Chapter 411: The Victim
Sylvia had been given three days to prepare for Rohan.
Thomas claimed this was because she had recently been declared healthy and should not be rushed into international travel.
Sylvia knew better.
Thomas had spent most of those three days enjoying the fact that she was healthy, bonded to him, and no longer required to sleep beneath the judgmental glow of medical monitors.
Very little mental preparation had occurred.
Now their private jet was less than half an hour from Rohan’s capital, and Sylvia was beginning to consider whether jumping from the aircraft would be medically irresponsible or merely politically inconvenient.
She stared through the window at the mountains emerging beneath the clouds.
Thomas sat beside her, reading a security report as though he were not taking his newly transformed, newly marked mate to meet the queen who had known him since childhood.
Sylvia adjusted the collar of her dress.
Then adjusted it again.
Thomas lowered the report.
"Stop."
"It is crooked."
"It is not."
"The mark is visible."
"That was intentional."
"Your intention."
"Yes."
Sylvia looked at him. "You could pretend to be concerned."
"I am concerned."
"You look calm."
"I am not the one planning an escape through an aircraft window."
"I was evaluating possibilities."
"You cannot fly."
"That does reduce its practicality."
Thomas folded the report and placed it aside.
She had chosen a dark blue dress because it was formal without appearing as though she intended to negotiate a treaty. Thomas wore black because Thomas always wore black when permitted and dark military green when someone forced him to acknowledge that other colors existed.
He looked entirely at ease.
Sylvia distrusted this.
"What did you tell Heather?"
"Nothing." He stretched his long legs into the space before him. "The Alaminian report included every detail about me nearly going berserk and Nero changing. I am certain my mother already supplied the rest. The bond is automatically registered through the clinics when we cross an international border."
Sylvia stared at him.
"The clinic informed the Queen of Rohan that you marked me?"
"The clinic informed the Rohan medical authority that a registered dominant alpha citizen completed a permanent bond."
"And the medical authority informed Heather."
"Yes."
"With details?"
"Not medical details."
"What other sort of details are there?"
Thomas considered that. "Enough."
"That is not comforting."
"It was not intended to be."
Sylvia turned toward the window, where the mountains had begun rising through the clouds like dark teeth. Twenty-seven minutes remained until they reached the capital.
Twenty-seven minutes until she met the queen who had known Thomas since childhood.
"Your mother knows?"
"She knows we bonded."
"Does she know how?"
Thomas’s mouth twitched. A hand raised to hide the smile.
Sylvia narrowed her eyes. "Tom."
"My mother understands biology."
"That was not my question."
"She also understands me."
"That is somehow worse."
Thomas turned his head, studying her with the patient expression of a man observing an enemy slowly enter a trap.
"You are panicking."
"I am preparing."
"You have adjusted your sleeve six times."
"It keeps moving."
"It has not moved once."
Sylvia looked down at the offending sleeve and flattened it against her wrist.
Thomas caught her hand before she could begin again.
"You will be treated well."
"Because I am your mate?"
"Because, technically, I am the victim."
Sylvia’s head lifted sharply.
Thomas remained perfectly solemn.
"The victim," she repeated.
"Yes. Heather and my mother will direct their worry, disappointment, and excessive questioning toward me, not you."
The corner of his mouth betrayed him.
Sylvia narrowed her eyes. "You do not look worried."
"I am not."
"And you do not feel worried."
"No."
Her suspicion deepened. "Why?"
Thomas stretched his legs farther beneath the table, entirely at ease now that the truth had escaped.
"They already scolded me."
Sylvia stared at him.
"When?"
"Repeatedly."
"And you neglected to mention this?"
"I did not believe recounting my mother’s opinion of my judgment would help your anxiety."
"What was her opinion?"
Thomas considered the question.
"That I had demonstrated none."
A laugh escaped Sylvia before she could stop it, though the tightness in her chest did not disappear completely.
Thomas’s smile finally broke through.
"There," he said. "Better."
"You manipulated me."
"I manipulated the timing," he corrected. "It is still true that they scolded me."
He shrugged, entirely too comfortable with the situation.
"I am the only mature dominant alpha in the kingdom besides my parents. There is very little they can actually do to me."
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. "That confidence is not reassuring."
"And you are the only dominant omega." His amusement softened as he looked at her. "They will not treat you like a criminal, Sylvia. They will treat you like a miracle."
"That is even more stressful."
Thomas studied her for a moment, the amusement in his expression fading beneath something warmer.
"If the aircraft were not already descending, I would have you in my arms."
Sylvia glanced toward the window.
The clouds had thinned beneath them, revealing the dark sweep of the Rohan countryside and the first dense clusters of buildings surrounding the capital. The engines had changed pitch several minutes ago, but she had been too occupied imagining royal disappointment to notice.
Her hand tightened around the edge of the seat.
"That would not make this less stressful."
"No," Thomas agreed. "But you would be stressed in my arms."
She looked back at him.
He remained belted into the seat opposite her, broad shoulders relaxed against the pale leather, though his field had already begun drawing closer around her. It could not lift her onto his lap, but it settled over her skin with the same dark warmth, firm enough to remind her that she was not crossing the border alone.
Sylvia exhaled slowly.
"You are being very pleased with yourself."
"I have had three days to become pleased."
"You were pleased before that."
"I was attempting restraint."
"That was restraint?"
"Yes."
The answer came without hesitation.
Sylvia decided not to examine what Thomas considered a lack of restraint while trapped inside a descending aircraft.
A soft chime sounded overhead. The attendants secured the last loose items in the cabin, moving with the quiet efficiency of people who had spent the flight pretending not to hear their commander describe himself as a victim.
Thomas’s gaze remained on Sylvia.
"Heather will probably cry," he said.
Sylvia’s stomach dropped. "Why would you tell me that now?"
"She cries when she is relieved."
"That does not improve it." Sylvia closed her eyes.
Thomas reached across the space between them and held out his hand.
She took it immediately.
His fingers closed around hers, warm and steady, and the new gland beneath her collar answered with a faint pulse. Thomas felt it. His thumb moved over her knuckles once, slow enough not to draw attention from the attendants.
"They already know what happened," he said. "They know you saved my life. They know the transformation was not planned and that you had no safe alternative."
"They know that I spent the last three days in your bed?"
A trace of satisfaction returned to his face.
"They can infer."
Sylvia stared at him.
Thomas’s thumb moved again. "Heather will blame me."
"She should."
"My mother will also blame me."
"She should do that too."
"And both of them will adore you."
The aircraft dipped lower.
Rohan’s capital spread beneath them now, towers of pale stone and glass rising around the old royal district, with the palace visible at its center behind layered gardens and dark defensive walls.
Sylvia’s pulse accelerated.
Thomas tightened his hand around hers.
"When the doors open," he said, "stay beside me."
"I had no intention of escaping across the runway."
"If they overwhelm you, tell me."
"What will you do?"
"Remove you."
"From your own family?"
"Yes."
The simplicity of it steadied something inside her.
Sylvia looked through the window again as the runway rose to meet them.
"Tom?"
"Yes?"
"If Heather cries, you are dealing with it."
"I am the victim," he reminded her solemnly.
Sylvia laughed just as the wheels struck the ground.