Page 30 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

The mage must be responsible for disabling my alarms without my noticing, as well as for the trio’s silent approach. But there’s no way he wields as much offensive power as I do just by breathing. Or with only a hint of light to harness.

I don’t go anywhere without a light source.

The leering shifter is beneath my notice, but Le Loup is more powerful than any shifter I’ve ever faced. Mostly due to the obscene power of his chosen.

It’s possible he can move faster than I can manifest a blade.

As if sensing my train of thought, Raoul holds up a placating hand. Apparently, whatever my expression reflects of my thoughts isn’t nearly inscrutable enough to fool the senses of Le Loup.

I will my heart rate to even out.

It does. Because I’m not some novice.

“What can I do for you, Raoul?” I ask coolly. My use of his first name when we’re not familiar with each other in the least is pointed. For anyone but me, it would practically be a declaration of war.

I’ve cultivated an offish asshole reputation ever since knowing I would take my father’s place decades before my time. The previous Earl of Hereford, my father, was ill for almost twelve years with an essence-wasting sickness that the family hid for as long as we could.

That I hid.

That sickness is something I have to get tested for, extensively, before I sign any breeding contracts. Though I’ve already taken steps to ensure that my position — the lands, title, and monies — can be inherited by a chosen child. A child who doesn’t need to be related to me.

Unfortunately, the seat on the World Council — one of only six remaining that still follow a bloodline — can’t be inherited by anyone not of my blood.

The chosen of the shifter standing before me — one of the most powerful people in the entire world, and the only purple-eyed awry on the council — holds one of the other five seats.

A child of his blood will inherit that seat.

Or, more likely, a grandchild. Unless the power that continually flows through them consumes their minds, the awry are long lived.

If they survive to adulthood in the first place.

Raoul is still staring at me patiently as my mind wanders, trying to piece together the puzzle before me. But the edges of it are still murky.

I’m not going to repeat myself. I raise an eyebrow instead .

Raoul grins— a sharp baring of teeth more than a smile. “Just trying to understand what she sees in you.” He waves a hand, narrowing his eyes as if in assessment. “Besides the position.”

He’s not talking about Lia. He’s not talking about sexual positions. Not being sarcastic or ribbing me.

He tilts his head in that shifter way, confirming my assumptions in his next declaration. I’ve never met a single shifter who appears to give a shit about revealing too much of themselves through body language.

“When would you two have met? Through Armin?”

It’s not really a question, more a speculation. But I very suddenly know exactly who he means. Who the she is.

The unbidden memory of Armin crashing his mouth over mine instantly rises to the forefront of my mind.

For the second time in a matter of minutes.

The taste of chemicals on his tongue. Drugs, I later presumed.

The unnatural heat of his skin— also most likely a product of whatever drug he was indulging in that evening.

She quietly called out his name, just beyond the door to the mostly dark back room.

I don’t even know what the fuck I was doing at the club that night.

A slight glow from her purple eyes cut through that darkness.

A soft smile settled over her lovely face as Armin abandoned me midsuck to return her greeting, then go to her.

Not that she would have seen anything but him striding toward her.

I command light, after all. And though I’m still not certain why, for that one moment, I pushed all light away from me. As if I didn’t want her to see me with her brother. Though why that would have mattered, I have no idea.

Raoul’s nostrils flare, scenting me. Scenting my confusion, or my misplaced … grief? It bothers me that he can figure me out on a level I can’t truly control.

“We haven’t formally met,” I say, not pretending I don’t know what he’s talking about.

He hums thoughtfully. “My mistake.” Then he tugs a thick cream-colored envelope out of his suit pocket and holds it out to me. My name and title are written across the front. Nothing else. A pressed black-wax seal closes the back flap.

I sneer. “You aren’t a messenger boy, Le Loup.”

“I take the roles, the duties, that fall to me,” he says, completely unruffled. “But this is personal.”

Frowning, I step around the desk to take the envelope. He doesn’t immediately yield it to me, and it gets tugged between us for a moment.

He leans closer. “This family has already lost one child.”

I stiffen my shoulders. “I would never —”

“If you aren’t ready to step up, Elias,” he says, “I suggest you send your regrets.”

