, and the other inside agents were in grave danger but could not be extracted for fear of giving away the entire plan.
She was just about to ring for some coffee when the door to the office abruptly banged open and Ambrose came running in. Adrenaline flooded her body; it must be very urgent indeed for him to just burst in without knocking. “Ambrose?” she said.
He handed her a report. “You need to see this.”
She skimmed the report…scout squadron taken captive by Longcoats…suspected Longcoat base near the Flornish border…likely targeted for information-gathering…
She saw what Ambrose needed her to see. She fumbled behind her for a chair and sank into it. “Oh, no.” She met Ambrose’s eyes. “Dillon!” she barked.
The guard outside the door came in. “Your Majesty?”
“Dispatch a car to the Forum of Government immediately. Bring General Cain back to the palace as quickly as you can. Just tell him I need to see him right away.”
Dillon saluted. “As you wish, ma’am.”
She was back to pacing. Pacing, pacing. Ambrose had been sent back to his office; she’d talk to Cain alone.
Dear God, what could she say? I’m terribly sorry, but your son’s been taken captive by ruthless enemies.
It’s all my fault.
Technically, this was true. Since all the soldiers in the O.Z. followed orders that ultimately came from her, any harm that befell any of them was, in the final analysis, her fault. She had found this hard to deal with at the beginning of her reign, but Cain had repeatedly told her that soldiers served of their own free will, were aware of the risks, and knew that her orders might endanger them. Therefore she couldn’t be held morally responsible for their injuries or deaths.
She found this argument less and less convincing the greater the numbers of casualties, and not remotely convincing now that it involved her husband’s only child.
Oh God, Wyatt. Please don’t blame me. I couldn’t take it. I can’t lose you. That last thought made her straighten up. I can’t. I really can’t. She remembered that awful fight they’d had when for one terrible minute she’d been sure Cain was going to leave her so she could marry Gerald Umbrey, as if that’d ever happen, and the bottom had fallen out of her stomach at the very idea of not being married to Cain anymore. When had that happened? She felt ill at the thought of him ever turning away from her. Jesus, DG. You can’t be thinking like this.
Why not? Why is it so awful to think that I might…I might really…
No, don’t SAY it.
Why are you so scared of it?
She heard the footsteps coming, and was able to pull herself together. Cain came in, looking harried and concerned. “DG? What’s wrong? Why’d you…”
“Wyatt, I’ve got some news. I need you to come sit down.”
His eyes went wide. “Is it Jeb?”
She took a breath and grasped his hand tightly. “He’s been captured. His whole squad.”
Cain saw the report she was holding and snatched it out of her hand, taking up the pacing she’d just left off as he read it. He met her eyes. “There’s only one reason to capture all of them. Prisoners are too much trouble unless you want something from them.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“They’re torturing them. Right now, they’re torturing my son!”
“We don’t know that.”
He ran a hand over his hair, damp and bedraggled from the rain. “I have to go out there,” he said.
“Cain, no,” DG said. This was the thing that was so scary she hadn’t even let herself think it. “We’re formulating a plan, and…”
“A plan? A plan? I’ve got a plan right now…I’ll take the best squadron of special ops in the home counties and go out there and find him.”
“You can’t go out there, you’re too close to it. It’s dangerous and you’d never allow it if you were me.”
“I have to do this, DG.”
She grabbed him by the arm and turned him to face her, holding him there by both elbows. “Cain, listen to me! You can’t do this yourself! You’re too visible, too recognizable! And I need you here! Do you know what a tempting target you’d make if you were spotted? Please, let our men handle this. You know they can.”
His eyes were so blue, they were like lasers boring straight through her. “Did you sit back and let other people save Azkadellia because it was too dangerous?”
“That was different.”
“I don’t think so.” He took hold of her forearms. “DG, don’t try and stop me from going after my son. He’s…all I have left.” DG couldn’t stop the hurt look that flew across her face, nor Cain from noticing it. “I mean, all I have from before. From my old life.”
