Accidental Surrogate

Negotiations Sinclair I storm down the hallway on my way to the meeting, but I’m gratified to see Roger waiting there for me at the door, leaning against the wall. I nod to him, not breaking my stride, but he falls in with me as we head inside.

“So, what’d you bring?” Roger asks, his voice serious.

“What?” I ask, half turning to him in my confusion.

“To kill the prince,” Roger says, his face deadpan. “Like a gun, or something more dramatic like a morning star? Or are you just going to like, tear him limb from limb -” “Roger,” I sigh, shaking my head as I arrive at the head of the table but his face just breaks out into a grin.

“What is it?” our father asks, looking between us. I know that he can tell from my serious face that something’s up, and from Roger’s joking one that it’s well enough under control that we don’t need to take major action now.

“Don’t worry about it, dad,” І murmur, not wanting to get into it with the Atalaxian delegation already filtering into the room.

“Prince Calvin asked Ella on a date,” Roger says, leaning close so that dad can hear but speaking loud enough that I know what he said. I sigh deeply, grabbing a packet of papers off the desk and flipping idly through them, making a mental note to beat the crap out of my brother at the earliest opportunity.

“What?” dad says, looking at me with wide eyes.

“It’s not like that,” I growl, glaring at Roger. “Can we just drop it for now? We’ve got more important things to worry about.” Dad glares at Roger too, taking my side as the majority of the persons attending this meeting begin to take their seats. Roger laughs a little but comes around to my other side, sinking into the chair on my right while my father takes his place on my left. King Gabriel is here as an advisor on our side, ready to argue staunchly against war, as well as six other pack members from our territories.

My eyes scan the room, noting the presence of nine Atalaxian delegates with one empty chair.

Just as an aid begins to close the door, the final delegate appears: Prince Calvin, slipping into the room and heading for his chair without even looking at me.

I glare daggers at him, unable to help it, willing him to look at me, to face me.

doesn’t

because I want him to look at me – I want him to know that I know what the hell he’s

either clever or a coward, because he keeps

sincere hopes that we can find a path to peace, stating that neither of our nations will truly benefit from a war. Then, with opening

that they came here wanting war, that they likely hoped Xander would

unlikely to give

sense for them to

we have better technology, better strategic location, and a fantastic set of

scowling inwardly. You set us

to come in for a kill. While they’re pretending that they want this war

Atalaxia really wants is to wipe our nation out, to annex this territory and all of

for Atalaxia, but it would be an ideological coup as well. A lot of powerful men in that nation have some truly awful ideas about gender and humanity; they would see it as

it, the warrior in me wanting to go to war, to wipe

is responsible for his people, and who knows that this nation has no where

that, damn it, Rafe might be grown by the time it comes to a close – I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment as I realize that…that Rafe could even fight in this war, if it goes for as long as I think it could. That if I fail in these negotiations, I could be signing my own son’s death warrant on the battlefield A shudder passes through me and beside me I feel my brother lean closer. It’s a very subtle move – he doesn’t touch me, or give any indication that he knows what I’m thinking. But still I can tell. He knows that I’m upset, and in his own way he’s trying

take a deep

he didn’t tell me everything he and Cora saw at the moonlight baptism we

son died young on a battlefield, Roger would have seen it. And the fact that he didn’t… A great deal of relief rushes through me at the thought and I send a prayer up to the Goddess, thanking her both for my brother and her insight, begging her again

the world in which he’ll grow to be a man, about the Kingdom I’ll

at Calvin over the table, who I find looking right at me for the first time. Because he has a son too – just about Rafe’s