Page 163 of Heart of the High King
“Did you see his face the day he thought Aleksander might die?” Worth asked. “He was like a ghost, he was so white.”
“My heart broke for him. I lost my mate once. It’s got to be ripping him apart like I said, but it hasn’t stopped him from being a good leader. He made exactly the right decision about Jeremiah,” Brogan commented.
“Can you believe my mate took him to task about that? You know, his mother told him to stay away from Rafe, but she didn’t explain why. Considering Rafe doesn’t want shit to do with Sullivan, and can I just say I never liked him anyway, I think she might’ve painted the whole family with the same brush. Kendrick certainly has no use for Charlton,” Noirin confessed.
“Does Kendrick have issues with Rafe?” Brogan asked.
“I don’t think so. How could he? Aleksander adores Rafe, and the two of them together are just beautiful. I wanted Aleksander to be happy for so long, and Fate really delivered. Rafe was even kind and eloquent when Kendrick pushed back about the Jeremiah thing,” Noirin said.
“You should’ve heard him talking to King Wellsdraconis. That asshat had nothing nice to say about our Jeremiah, but Rafe wasn’t ruffled,” Worth remarked.
“And he knew just what questions to ask without prompting, even though it was his first application. I was afraid he was going to put me on the spot, and I’d have to stumble through a conversation with His Highness, but he made my day when he handled the thing himself,” Mac confessed.
“It didn’t hit me until Rafe ended our meeting, but no one corrected Kendrick, including me, when he referred to Aleksander as ‘The High King,’ as if his mate didn’t have the same title. I spoke with Kendrick afterward, who didn’t even know he’d said it that way, but we’re his royal guards. We should’ve caught that right away,” Noirin groused.
“Shit, I missed that,” Mac complained. “I’ll pay more attention in the future. It’s just us getting used to the words. I don’t know that anyone feels Rafe’s not the exact same as Aleksander when it comes to their titles.”
“Damn right. Aleksander did the right thing by making the title equal and, to be honest, even if I didn’t like Rafe—which I definitely do—I wouldn’t undermine my cousin by not giving his mate the appropriate respect,” Noirin answered.
“Okay, so we need to divvy up the names of the household and pass the word around that issues need to be filtered through us just until Aleksander wakes up. If it can wait until then, great. If not, let’s see if we can work out at least a temporary situation. We don’t usually have too many major problems that would warrant Rafe handling them when he’s got so much on his mind, so I can’t imagine that this is going to affect our family much as a whole,” Brogan stated.
“And the important thing is that we’re lifting the burden for Rafe,” Noirin commented. They jotted names and once they were settled on who had who, Noirin hugged everyone and headed out of their room. It was heartwarming to know that she had such a caring family that they would come together and do anything they could think of to make life a bit easier for Rafe. Although she had no idea where he went for so long or who had hurt him, someday, she wanted the persons responsible to pay the price for the shadows in his pretty blue eyes.
