Hidden Passions (Hidden, #7)(66)

Truly excited now, Ethan started to roar some more. Maria caught him first and covered up his mouth.

"Um," Cass said, looking like she wanted to laugh as well. "I assume you have a candidate in mind."

"The candidate calls himself," Roald said. "But I believe the dragons and the gauntlet agree."

Hm, Tony thought. I wonder who he means.

Roald looked at him and grinned.

Tony admitted it: he should have seen that coming.

"Me?" he asked, gobsmacked.

"Oh yes!" Cass exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Tony would be perfect."

This was flattering, but Tony . . . perfect? Tony a protector like his brother? He turned to Rick, who appeared as pleased as Cass.

"If it's what you want," he said. "I'm sure you'd be great at it."

"Do you wish this, wolf?" Cass's father asked formally.

Tony suspected this wasn't a time to hem or haw. Sensing something was happening that involved them, the dragons dropped in a nimble three-stage landing to the pool deck. Verdi wore his mischievous face, the one that signaled he was about to steal a person's only pair of dress shoes and fly away with them. Auric bumped his sister's side, and--as siblings do--she bumped him back harder. The dragons were miraculous but also a handful. Was Tony ready to help his brother and Cass shoulder the responsibility?

Of course I am, he thought. I'm already doing it.

Nothing could have stopped him from defending them with his life. Roald just wanted to know if he'd say a couple words to make it official.

"I do wish it," he answered the pureblood.

Somewhat prosaically, Roald pulled an object from his trouser pocket. Tony expected to see brass knuckles, but Roald was balancing a silvery-gold arm cuff on the flat of his palm. Tony assumed it was the same thingamabob he'd showed him at Jin Levine's estate, just in a different shape. Stretching six inches from rim to rim, the electrum was decorated with obscure chicken-scratchy glyphs.

"This is the protector's gauntlet," Roald said quietly, every eye and ear in his audience fixed on him. "It is the symbol of a guardian's oath and his aid in fulfilling it. Place your hands atop it and allow the power of the earth and sky to consecrate your intent."

Tony felt silly, but he laid his hands on top of the cuff. Roald held it steadily, as if his arm were stone and not flesh.

"Close your eyes," he said.

Tony closed them.

He wasn't sure how Roald made it happen, but the most profound silence he'd ever encountered wrapped him up in itself.

It was like the universe hadn't formed. No stars. No planets. Just a thick breath drawn in and held. Tony's brain was blank. To be honest, he wasn't sure he existed. A rich still blackness had swallowed him. Unable to do otherwise, he waited.

The tiniest prick of light sprang to life in the vacuum.

Tony wanted to squint but he had no eyes. The light was really there. No, it was two lights, and they were whizzing around each other like electrons. They seemed weirdly . . . happy. Did subatomic particles experience emotion?


"It is done," said Roald's voice.

Tony's awareness snapped back so precipitously he needed to take a step to catch his balance. Roald steadied him as his eyes opened. Tony had put both hands over one of Roald's, but somehow now he was covering two. He was also touching two arm cuffs. Roald had one in each palm.

Tony looked into Roald's dreamy eyes. Starlight seemed to ray out from his pupils. The faerie's aura was a live wire that stopped just short of shocking him.

"They are twinned," Roald said.

Was that supposed to be an explanation? Then again, why would he expect faerie magic to make sense?

Roald slid one of the electrum cuffs onto Tony's wrist. Feeling dazed, Tony stroked the metal. The fit was perfect, like it had been made for him. The silvery gold was warm, the runes tingling faintly under his fingertips.

Roald lifted the second cuff so everyone could see. "Friends," he said, actually raising his voice a decibel, "as was the tradition for guards of old, when lovers fought valiantly side by side, I call Tony's mate to take up his gauntlet's twin."

Roald's warning that this wouldn't be painless rushed back to him.

Crap, Tony thought, the pureblood's meaning as plain as day.

"Sir," Rick said in a polite undertone. "You know my brother's gay, don't you?"

Rick didn't mean to be obnoxious. He was trying to spare Tony embarrassment in front of everyone he knew.

Roald pinned him with a stern gaze. "Destiny leaves no soul bereft of its complement."

"Uh," Tony put in. "Maybe you shouldn't push this."

Roald turned the same disapproving stare on him. "This isn't your choice, wolf. It belongs to another."

"But--"

"I call this wolf's mate to me," he repeated. "Do you accept the charge of defending the Sevryn brood?"

Oh God, Tony thought. He didn't know what to pray for. That Chris step up to the plate? That he stay where he was and not risk everything that mattered to him in life? He knew for sure he didn't dare turn around. His eyes would out Chris all by themselves. He held his breath, seconds ticking by.

"I accept," his lover said.

~