The King(132)

Before s’Ex disappeared, the male clasped the palm that was offered briefly. And then he was gone, like a nightmare banished upon waking.
Unfortunately … Trez knew the male would be back.
The question was, with what kind of news. And what kind of appetite.

THIRTY-EIGHT
It was an hour past sundown when Abalone left his home, dematerializing off his side lawn. The night was bitterly cold, and as he re-formed on the estate of one of the glymera’s wealthiest families, he took a moment to breathe until his sinuses went numb.
Others were gathering, the males and females appearing out of the darkness, straightening their furs and fine clothes and jewels before striding toward the light.
With a heavy heart, he followed.
The grand carved doors of the mansion were held open by doggen, the staff unmoving in their livery, naught but blinking stops.
The lady of the house, such that she was, was standing under a chandelier in the foyer, her dress a bright red couture number that fell to the ground in drapes of silk. Her jewels were rubies, the flashes at her throat and her ears and her wrists an ostentatious display.
For no particular reason, he thought that the true queen of the race’s red gems were much better, bigger, clearer. He had seen an oil painting of the majestic female back in the Old Country, and even distilled through paint and age, the Saturnine Ruby and its counterparts had had a resplendence that would destroy the pretense before him.
The hostess’s mate was nowhere to be seen. But then again, that male had difficulty standing for long periods of time.
Not long for the world, he was.
The receiving line that had formed proceeded apace, and soon enough Abalone was kissing the powdered cheek of the female.
“So glad you could come,” she said grandly, flicking a hand in the direction behind her. “The dining room, if you will.”
As her rubies flashed, he pictured his daughter as such, a grand lady in a grand house with glassy eyes.
Mayhap the punishment for not going along with this affront to the throne was worth it. He had found love with his shellan for the years she had been on the Earth, but that had been luck, he’d come to realize. Most of his contemporaries, now slaughtered in the raids, had been in loveless, sexless relationships that had revolved around the party circuit instead of the familial dinner table.
He did not want that for his daughter.
Yet, if love had happened for him, surely there was a chance for her even in the glymera?
Right?
Walking into the dining room, he found that it was just as it had been when the King had addressed them all so recently: the long thin table was moved out and the twenty or so chairs were set up in rows. This time, however, the survivors of the aristocracy were settling in along with their mates.
Usually shellans were not included in Council meetings, but there was nothing usual about this gathering. Or the last.
And indeed, the gathered should have been more somber, he thought as he picked a silk-covered seat in the back: As opposed to showing any respect for the historical significance, the danger, the unprecedented nature of all this, they were chatting among themselves, the gentlemales blustering, the ladies casting their hands this way and that so that their jewels flashed.
Indeed, Abalone was alone in the back row, and instead of greeting those whom he knew, he freed the button on his suit jacket and crossed his leg at the knee. When somebody lit up a cigar, he took a cheroot out and did the same, just to give himself something to do. And as a doggen immediately showed up at his elbow with an ashtray on a brass stand, he nodded thanks and focused on tapping the ash.
He was small potatoes to all of them, because he had long ago decided that under the radar was best. His blood had seen firsthand the cruelties of court and society, and he had learned that lesson through reading the diaries that had been passed down to him. The truth was, he had financial resources that all of them in this room collectively could barely meet.
Thank you, Apple computer.
Best investment anyone in the eighties could have made. And then there had been big pharma in the nineties. And before that? The steel corporations and railroad companies around the turn of the century.#p#分页标题#e#
He’d always had a knack for where humans were going to want to go with both their enthusiasms and their necessities.
If the glymera knew this, his daughter would be a commodity of great value.
Which was another reason he didn’t talk about his net worth.
Incredible how far his bloodline had come over the centuries. And to think they owed it all to this King’s father.
Ten minutes later, the room was full—and that, more than the party-party affect, was the sign that the glymera had at least some appreciation of the magnitude of what they were doing. Fashionably late did not apply this evening; the doors were going to be locked right about …