Page 28 of Rogue Familiar

Gabriel glared at the missive dropped by a fleeting Ratsiel courier directly onto his desk. He’d been absorbed in reading a demand for payment—one of several that had arrived overnight—when the thick packet of envelopes smacked onto the polished wood with an impressively heavy thump. The crest of House Elal shimmered balefully from the center of the excellent paper of the top one, stuff that Gabriel now knew to recognize, thanks to Nic’s careful tutelage, as the most expensive House Salis had to offer.

Gazing with trepidation at the oval of entwined golden spirit glyphs gliding in the infinite circle that formed the Elal sigil, Gabriel steeled himself for the inevitable bad news within. At least Nic had gone to consult on wedding plans, though grudgingly. She still viewed a lavish ceremony as being a waste of money, time, and energy. Of course, Nic also darkly predicted there might not be a House Phel at which to hold a wedding at midsummer, so it was hard to blame her for not being enthusiastic. Though Gabriel could wish that she cared a bit more about marrying him, she’d say that was his soft heart talking, his incurable romanticism, and she’d likely be correct. For Nic, their relationship was a foregone conclusion. She didn’t need a public demonstration or vows to cement what for her was already true.

It perplexed and annoyed his wife that Gabriel still needed more than that. In truth, it wore on him that he needed it, too. What would be enough for him to believe Nic truly loved him and wanted to be with him, rather than being compelled by magic or the considerable social pressure of the Convocation? He didn’t know.

And this self-excoriating philosophizing, as Nic would call it, only postponed the inevitable. With a sigh for their uncertain future, Gabriel used a touch of wizardry to unlock the seal on the missive. A nice bit of elitism there, ensuring that only he could open the envelope. Lord Elal had pointedly written to Gabriel and not his daughter, wizard-to-wizard or lord-to-lord, Elal wanted Nic excluded from this communication. Yet another way of showing his daughter how inconsequential he considered her.

At least Nic would be spared the initial reading. If only Gabriel could figure a way to spare her the information entirely… But he doubted that would be possible. Even if he managed it, Nic would cheerfully eviscerate him for both keeping secrets from her and not allowing her to help him. Besides which, Gabriel wouldn’t make her father’s mistake of treating Nic as a pawn in the struggle between their houses. This was Nic’s battle more than anyone’s—and had been since she manifested as a familiar rather than a wizard. Perhaps since her birth.

Gabriel unfolded the multiple pages, skimming the flowery formal greetings that embodied everything Convocation he hated most: all lies and double-talk, a polite pretense of conviviality that did little to cloak the lethal dagger grasped in the velvet-gloved fist.

And there was the edge of the blade: Lord Elal demanded the return of his wife and familiar, Lady Elal. He made no mention of the severing of their bond, which was interesting. He also demanded the return of his daughter as unlawfully abducted from House Elal. Gabriel snorted aloud at that. He might not know all the intricacies of Convocation law, but he’d followed the Betrothal Trial rules scrupulously—well, with one glaring exception, but no one knew about that but Nic and him, and there was no reason to believe anyone would find out—and he was absolutely in his legal rights to refuse to yield his familiar to the house of her birth.

The rest of the missive contained a variety of threats and promises of escalating enforcement, a lot of it couched in bureaucratic language Gabriel only partially understood. He’d need help parsing the exact implications, and appropriate measures to take, but perhaps he could get that aid from Wizards Wolfgang and Asa, as well as Familiar Quinn, who’d apparently all been champions in mock trial tournaments at Convocation Academy. Nic could accuse him of circumventing her, but he could plausibly argue that she herself had recommended those three as experts.

The other envelopes in the packet contained letters that were even more inscrutable, except that they were clearly marked with the sigils of Houses Sammael, Tadkiel, and El-Adrel, along with a few others he didn’t recognize and couldn’t easily decipher. Various complaints and demands for monetary compensation, he could follow that much. What he wasn’t sure of was how seriously to take the floridly phrased offenses. In a few cases, he couldn’t quite discern what they referred to. It made his farmer’s brain swim, trying to decipher all the legal obfuscation, and he considered just burning the cursed packet and going for a ride to see how the fields were coming along.

