“They had the means and more importantly, the opportunity. Opportunity is the only element that can provide an absolute alibi—if a suspect had no opportunity, they couldn’t be the perpetrator. Like my Imperial guards…” I let my voice trail off and focused instead on how frantically Janos had begun suddenly pulling on the prince’s hand, trying to get his attention.
“Larz, I believe Taran is waking up.”
The prince and I both turned to see Taran struggling to sit up. He had his eyes open, but they were unfocused, and he looked frightened and disoriented. I felt a ridiculous urge to push them both aside and go to him, take him in my arms and reassure him that he was safe.
Thankfully, Larz reached him before I could make myself move, slipping an arm underneath him to help him sit up. Both Prince Larz and his consort were hovering over him at that point, so I decided now would be a good time to slip out of the room. Taran was still far too groggy from the pain medicine to be able to answer any of my questions at the moment anyway. I told myself I could come back later, and I slipped out the door tohead back to the room where the attack had taken place. As soon as I got back upstairs, I’d send some guards down to make sure no one came in or out. Right now, however, I needed to see what the king and Prince Mikos had to say about this mess.
Despite the storm being obviously out of my control, I still felt a sense of personal failure at what had happened to Prince Larz and his son. Perhaps I had respected Prince Larz’s boundaries too much—or maybe I resented them. I should have insisted on my own men guarding him and his family, despite what he’d said he wanted. His guards been a completely unknown quantity to me, and the situation had backfired badly. I wondered what King Davos would have to say about that, and I headed back upstairs to hear for myself.
Chapter Eight
The Consort Blake
The storm crashing outside was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before, and it was unnerving me and making me uneasy. Lightning was still flashing almost continuously.
I hadn’t liked the little room Davos had taken me to after the argument he’d had with our sons. It was so small it felt claustrophobic, and Davos was making me nervous, pacing up and down and shooting me dirty looks. He hardly lost his temper that way anymore, like he had when he was younger. Back then, he could go from zero to sixty in a second, and it was always unpleasant to see, mostly because I was usually the target. Back then, I didn’t care how angry I made him, though it was unpleasant to be on the receiving end of all that fury. I’d never been scared of Davos, but I knew to be wary of him when he flew into a rage. This morning, he had grabbed me when I leaped in front of him and held me clutched tightly to him before the Imperial Guards rushed us out of the room. He had still been in the process of calming down when the lights suddenly blinked out, and we heard the commotion from the next room.
He instinctively took me into his arms to protect me from whatever had happened, because that was always his first instinct, even after all the years we’d been together. and he even tried to make me stay behind in this small anteroom the guards had taken us to while he investigated on his own. Fat chance.
We all rushed next door to a chaotic scene. The lights had come back on, and the first thing I saw was Larz, sprawled out face down on the table in front of him, with blood pouring from his head. I thought my heart would stop right then and there. Atfirst I thought maybe Mikos had hit him, but Mikos was standing across the room, looking concerned.
A crowd had clustered around Larz, and I couldn’t fight my way to him, but soon he raised his head so my heart could start beating again. I was glad when King Stefan sent servants in to close and fasten the huge shutters that were on each window. The way the wind was tossing the branches of the trees around outside, I was afraid of one coming through the window at any minute.
Of course, the shutters on the windows would make the room as dark as midnight, but they would also stop a tree from being hurled through the glass. For now, at least, the lights were on, thanks to some kind of generator power. I was afraid it wouldn’t last an unlimited amount of time, because I noticed that those same servants had brought in some very antique looking lanterns that they placed on the large table, and they’d stayed to build up the big fires in the two fireplaces at either end of the room. Poor Stefan was looking rather more stressed than usual, and I knew it must be stressful enough just to have so many guests descend on him, let alone get stuck here by the storm. Larz’s injury, not to mention Taran’s more serious one, must have been the icing on the cake.
The servants had two Imperial guards following them around, making sure they remained only long enough to cover the windows, before they were ushered to an area where the guards were holding the Laltanan guards. I later learned they all were witnesses and possible suspects waiting to be interviewed.
General Vargarra came back in the room from somewhere and headed over to where Mikos had come over to speak to his father, while Ryan stood by, looking on with a disapproving scowl on his face. He finally erupted just as I joined them.
“I won’t have it, Mikos, and I mean it! You’re going to ruin what little relationship we have left with Larz.”
“Larz could have easily died today, Ryan. And his son almost did. I simply want him to come home where it’s safe until we can investigate this thoroughly. He won’t come willingly, so that leaves me little choice but to force him.”
“Wait—his son is injured too?” I asked.
“Yes, Omak, he was stabbed after you and Father left the room.”
“Oh my god.” I sat down abruptly in one of the chairs by the table and Vannos appeared beside me and bent over me solicitously. He was such a sweet boy.
Davos came over to me too and put a hand on my shoulder. “He’s going to be all right, nobyo. General Vargarra took him to one of our combat medics, and they were able to stop the bleeding.”
“We need to go ahead with my plan, Father. The sooner, the better. Larz and his family will be safe on Tygeria until we can figure out who did this.”
“I’m all forinvitinghim and his mate to come home with us, Mikos, but that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?” I asked. “You want to force him, and that’s what I object to.”
“Don’t concern yourself with this, Blake,” Davos said. Mikos and I can take care of things.”
“He’s my son too. I’ll ‘concern’ myself if I want to.”
Davos gave me an icy look that usually made me think twice about continuing to irritate him when he was already on edge, but our relationship had always been like this—pushing each other right to the edge and even, on occasion, right over it. It had been a fight much like this one was sizing up to be that had caused Larz to even be on that ship intercepted by slavers all those years ago. He’d been a young man of barely sixteen then, and against my express wishes, Davos had sent him off to battle training on that fateful voyage. All because Davos was angry at me over a disagreement about another one of our sons, Derrick.Davos had been demonstrating to me that I, alone, didn’t have the final say in our sons’ lives. The hypocrisy of the man was stunning sometimes. His plan had backfired in a tragic way when the ship had come under attack and so many of the young crew were lost.
After the attack, Larz, out of all the boys onboard, had been one of the few who had ever been located at all, and that hadn’t been until four long years later. Long, miserable years of imagining him being abused or even killed. Even with all of Tygeria’s massive resources, it had taken almost four years to locate him in the vastness of the galaxy. By that time, he had become a man. He looked fully grown, had been involved in a deadly war and had happened to somehow fall in love with the king who had kidnapped him.
No, that’s not totally accurate. I believed the story that Janos’s brother was actually the one behind the kidnapping and Janos hadn’t known about it until afterward, but when he did know, he never contacted the family or returned Larz to us. For Mikos, that had been unforgiveable. I admit I’d had to struggle with it, too, and for a long time.
We were still at war back then, or it felt like it anyway in those tense, perilous years after the treaty had been signed. It was an uneasy truce, and there was still plenty of ill will against the Axis planets to go around, especially with the outlying planets. King Janos, in particular, owed Tygeria no favors, considering his experiences with the infamous Tygerian prisoner of war camp.
The lights flickered a few times again as I joined Mikos, Ryan and the general. Considering the fact that the one who had stabbed Taran was probably still in the room with us, it made me feel even more uneasy. Mikos must have thought so too, because he took me aside as soon as he could.