I fucking bristle at that. Only inwardly. But still, for the first time in years, maybe even a decade, my essence twists around my wrists unbidden. That power surges into my palms at the suggestion that there’s anything I cannot conquer, any issue I cannot solve.

My whole fucking life has been one battle leading to another.

I win.

“Well, there you are,” Raoul murmurs incomprehensibly. “Maybe I was wrong. But it’s going to take more than sheer power.”

He releases the envelope before I can snap his head off — figuratively. I almost lose my balance because I’ve been tugging at it so hard.

Raoul is already stepping through the door with the other two guards flanking him before I get the envelope open. I pull out an invitation on heavy card stock and a folded sheaf of papers that at first glance appears to contain a plethora of instructions.

I blink down at the invitation to a spring equinox ball — an exclusive event I wouldn’t dream of turning down the chance to attend. But I have no idea how it connects to Raoul’s barely veiled threats.

Then I look closer at the cover letter.

Then I read through the set of instructions that have indeed been included.

Then I just stand there, in the middle of an office that doesn’t yet feel like my own. Not even after five years of occupying it.

Eclipsing my father, or even securing my line, has never really been a fully formed thought.

It’s not even a goal on my horizon. I’ve just tried to be worthy of the position represented by the seat.

I’ve taken care of the estate and all the relatives, no matter how distant, but have barely enjoyed any of it.

Not after watching my father waste away, consumed by his own degrading essence.

I make my way around the desk. My limbs are numb, even as my brain is churning through the information contained in the envelope, so much less benign than it appears.

I sit and read through everything again. Only this time, I make notes in the margins.

Lia steps through the open door and into my office. Though it’s possible she’s been there for some time and I’ve only just noticed.

She doesn’t approach.

I look up to realize that the room is filled with shards of crystalline light that radiate outward— with me at the very center of their arc. Nothing deadly. Yet. Just primed and waiting for my command. It’s an unprecedented lapse of the strict hold I have on my power .

But instead of recalling the essence I’ve inadvertently layered protectively around me, I slump back in my chair, heedless of wrinkling my suit now.

The contract I’ve just signed with Lia is still sitting on my desk. I stare at it for a moment. Then I slowly reach for it, draw it to me, and thoughtfully rip it in half. One way, then the other.

Lia inhales sharply.

How the fuck Raoul could have thought I’d send regrets to either of the invitations, I don’t know.

I set the torn sheaf of paper on the edge of the desk, benignly dispersing the light shards I inadvertently erected to protect myself while my mind was whirling. I haven’t done that since I was a child.

No. Since I was a teenager, sitting at the side of my father’s sickbed during the first of his episodes. Episodes the healers kept pulling him back from until they could no longer help.

“Shred this for me, please,” I say coolly. “And your copy. I apologize, Lia, but something has come up. I’m not in the position to fulfill my end. Nor will I risk even a hint of being involved with anyone right now.”

Lia’s brow furrows. For a moment, I think she might cry. Thankfully, she just nods and crosses into the room to take the torn contract and retrieve her own briefcase.

“Are you … is everything all right?” she asks softly.

“More than all right. Thank you.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“I’ll need an appointment with my doctor and my estate lawyer tomorrow morning. They will fit me in.”

Lia nods, more tentatively. “Are you … sure you are …”

I offer her a smile. At first, it’s just a mimicry of what I think she needs to move forward with this moment. But then the truthfulness of it stretches wide across my face .

“Never better.”

Lia blinks, smiling at me with a little bit of wonder. “I’ll secure those appointments before I leave.”

She doesn’t ask about dinner. Or about the present still sitting unopened on my desk. She’s halfway back to the door when I remember something else she can do for me.

“Lia.”

As she spins back, a hint of hopefulness filters over her face before she sees that I’m holding a piece of paper out to her.

That hint of hopefulness makes me feel like a complete asshole before I ruthlessly shove that emotion away.

I’m momentarily relinquishing the invitation to the main ball.

The second invitation isn’t leaving my person, not until the moment I use it to gain the entry — the access — it promises.