Except that Seliah had Vale—and that thought set him to worrying about his sister. They’d heard nothing from her. Not that they’d truly expected to, but the foolishly optimistic part of himself had rather hoped she’d be back at House Phel by now. With or without Jadren, he didn’t care. He certainly didn’t miss the acerbic and very likely duplicitous wizard.

The library doors opened and Nic burst in. He jumped guiltily, but it was just her normal high-energy entry to a room, he decided, not a result of anger, urgency, or emergency. Nic never did anything by halves, including simply moving from place to place. Gabriel had come to know his wife well enough to assess her mood and not be alarmed by her sudden entrances.

“Gabriel, my only love,” she sang out, “we have got to talk to the kitchen staff about portion size.” And that confirmed she was only on one of her standard rampages and nothing was wrong. Nothing more than usual, anyway.

She turned to close the doors behind her and he took advantage of her momentary inattention to slide the packet of letters under a pile of documents. Unfortunately, that left the original demand for payment front and center, but Nic probably already had that problem at the top of one of her lists.

She strode toward him, skirts swishing with her swaying hips, a warm smile on her generous mouth. The buttery yellow of her gown wasn’t a color he’d have picked for her, but it deepened the bronze of her skin, making her dark hair and brilliant green eyes stand out. Those eyes lost a bit of sparkle as they hardened and narrowed, going unerringly to the pile he’d just hidden the packet under. “What’s going on?”

He slid the payment demand toward her. “Another house wanting payment.”

She took the paper, barely glanced at it, and tossed it onto a pile of similar bills on her desk. “I’m aware. They don’t have nearly the leverage they think they do to be hounding us this way. We might not be a High House yet, but neither are they. I’ll handle them.”

Relaxing now that his diversion seemed to be working, Gabriel raised a curious brow. “What’s your plan for handling them?”

“I’ll answer that question with a question—where are you on training those water-wizard apprentices on cleaning wells and the ones sent from House Ishim for the ice production?”

Grimacing, he scooted back his chair, and came around the desk to be closer to her. Some of that wanting to be near her came from her magic, the scent of fire-warmed roses as alluring as Nic’s vivid and sensual beauty. He also couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to touch her, to breathe in the feel of her skin as he traced the shoulder bared by the low swoop of the gown’s neckline. Though Nic gave him a look that warned she wouldn’t forget the question, as soon as he touched her, she trembled under the caress, her lush black lashes lowering to screen her gaze, her breath shuddering audibly now as the sensual heat flared instantly to life between them.

They’d always had that spark. He’d sensed it just from the miniature of Nic that had been enclosed in the Betrothal Trials packet, the mutinous set of her lips and arrogant tilt of her chin so compelling to him. When he’d first glimpsed her in person, all that restless energy of hers contained in that tower room, he’d known instantly that she felt it, too. Their magics knew one another. And when they’d touched, the sensual connection between them had billowed into burning flame.

Would it always be this way between them? Difficult to know, but Gabriel thought so. As Nic lifted her heated gaze to his, the sexual tension thrumming palpably between them. “Gabriel?” she murmured.

He brushed a kiss over her cheek, sliding a hand down her narrow waist to the generous flare of her hip. “Yes, my heart?”

“The apprentices learning to purify wells and water for ice… you’re not ducking the question, are you?”

“Maybe I just want to enjoy time with my wife.” He kissed along her jaw, savoring how she yielded, tipping up her chin and shivering at the caress of his lips along her sensitive, swanlike throat.

“Maybe you just want to divert me from the problem at hand.”

He paused, lifted his head, made himself think about something besides triggering the fastenings on that lovely Ophiel gown and getting her naked. Apprentices. Right. That had indeed not been going all that well. When he’d had time for it. “I’m not a good teacher.”

She stepped back, gave him a hard look. “Gabriel.”

“What? I’m not.” He threw up his hands in exasperation. “You, better than anyone, know how little I understand about my own wizardry, let alone trying to teach what I do to someone else. I feel like there are more important things I could be working on.”

Her stern mien didn’t change one iota. “First of all,” she replied, holding up a single finger, “this is a high priority. It’s just as important, if not more so, as getting those flasks tested and out to market. We need functioning water wizards to clean wells because we promised that service as collateral for exchange of services like this one.” She pointed the finger at the pile of bills. “We need to teach the House Ishim wizards to purify water for ice so we can get that income source going.”

Unexpected guilt assailed him. “I know, I just—”

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