Page 74 of Searching for the Prince
“Start talking, Metra.”
Metra stepped forwards and Hyax put out his hand to stop him. “You don’t need to be any closer than you are, I can hear you fine from here.”
“I’ve done what you asked,” Metra growled. “Last time we spoke, I admitted I didn’t behave as I should’ve but that’s history. We should move past it.”
Metra might have confessed to his poor behaviour, but Hyax didn’t want to rehash the past. “This is not the conversation I asked for, and you know it. As I said I will tolerate you, be less hostile now you have finally admitted you were a piece ofshit. But I’ve not forgotten you sent your little whore to try and convince me you two weren’t screwing.”
“That was a mistake. It was part of the plan to have you more accepting of our marriage.”
Metra must think him an idiot. “By compounding a lie I was never going to believe?”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
Hyax wasn’t sure Metra was capable of original thought. “Whose was it?”
Metra kept glancing back inside, he couldn’t be more suspicious if he tried. “My parents. When my mother told me we had a way to deal with our significant financial issues, and that it involved you, I informed her of our past liaison and how we had ended. Once she’d calmed down and stopped accusing me of treason, she said I needed to fix things and suggested I try and convince you I wasn’t an arsehole.”
“Too bad I’m not stupid.” He decided not to comment on the financial issues. “Now back to why we are here, what did you mean by the vampires being behind our marriage?”
Metra pouted, looking even more of a twat. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but since I did, I can’t put the genie back in the bottle. I don’t know who, just that some very rich fang was willing to pay a lot of money to have you marry me.”
This information tallied with what Gwil and his mother had told him. “Why would the vampires care who you marry?”
“They don’t care whoImarry, just that you were getting married to someone who wasn’t Gwilym Hilt.”
Again, Metra seemed to corroborate Gwil’s intel, this time about an ex who might want to keep Gwil away from Hyax. “If it were a fae-led buyout, it might find it feasible, but the vampires aren’t against my relationship with Gwil. Quite the opposite.”
Metra shrugged. “I don’t know what else to tell you. My mother said a very rich fang, and I mean staggeringly so, waswilling to pay an amount we couldn’t refuse. That’s a vamp in the singular, not all of them.”
“And you don’t know who?”
“No. I’m not even sure my mother knows because it was all done through various legal associates that we couldn’t trace back.”
“Then how do you know it wasn’t all just a load of bollocks?”
“They paid ten percent of the total amount upfront to even talk to my mother.” Metra winced. “I’m sorry, Hyax. But there was no way we were ever going to say no. We couldn’t afford to take the chance on refilling the treasury.”
Hyax needed to push, as there was more here than Metra was admitting to. “Come off it, I don’t believe my hand in marriage was worth that amount of money.”
“It made up a large part of it, but they were keen that it didn’t appear obvious, so they’ve also offered to buy golashe from us, and we agreed to mine a specific quantity and then negotiated a continued supply.”
Golashe was like normal chalk but had additional stabilising properties for use in a smattering of potion bases that made it useful but not really a sought-after commodity. “Why did they want golashe?”
“I don’t think they wanted the golashe itself but as a cover. It’s not like it can be used for anything dangerous, so we saw no reason to query. Not considering the price agreed.”
Hyax couldn’t imagine his mother agreeing to anything with such limited information, but then maybe Queen Vaness knew more but wasn’t willing to share the details with Metra, which he could understand.
“Thank you. I appreciate you telling me.”
“Perhaps we could have a drink before you leave.”
Hyax snorted. “I don’t think so. Although I expected you to be pushing for a consummation.”
“I know you think I was dropped on my head as a babe, but I did my own research. Our previous relationship counts, and I’m many things, but I’m not a rapist.”
He might not like him, and Metra had hurt him emotionally, but he’d never caused him physical pain or forced himself on him or anyone else as far as he’d heard. “True. Let’s leave together, my thanks for your willingness to share the background. Dare I ask where you will spend the night?”
“Do you really want to know?”
