Page 39 of Strange Familiar

He made himself eat, mostly because it gave himself something to do to pass the time, which moved with excruciating slowness. Alise had been rattled by his sudden appearance, and not at all pleased by it. He’d anticipated surprise on her part, figuring her father wouldn’t have prepared her, but not the look of sheer horror on her face. She was drinking more wine than she was eating food, the idiot beside her refilling her glass far too often and liberally.

Lord Elal ate in glowering silence, the five familiars at the table carrying on pleasant conversation for all of them, determinedly filling the fraught silence like it was their job. Probably it was.

Surreptitiously, Cillian studied the five young men. Was it just him or did they all look rather unsettlingly like… well, himself? That could be vanity on his part, or maybe Alise had settled on a type, but all five were slender with dark hair and gentle demeanors. As familiars, their eye color varied, but otherwise they could be his brothers. None of them were bonded to her, his wizard senses told him that much. So why were they there?

He suspected he wouldn’t like the answer, but asked the question anyway, posing it as a general inquiry to the table, whether they were general familiars for House Elal or…?

“Oh no, Wizard Harahel,” one answered with shy enthusiasm.

No one had offered their names, which seemed perfectly in line with Lord Elal’s fulminating disdain for all of them, but was out of character for Alise. She, however, seemed to have retreated to some internal landscape, her face nearly blank, gaze turned inward as she mechanically ate and drank—still mostly drank. Cillian decided to mentally call them by the names of the five identical brothers in the children’s tale: Wim, Bim, Tim, Gim, and Zim. The one who’d answered him became Wim.

“None of us belong to House Elal,” another of the familiars chimed in—Bim—then slid his gaze slyly to Alise, “… yet.”

The one who’d been attentively refilling Alise’s glass, Tim, gave Cillian a sweet smile. “We’re all hoping that someday Wizard Alise will choose one of us to be her bonded familiar.”

“Ah, congratulations in advance then,” Cillian replied. “May I?” He held out a hand for the wine carafe, adding a small amount to his own glass and deliberately setting the carafe down again on his other side, well out of reach. Sipping, he hoped to swallow the bitterness of knowing Alise was auditioning familiars. That had been the logical explanation for the little scene, and Cillian had obviously known that Alise would eventually bond a familiar. She possessed far too much potential as a wizard to hamper herself by not having one.

Still, he hadn’t expected her to move that direction so soon. And not in this distasteful fashion. With what he had to acknowledge as jealousy, he contemplated that she might have been testing them out in bed, too.

The familiar holding an instrument, Gim, strummed a thoughtful chord, glancing at Alise for a reaction, though she noticed that no more than anything else since she’d retreated inside her head, then turned his attention to Cillian with speculation in his thoughtful gaze. “Do you have a bonded familiar, Wizard Harahel?”

Before he could answer, Alise made a snorting sound, proving she was paying attention after all. “Sainted High House Harahel doesn’t employ familiars, do they, Wizard Cillian?”

“No such thing as a library emergency,” he replied, enjoying that she at least flushed slightly at the reminder of their running joke. “Speaking of which,” he said, pushing his empty plate aside, “are you finished eating, Wizard Alise? If so, we can proceed to wherever you’d like to have this conversation.”

She met his gaze, the burn of betrayal in hers. Oh, she was not at all happy to see him. Fine then. No matter how this went, they’d at least have it out, once and for all. She stood, carrying her wine glass. “Yes, let’s get this over with.”

“Would you like one or more of us to attend you, Wizard Alise?” Zim, who’d been quiet so far, asked deferentially.

Cillian cocked his head at the promise she’d discarded by her plate.

“No, thank you. A private audience was requested and I shall abide by my written word.” She said the words with plenty of bite, speaking them entirely to Cillian. “Good night, Father.”

He took his attention from his plate long enough to give her a speaking glare, which he transferred to Cillian. “Be smart about this, Daughter,” he advised. “Remember what’s at stake.”

“As if I could forget,” she replied crisply, then led the way out of the dining salon. Cillian followed behind, eyes on her rigid spine and the soft hollow at the nape of her neck that her short haircut revealed. Despite everything, he wanted to kiss her there. Truthfully, he wanted to bend her over and kiss her there, while pulling up that sheer gown to reveal her perfect ass. He wanted to kiss her all over until her scent covered him, until he smelled her at odd moments on his body, unexpectedly, and in many different places.

He hadn’t expected this deep, sexual ache in her presence, this edged craving to have her against him, skin to skin, to slide into her warm and willing sheath, to lose himself in her. He’d always been more a person of the mind than the body, easily forgoing sex for periods of times so long as he had a project to focus on, and particularly after Szarina and that terrible legacy of the passion he’d once felt for her. But around Alise, with her magic twining all around him like sun-warmed roses blooming in hot sunshine, their vines entangling him and thorns piercing him to the quick… He could only think of having her naked and in his arms again, of being inside her and hearing her whimpers in his ear.

Not the most productive frame of mind for what promised to be a logistically difficult conversation.

Alise led them to a smallish salon, not her father’s office, but some room in what felt like a different wing. One of the fifteen discrete wings of House Elal, his memory—made eidetic by his library wizardry—informed him relentlessly. One of one-hundred and ninety-three separate rooms in the sprawling complex, at least according to the most recent history, and not including bathing rooms and outbuildings, or hidden spaces.

Alise prowled directly into the room and stopped pointedly in the center, holding her wine glass with false insouciance, tapping one toe in clear impatience and obviously disinclined to sit. So, Cillian took care of the niceties, closing the door, triggering the Iblis lock with a flick of magic, then imposing a privacy shield around the room.

She raised a sardonic brow. “I thought ‘private’ was a euphemism. Is this a conversation or…?”

“A private conversation,” he replied, going closer to her, but not so close as to drive her away. Still, he had no intention of standing across the room from her and shouting. “Do we have eavesdroppers?”

“You are in House Elal,” she answered, unrelentingly unhelpful.

He took that to be a confirmation of what he suspected, that spirit spies watched them regardless. “Then I formally request you ensure the privacy of the audience that your favor grants me.”

Her delicately winged brows forked down in irritation. “Must you?”

“Yes.” He kept it simple. He also knew banishing any spies lay well within her capabilities. Holding her gaze, he waited for her to comply. If her father listened in even now, he would know Alise had abided by the agreement his house was bound to honor. That wouldn’t make Lord Elal any less angry, but Cillian had come all this way, had put both of them in danger for this conversation. He wouldn’t pull any punches now.

Still glaring at him, Alise unfurled her magic, the pure tendrils of it snaking through the enclosed space as she calmly sipped her wine. No dramatic gestures for her or giving any appearance of effort. As Cillian had no spirit magic to speak of, he couldn’t sense exactly what she did, but he knew she’d cleared the room because she raised her brows expectantly. She had grown in skill and power, exponentially.

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