“Wyatt…if I ask you, as your wife, not to do this, will you stay?”
He let go of her and looked away. “I…I can’t, DG. He’s my son.”
She felt tears rising to her eyes. “Then I’m coming with you.”
That got his attention. “No. I absolutely forbid it.”
“Excuse me?” she said, incredulous.
“DG, you can’t be serious. The Queen can’t go off on some mission into the wild to hunt for missing soldiers!”
“Maybe not, but I can go off with my husband, who needs my help!”
“You say I’m too recognizable, but what about you? Honestly, DG, you’d be more of a hindrance, being who you are.”
He was right, that was the infuriating thing. She crossed her arms over her stomach. “You might be killed out there,” she whispered.
“I’ll be careful. I’ve made it this long, through some pretty hairy stuff.”
“Isn’t there any way you’ll reconsider?”
He met her eyes. “The only way I’m staying is if my Queen orders me to.”
DG swiped at her wet cheeks. “You know I can’t do that to you.” But it was tempting. The thought of him going off on this mission filled her with profound dread. The thought of him never coming back made her want to order him to stay, even if he never forgave her and things were never the same between them ever again. At least he’d be alive.
“Then I’m sorry,” he said. “But I have to do this.”
She nodded. “When will you leave?”
“Right away. Within the hour.” He checked his watch. “In fact, I ought to go make the preparations.” He let his eyes linger on hers for a long moment. “DG, I’m sorry.” He looked like he had something else to say, but then he thought better of it and left the room in a big hurry.
DG stood there in the empty office, her heart hammering inside her chest, but she managed to get the door shut before she broke down in sobs. Oh God, no. Please, don’t take him away from me. Not now, not with so much we haven’t said to each other.
Cain had wanted to leave within the hour, but it took almost four to make the necessary arrangements. Cain chose two of his best officers from the central office, Captain Danny Armagnac and Lieutenant Damien McWhorter, to come with him. A quick-and-dirty mission outline was written and approved by Central Command and the 4th Division Special Operations Infiltration Unit was dispatched to rendezvous with them south of the city.
DG sat behind her desk in their office while the preparations were being made. Papers were brought to her for her approval and she signed them. Orders were requested to facilitate the mission and she gave them. She silently allowed the mission to proceed, trying to keep her mind blank and staying somewhat sequestered, not wanting to see Cain packing a bag or changing his clothes. She only emerged when her lady-in-waiting informed her that General Cain’s party was ready to depart from the southeast portico.
When she arrived, Cain was stowing his gear in the back of the standard-issue military all-terrain truck they’d drive south. It bore no royal crests and was without royal amenities, but that was the point. He was wearing standard military field fatigues so as not to stand out, but it was definitely his own gun in the hip holster. The heavens would fall before Wyatt Cain switched to semi-automatic. He returned to the door for his last duffel, handing the bag off to Damien. He paused to shake hands with Raw, and then Ambrose, and then Ahamo. He embraced Azkadellia and let her kiss his cheek.
He approached her cautiously, eyes averted. She was standing on the other side of the drive from the rest of the family, hugging herself, no idea what she ought to say or do at this moment.
“I’ll, uh…try to send dispatches back. Let you know how it’s going.”
She nodded. “All right.” She chanced a quick glance up at him. He was putting on a brave face, but she wasn’t fooled. He was anxious to find Jeb, but he wasn’t happy about leaving her. DG was way beyond unhappy. An insistent voice of anxiety rang in her head, don’t let him go, don’t let him go, don’t let him out of your sight. She was telling herself she was being silly. He’d be fine. He’d be home soon. But the dread in her belly wasn’t listening.
“Now, no private dinners with Lord Umbrey while I’m gone,” he said.
DG smiled, but it was a weak attempt. “I promise.” Her whole body was flinching. She couldn’t seem to stand still.
