Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(52)

“Yes, but we’ve seen your magic move the air as well,” Zander said, squinting. “For those that don’t know, what is the difference between what air magic and spirit can do?”

I blew spirit across them, sucking power from the Line to do it, making sure they felt it. When their souls rattled in their casings, every Demigod but Magnus sucked in a startled breath.

“Looks the same, but feels different,” I concluded.

“Yes. Quite.” Zander visibly shivered.

“The soul link also swells her power. Surely you can feel her elevated level,” Magnus said, his finger draped across his upper lip.

Zander turned a little to look at him, as though surprised.

Magnus answered the unspoken question. “I’ve known she must have a soul link for some time. I am familiar with them, though I no longer have one.”

“Oh right, yes. The reason for the…” Zander made a circular motion with his finger. “The child issue.” He turned back to face me. “Fine. Now, Alexis, I do know Demigod Kieran has asked you to marry him. He has said he wishes to make you co-ruler once you marry, which would make the mark immediately legitimate, but here you are with nothing but a promise. I can’t help but question this. It would be a good strategy for him to mark you, offer to share the leadership, and then never go through with it. He would…have his cake and eat it too, so to speak.”

I chuckled. I couldn’t help it.

“Something is funny?” the woman beside Zander asked.

I schooled my expression. “It’s Kieran who wants to share the leadership role, not me. I have no desire to step up to the plate, but I will because he wants me at his side. Look, the mark has nothing to do with that. I love him. I want him, forever. I don’t care if he’s in charge of a territory or not. I like the way it feels when he burns his mark across my skin and claims me as his. I ask him to do it often. I like being tethered to his soul. Everything else is just politics, and I don’t much care for that. There’s nothing else I can tell you about it.”

Silence trickled into the lofty room, all seven pairs of eyes beating down on me.

“One last question,” the woman beside Zander said. “Why not marry before coming here? You have pledged yourself to him—why not button it up and make it official?”

“The mark and the soul link are official. It’s more official than a few signed pieces of paper and a rubber stamp. A legal partnership can be undone, but the ways we have united cannot be dismissed. With us, it is until death do us part, literally. One of us will have to die to undo what has been done.

“As for your question, I haven’t decided what kind of wedding I want. I don’t know where I want to have it. I couldn’t waste time thinking about it before this Summit because I had too much to prepare for, and…”

I sucked in a breath and wiped my forehead again, trying to stop the flow of words. I couldn’t imagine they were helping at this point.

Silence filtered through again, all those eyes making me nervous, their judgment turning my blood cold. The assembled didn’t seem to like my answers.

“Look, I love him,” I said. “I love him with everything that is in me. I wouldn’t go back and change anything that has happened between us. I trust him to keep me safe, and I’ll support him in all things. We’re stronger together. I don’t know how else to convince you, and I certainly don’t know how to make you butt out.”

The woman looked down her nose at me. “You can marry him now and finish this up. That will make us…butt…out.”

I responded without much consideration. “A person only gets married once. Kieran and I will marry when and how we want, and I guarantee you, it won’t be a rush job in some oversized office building in front of a lot of humorless magical people who have a shaky hold, at best, on morals.”

“Have a care, Alexis, on how you speak to your betters,” said a woman beside Magnus, and I gritted my teeth to the point of pain, trying to hold back the words that wanted to bubble out. These clowns weren’t my betters, or even my equals. They had more power, that was it. That was all. If we were on equal footing, I’d push and shove until I could inject a little humanity back into his group of tyrants.

Pressure settled on my shoulders and bit into my shoulder blades, the feeling of being watched oppressive. The Line throbbed into the room, unbidden, and shadows zipped all around it. Magnus jerked, seeing it.

A shadow lurked within, staring into the room. This wasn’t Harding—the shadow being exuded menace. It pulsed with vengeance.

Panic welled up in me. Would Lydia or Aaron dare to make a move in such a public place, before Magnus?

“Fine, fine.” Zander banged the gavel, and I jumped. Still that shadow stared. “I move to a vote. Will the mark be classified as valid, yay or nay?”

He turned to get answers, but I couldn’t look away from that shadow. If I did, I feared it might step into my plane, like Harding had done. Something about that thought had cold creeping through my middle.

“Nay.”

The coldness turned to dread. I dragged my eyes away from the shadow long enough to see who’d spoken. The guy at the end, who’d doubted the soul link earlier, smirked at me. He’d just added himself to my “enemy” list.