Neither of them had their family’s fabled talent for Foresight, so she knew he was not drawing on some sixth sense to uncover her secrets, but they had always been close. Theodore could read her easily. He also knew what happened between her and Viktor twenty years prior.
He knew that Viktor was her consort. The only question was whether he would accept her choice or make her life that much harder.
Camille’s silver claw-caps dug into the thin material of her skirt. Little pricks of pain bloomed in the skin of her thighs. “You are bonded,” she countered, striving to keep her tone civil. “We’re only months apart, Teddy. Are you too young?”
He gave her an arch look. “That’s different and you know it.”
That was true. Camille did know the difference. She knew it better than anyone, which was why she was so desperate to escape.
Standing up abruptly from her seat, she announced, “I want this, Teddy. I want it more than you can possibly imagine. And I’ll find a way to do it, with or without your blessing.”
“Why, Cammie? Because you saw him at the Summit?” Theodore paused before he continued, hushed, “I didn’t know you’d be in that room. I would have taken precautions to make sure you had no contact if I’d known. I wouldn’t— I never wanted you to feel like you didn’t have a choice.”
“I don’t blame you for that. Or him.” Though Viktor was a lightning rod for her anger over the entire terrible situation, even she knew that it wasn’t his fault her body betrayed her.
She stared down at her cousin’s knowing face and gritted her teeth. Her fangs, four self-sharpening blades on her upper and lower jaws, squeaked against one another. “It’s not about him.” A partial truth, and one she knew he saw through with ease. Theodore always knew when she lied.
“I’m doing this because I want to start a family, Teddy,” she bit out. “Are you the only one allowed to do that? Or do the rest of us have to follow your example to the letter?”
“No.” He leaned back in his chair and scowled. “No, I’m not and I don’t expect you to do things exactly as I do them. But I am allowed to ask questions when you decide to do something you’ll regret for the rest of your life. Family asks because family cares, Cammie.”
Anger burst in hot, acrid bubbles in her blood. If he wasn’t her sovereign, if he wasn’t the head of her family, she would have lunged across the desk and gone for his throat.
Who was he to think he knew what she would regret? Who was he to judge her for taking the only option that kept her sane? Who was he to look at her reproachfully, as if she was taking the coward’s way out?
Camille wanted to scream at him, at Viktor, at herself.
I tried, she inwardly railed. I tried! You know I tried! He wouldn’t have me! He said he didn’t want me, and then it was nothing but silence for twenty years. He could have found ways to contact me. He could have seen me. He never tried.
While she suffocated under her mother’s declining state and her brother’s abject misery, doing nothing with her life, Viktor became an alpha and lived happily with his pack. He moved on, while she was stuck.
And it made her so damn angry to think that now, as she was finally trying to make something of her life, he thought to pick up right where they left off.
Instead of forcing those acidic words out, she snapped, “Family trusts, too. You don’t think I know what I need? What’s good for me?”
“I think you’re fighting something that can make even the sanest elves lose their heads,” he answered, measured and infuriating.
She took two steps away from his desk, afraid that if she did not put some distance between them, she would actually try to take a bite out of him. Theodore was kind, but he was also sovereign for a reason. One swipe of his claws, one heavy press of his palm or his boot, and she would crumble.
It was not just his physical strength that would subdue her, but the dominance he wore like a cloak. The beast that lived in her recognized him as a protector and a predator. It had no desire to rankle either side of him. If it came down to a fight, instinct would compel her to submit, even when her heart raged.
It took a moment, but Camille managed to find her voice. It wasn’t polite, necessarily, but it was miraculously free of outright fury when she said, “That is not up to you to reckon with. My future is my responsibility, Teddy.”
His expression was intense, dark with foreboding, but even then, she saw concern in his gaze. “Damn it, Cammie. I just want you to be happy. I’m afraid that doing this will destroy any chance of that.”
Camille stared at him. Her anger ebbed, flowing back into the place it churned endlessly, and left her feeling cold. Tired. Gods, she felt like she had been running a marathon for two years. Couldn’t he allow her a little bit of rest?
“Cameron is happy,” she replied plainly. “Winnie and Delilah are happy. You are happy. I am just trying to take whatever I can.”
Theodore swallowed. He swiped his palm over his mouth and pushed back from his desk, giving himself room to stand. She watched him circle the desk and chair she had just been sitting in, but didn’t move away when his big hands curled over her shoulders. He tugged her against his chest with a low, soothing purr.
She held out for only a handful of seconds before she melted.
Elves needed touch. With her brother away celebrating his binding with Rufus, she’d gone without for too long. Theodore’s warmth bled into her parched soul, momentarily soothing the ache that never, ever went away.
When she curled her arms around his middle and buried her face in his chest, he sighed and cupped the back of her head with one heavy hand. “Cammie,” he murmured, “you aren’t alone. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t come to us when your mother was sick. I know you’ve been traumatized by the last few years, but this… You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to run away from us to find peace.”
She dug her claws into his back, but Theodore didn’t so much as flinch. He held firm against her, as steady and strong as the pylons that held up the bridge just beyond his window. “Yes I do,” she argued, choked. “You know I do. If I don’t, I’ll go insane like my mother, Teddy. I will. I can’t do this again, and I can’t become her.”
“Have you spoken to him since the Summit?”
“No, and I don’t plan to. This isn’t about being a stupid teenager anymore, Teddy. He broke my heart— it sucks, but I’m a big girl and I’ve tried to move on. He’s a stranger to me now.” And even though the words tasted sour on her tongue, she added, “Maybe it’s not fair to him, but I don’t care. I’m not going to let him waltz back into my life and risk— risk becoming my mother. I can’t do it.”
“You’re afraid,” he murmured.
Camille’s breath hitched. “Teddy, I’m fucking terrified.”
“Maybe if you actually sat down and talked to him—”
“What? So he can look at me like a charity case?” She swallowed a painful lump in her throat. “Never. I’ll never do that. I’d rather live in a loveless union than know he only mated me because he had to. He can’t know.”
She released her hold on him and stepped back, out of the warmth and protection he offered. As much as she wanted to cling, the promise in Theodore’s care was a lie. He couldn’t really protect her. Only she could do that.