Cain took a step closer and plucked her hands away from her body, holding them in both of his own. “I’ll be home before you know it,” he said, quietly.
She looked up again, and this time she found his eyes looking back into her own, and then she couldn’t look away. “Please, promise me you’ll be careful,” she said.
He nodded. “I will.”
She squeezed his hands, her voice giving out. “Just come back to me, okay?”
“I will,” he said, barely more than a whisper. His eyes flicked quickly to her mouth, then back to her eyes. DG sensed it before it happened, and tried to mentally brace herself.
Whoa. This could be our first…
Before she’d gotten the thought through her mind, he was leaning in, pulling on her hands; she stretched her neck up to meet him, and her lips met Cain’s for the first time.
It was a soft, chaste kiss. A quiet press of lips, cautious and polite. It was nothing like what was going on inside DG’s heart, where there were volcanoes and tectonic shifts and steam-powered geysers reshaping the landscape she’d thought she’d known.
Cain pulled away, squeezed her hands again, then released her and turned his back. He started down the drive to where the truck waited for him.
He didn’t make it.
Halfway there he slowed, then stopped. For a few long seconds he just stood there, head down, like he’d forgotten something.
Then he turned and she saw it in his face. Her heart lurched sideways as he strode back up the drive, his steps purposeful and determined, as if he’d decided something and wanted to get it done without further ado.
DG could only stand and watch him come, frozen in place like a statue, her paralysis lifting just in time for her to reach out to him as he grabbed her up in his arms, a messy and unplanned clutch. DG’s gasp was lost in his mouth as he sealed it over hers, his arms around her back, her own twining around his shoulders as he kissed her, nothing chaste or polite about this one; his hand was in her hair and she was melting, losing her solidity in his arms, kissing him back with her hands grabbing at him, pulling him closer still.
Some part of her brain still aware of the world saw her family glancing at each other, and she knew that later she’d resent their intrusion on this moment that should have been private between herself and her husband, who was now kissing her as a husband should, the way she’d always imagined being kissed, the way she’d been waiting to be kissed by him, that desire lurking in her deepest interiors where things struggled to see the light of day and often festered, unseen and unknown. A kiss not of duty or friendship but of desire and passion, the things she’d thought she was giving up when she married him that were now pouring through her as she molded herself to his body, her mouth opening beneath his with a quiet groan in the back of her throat. Cain…how did we not see this? How did we stand there while this rushed past us, speeding up until we couldn’t brace against the current anymore? She was on tiptoe now, her mouth fused to his, wanting nothing more than to crawl inside him, rocking against him as they swayed together like reeds in a windstorm, heads tilting and rolling underneath this desperate kiss that was almost painful, an act of contrition for the false barriers it had breached to escape.
She could have stood there all day, exploring all the ways she could kiss him, but the clock was ticking and he had a mission, a mission she resented even more now. His hands were grasping great fistfuls of her clothing as if he could pull her along like a kite; he broke off the kiss and hugged her, her feet leaving the ground. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hung on for dear life, not wanting to let him go out there where he might be killed, and she’d never know what this meant, or what had changed, or if they’d really stumbled upon what they’d both thought they were sacrificing. She just wanted to cling to him, this man who she’d married out of necessity, who she wasn’t supposed to love but who had somehow become her whole world without her noticing it until now, when he was leaving her side and the parting felt like losing a limb.
He put her down and gently disengaged, lifting her hands from his shoulders where they wanted to grip and hold, kissing each palm and then her forehead, a long press of his lips there and she felt him breathe her in before he released her and turned away, walking quickly now without looking back, his shoulders slumped. Her hands hung in the air for a moment before she let them fall to her sides.
Az materialized next to her. “DG, my God,” she whispered. “Are you all right?”
DG said nothing. She just watched as Cain got in the truck, his hat pulled low over his eyes, and the lieutenant behind the wheel started the engine.
You said he’d never break my heart, Az. I said he’d never have it to break. You were wrong. We both were.