Darkangel(61)

I was just putting a piece on my plate and giving it a healthy dollop of freshly whipped cream — none of that canned stuff around here — when Adam came up to me. Well, it looked more like he was just there for pie, too, but I had the feeling he’d timed his approach so he’d be there when I was.

“Everything okay?” he said in an undertone.

“Of course it is,” I replied, even though I didn’t know if it actually was. “Why do you ask?”

“You just looked sort of…cranky…during dinner.”

“Well, I’m not,” I snapped. Then, as a hurt expression crossed his face, I added, “That is, I’m fine. It was just busy getting everything ready, and I’ve been kind of stressed out with my birthday coming up, and….” I decided to stop myself there. He knew what the problem was…mostly. No way would I admit to him that I’d spent more time than was probably healthy brooding over Chris Wilson. That match was even less viable than one with Adam. At least Adam was a McAllister, and a warlock.

“I’ve been thinking about that.”

Why does that not surprise me? But we were blocking the pies, so I sidled a few feet away. “Everybody’s probably been thinking about it. But I don’t think there’s much we can do except hope that the consort shows up damn soon.”

“There might be another solution.”

Since he was the one volunteering it, I had a pretty good idea what that might be, or at least what he thought it might be. Affecting unconcern, I took a bite of pie, then asked, “There is?”

A light flush appeared along his cheekbones. “Well, I’ve been doing some reading, trying to see what the precedents were. I mean, we all know that it’s not a good thing for a prima to be without a consort when her twenty-second birthday rolls around. But I found an instance where that happened, and a warlock from her clan married her even though he wasn’t the consort, and it actually worked out just fine. So maybe that’s what we should do here.”

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. Lowering my voice, I said, “Are you asking me to marry you?”

The previous flush was swallowed up in a wave of bright red that went over his face from forehead to chin. “Well, yeah. Wouldn’t it be better than what happened to Great-Aunt Ruby?”

“Nothing happened to her. I mean, the Wilcoxes tried, but they weren’t successful. And it turns out she was right all along for waiting, because then she met Great-Uncle Pat a few weeks later. All’s well and all that.”

“Yeah, but — ”

I realized then how hard this must have been for him. He had to know I wouldn’t agree, but because he was worried and because he cared, he’d gone out on a limb anyway. “It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

He hesitated. “Maybe. But can you promise me something?”

“What?” I asked, my tone guarded. I knew better than to make a promise without knowing what it was about.

“If we get to your birthday, and there’s still no one else, can you please think about it? I want you to be safe.”

I looked up into his pleading blue-gray eyes. If the man of my dreams never materialized, did it really matter? I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, and no matter how much I might yearn for him, I knew Chris Wilson was not an option. Witches and warlocks married civilians from time to time — heck, Adam’s own mother was one — but a prima didn’t have that option.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “If we get to that point, then…okay.”

His face lit up then, and for a second I was worried he was going to pull me into a hug and smash my plate of pie right against me. Somehow he managed to keep a grip on himself, though. “Great. I mean, I doubt it’ll happen, but if it does…”

“…you know where to find me,” I said wearily. I gestured with my free hand back toward the table where I’d been sitting. “And now I’m going to sit down and eat the rest of this pie.”

“Sure.” He grinned at me. Since I didn’t want to show him how unexcited I was by the prospect of having to marry him because there was no one else, I summoned a smile in return before heading back to my empty chair.

In that moment, I wondered how much I really had to be thankful for after all.



* * *



Clean-up seemed to take forever, but finally around nine o’clock I headed home with that night’s bodyguards in tow. No one spoke, probably because we were all feeling sleepy and stuffed after the enormous meal we’d eaten earlier. By that point pretty much everyone had done a rotation watching over me, so I didn’t see the need to show anyone where the snacks and sodas were. Or the coffeemaker; more than once I’d awoken in the middle of the night and smelled the rich scent of coffee drifting up the stairs, beating out the lingering paint fumes.