Everything else implied in it, by it, I’ll have to work my ass off to achieve. But I’ve never met a hurdle I couldn’t overcome.

“I need to know as discreetly as possible who else has been invited to this.”

Lia nods, stepping back to take the invitation from me.

I have no doubt that the ball will host over a hundred guests, but that the second invitation has been offered only to a select group. Still, I’ll be able to make contingency plans based on the names Lia uncovers.

“I need my schedule cleared of in-person events and meetings, starting from March 18 and for at least two weeks. You should start working on that now. As soon as you get me that guest list, I’ll have you start on creating more specific dossiers.

Actually, filter the confirmed guests to me as you have them. I’d rather be overprepared.”

Lia is blinking rapidly, likely trying to piece together whatever I’m working on. But when I don’t continue, she simply nods, turns on her heel, and strides through the door, leaving it open behind her.

I stare into my office, sightless for the moment, trying to empty my mind.

My life is about to be derailed. I have no doubt of my ability to jump through the hoops that have been neatly and very professionally lined up for me to navigate in the next two and a half weeks — but I just need a moment to rectify it all in my head.

It’s ridiculously short notice. So there’s more to this situation than what it appears to be on the surface.

Princess Euphrosyne is about to be matched with a chosen bond mate. I’m on the short list. Possibly placed there by her own hand, if I’m correctly reading Raoul’s statements.

And it doesn’t matter if the tests I need to get — the hereditary tests I’ve avoided taking my entire adult life — reveal that I have a chance of wasting away from the same sickness that took my father.

Because Her Royal Highness is now her father’s heir.

Between us, that’s two seats on the World Council.

If she chooses me.

If I can’t be the sperm donor to our potential children, it’s no matter.

I think back to the last time I set eyes on Mirth — a name I’ve only heard in passing from Armin’s lips when he whispered it with love and consideration as he left me in his wake.

I didn’t even seek his attention in the first place.

Power raged under Armin’s skin that night, heating him from within. Helped along by copious drugs and alcohol, no doubt. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to guess that his power was held in check by those substances.

He usually kept his purple eyes covered, but not that night. That night, he also abandoned dancing with his lovely, sweet-tempered sister to momentarily seek me out.

But it’s her eyes I remember.

Lit from within, that purple glow was completely contrary to the soft smile she greeted her brother with.

Would the power indicated by the mere color of Mirth’s eyes rage against my skin as Armin’s did? Or is she as sweet as her smile?

I open the calendar on my laptop, set up a linked note, and begin to transcribe the longhand notes I’ve jotted in the margins of the extensive instructions.

Six months.

Armin died only six months ago. A powerful telekinetic killed in a skiing accident. A thing that should have been impossible. The rumors that sprang forth — of other reckless behaviors, or that it was foul play, or even another attempted kidnapping gone wrong — were rampant throughout the media.

Armin died just three weeks after shoving his tongue in my mouth unbidden. His abrupt and exceedingly reckless behavior with me was easier to believe in the wake of his senseless death than it had been at the time.

But now, with the second invitation possessively pressed to the desk under my hand, Armin’s recklessness takes on an entirely new tenor.

Mirth’s brother abandoned her. Heedlessly, even if not maliciously. He twisted her fate by being reckless with his own life.

Maybe even suicidal? Though I haven’t heard even a hint of that conjecture, so I might be completely off base.

Having assisted my father in his own suicide, I can’t judge the act itself. Only the ramifications.

The chancellor is an even bigger asshole than I am. To force this archaic matchmaking event on his grieving daughter, his grieving family.

Raoul’s threats make far more sense now. He feels protective of Mirth, but he can’t go against his own chosen.

But if this is happening, it will be me on the finish line.

No matter what I have to do to get there.

Because I don’t lose.

I open a second note and start making a list of all the things I need to know about Her Royal Highness.

Favorite flowers, sweets, food, books, music, and designers, including jewelry, clothing, and bags.

Plus what charities she supports. If I haven’t already, I’ll need to make generous donations to all of them. Does she follow sports? Ride horses?

This dossier, I’ll build myself.

I need the perfect courting gift. And I’ve got eighteen days to find it.