She barely registered Neriah’s bubbly chatter as they walked up the cobbled street to the council chamber building. Her steps felt heavy, her heart pounding rapidly in anticipation of seeing Zael again after the terrible way she’d ended things with him.
He waited inside alone, facing the vacant dais. His stance was rigid and somber, his tall, muscular frame clothed in a fresh white linen tunic and pants, his burnished mane of golden hair still damp and curling at the ends from a recent shower.
Every cell in Brynne’s body lit up at the sight of him, her senses evidently unaware of just how stupid she’d been in pushing him away. He wasn’t hers now—after yesterday, maybe not ever again—but her body didn’t seem to recognize that.
Nor did her blood.
Her veins throbbed as she watched him go utterly still when he realized she was there. She felt the spike in his heart rate, too, as he pivoted slowly to watch her as Neriah took a seat near the back of the chamber and Brynne approached him at the dais.
“The council’s delayed,” he informed her, his tone level, even though his gaze was heavy with all the words he wouldn’t say. “I’m told they should be here soon.”
“Do you think something’s wrong?”
He shrugged. “It probably took some extra time for all of the elders to reach an agreement.”
As they waited a few minutes in awkward, uncomfortable silence, she couldn’t keep from recalling Tamisia’s hard stare in the courtyard, or the skepticism she had expressed toward the prospect of the alliance.
That concern only deepened as the council of elders appeared from an adjacent room and began to file into the chamber to take their seats. None of the six revealed anything in their expressions, but Tamisia would not even look at Zael or Brynne.
Nethilos called the meeting to order.
“I apologize for the delay,” he announced. “The council has been discussing your proposal for the past couple of hours. I’m sure you realize there is much at stake in this decision.”
Zael nodded soberly. “I do, my friend. Brynne and I both realize that.”
Nethilos’s brow drew together. “This council had been prepared to give you our agreement today. However, we received new information just moments ago. Troubling information that we cannot ignore.”
Brynne felt Zael’s blood run a bit colder in his veins. Hers did, too, her veins freezing over in dread as she glanced at Tamisia and saw her drop her gaze to her lap as Nethilos continued to speak.
“You lied to me, Zael. You lied to this council when you neglected to tell us that you and this Breed female are lovers.”
Oh, God. Brynne briefly closed her eyes, her heart sinking.
“We have a witness who reported seeing you together at the cottage,” Nethilos went on. “This witness saw her drinking your blood, Zael.”
Brynne felt sick. Guilt and alarm flooded her, along with Zael’s sharp stab of shock. She felt the clawing sharpness of his dread…and the bite of his rising fury.
“Was it you, Sia?” His demand rumbled with outrage. “Damn it, did you do this?”
She glanced up now, her beautiful face stark as she shook her head. “No. I swear it.”
Nethilos rose from his seat. “There will be no alliance. There cannot be, not under the terms you’ve proposed, Zael. Not while your loyalty appears to be swayed toward the Breed and the Order.”
“What are you saying?”
Another of the elders, Baramael, the male with the bicolored eyes, fixed a disapproving look on Zael. “The colony needs insurance that you will act on our behalf—in our best interests—should the Order one day come to us for our help in standing against Selene.”
“And especially if they come to us for our crystal,” added Anaphiel. She had seemed the most amenable to the alliance during the first meeting, but now the soft-spoken black Atlantean female looked at Brynne and Zael in obvious mistrust.
“You say insurance,” Zael murmured. “What does that mean?”
Nethilos glanced to his colleagues before he spoke. “The council has decided that the only way we can enter this alliance with the Order is under one condition. That is if you agree to remain behind at the colony.”
“For how long?”
Zael’s question hung in the sudden quiet of the chamber. He looked at Brynne, and she had never felt so anguished or alone. She had pushed him away yesterday, but she hadn’t really felt she’d lost him forever until right now.
He knew it too.
His blood hammered with the understanding of what he was being asked to do.
“You mean indefinitely,” he replied woodenly. “Stay here at the colony for the rest of my life.”
Nethilos inclined his head in a grave nod. “That is this council’s decision, Zael. There will be no alliance without your commitment to our terms.”
CHAPTER 34
When he arrived in the council chamber that morning, Zael had been prepared to walk away from it all. Away from his people, and away from the only place he considered home.
After Brynne had pushed him out of the cottage yesterday—out of her life, he’d feared—it had forced him to examine his aimless, long-lived existence. More to the point, it had forced him to consider an interminable future without her.
What he had concluded was that a life without her was no life he wanted to endure.
And if that meant following her to the ends of the Earth to convince her of that, he damned well intended to do it.
But he’d been wrong when he said the alliance between the Breed and the colony didn’t matter to him. It did. Because without the potential of peace—without the assurance that Selene would not be able to have the war she seemed so determined to ignite—Zael knew that no one he cared for would ever be safe.
Not him. Not the people of the colony. Not the Breed or the Order or anyone else who should be unfortunate enough to stand in the way of the Atlantean queen’s vengeance.
And, most important of all, not Brynne.
As he’d paced most of the night in the confines of the home he kept on the island, he understood that above all else, the alliance had to happen. No matter the price.
He sure as hell hadn’t anticipated this.
“You can give the council your answer whenever you’re ready, Zael.”
At Nethilos’s proclamation, the rest of the elders stood, then followed him out of the chamber.