Page 60 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

E LIAS

“What the fuck!” Bolan snarls as we all watch Mirth walk away from us. The sullen rock-star shifter lunges for the balcony door to race after Her Highness.

“Stop!” Christoph’s essence-backed command booms across the balcony, actually causing Bolan to stumble under its weight.

The rock star spins back. His face is rippling, canines lengthening as he lowers his head and all-out snarls at the bear shifter.

Christoph simply crosses his arms, huffing at Bolan as if he’s some errant pup.

Sully, still distractingly half-naked with a white towel wrapped around his slim hips, stares at Christoph with wide eyes. He felt the dominance push as well as I did. Despite both of us being mages. Yet another confirmation of the impressions I’ve been cobbling together.

All of Sully’ s bratty playfulness drains away — as it has every other time Mirth has left him behind. Left us behind.

Though it’s taken me the last thirty-six hours to figure out the ‘us’ part of that. A reality that I’m still frantically formulating in my head as the two shifters face off in a dominance struggle.

“The little awry is not prey,” Christoph says. “Not to be chased when she doesn’t want to be caught.”

Sully shakes off his shock enough to speak. “Plus you make it fucking worse every time you open your fucking mouth, Ollie.”

Bolan’s head snaps to Sully. Too much of his wolf is pressing against his skin for my comfort.

I reach for the light sources, with plenty of those to be found in the candles and heat lamps despite evening having fallen. They flicker under the touch of my essence, dimming.

“I’ve got it,” Christoph says, not taking his gaze off Bolan despite addressing me.

“She’s mine!” Bolan snarls, the wolf clearly in his voice.

“She hasn’t chosen yet,” Christoph says mildly. But I can feel the pressure the bear shifter is exerting on the younger wolf.

Bolan’s dominance isn’t in question. It was obvious even in school, even with me three years ahead of him. It’s obvious in how he commands a room and captures the adoration of millions of fans.

But as is also obvious, he’s not at full strength. The partial shift to wolf he’s now exhibiting is a loss of control, not a deliberate choice. He’s too skinny, too pale.

“Calm down, cub,” Christoph says, still in that mild tone. “Take a breath. Give us a moment to have a conversation.”

“Conversation?” Sully asks, though his attention is back on the glass door that leads to Mirth’s apartments. And her bedroom beyond.

Bolan paces restlessly, but the sharpness to his features eases as the wolf retreats under his skin. He keeps glancing at Christoph, though, as if testing the bear shifter’s control. Over him.

Christoph cedes the conversation to me with a tilt of his head.

“Is that normal?” I ask instead of immediately broaching the topic that the duke and I have already discussed. “For a bear to be able to calm a wolf? For a wolf to …”

“No!” Bolan throws a fierce look my way.

I don’t bother articulating the full thought, already knowing it’s yet another piece of the puzzle.

“As I’m sure hasn’t escaped your notice,” I say instead, “we’re the only unbonded suitors who remained after the first evening.

Which, along with the research I did after receiving my invitation, paints a fairly clear picture to me. ”

“We’re here for Mirth. As a weird consolation gift,” Sully says pissily. “But Bastian wasn’t ever going to allow her to pick any of us.”

“That makes sense for you and Bolan,” I say, pacing back to pluck up my whiskey as I sort through the next branches in this conversation.

“But Mirth and I had never met,” Christoph adds.

I nod. “And Mirth and I had barely met,” I say, letting the crystal tumbler dangle from my fingers but not bothering to drink.

I know that if I take a moment to admit it to myself, I don’t want the drink, or to sit under the heat lamps and try to count the stars as they appear in the sky.

Because Mirth is no longer cuddled next to me.

“You both are obvious inclusions,” Bolan snaps. “A duke with the largest intact duchy in Europe and an earl with a seat on the World fucking Council.”

“But none of that truly matters,” I say. “Because this event, and the match that Mirth needs, is about pure power, not land or money or position.”

“The awry connection,” Christoph rumbles, quietly supportive.

“The intersection point,” I say.

Sully and Bolan share a look. I have no doubt they already know far more than I do about intersection points and what they mean to Mirth. And what they meant to Armin even more so.

“I didn’t fully realize the connection until a moment ago.” I set my drink down, but without it as a light anchor, I then have to resist an impulse to pace. “It’s something to research further.”

Bolan has fully stilled, settling back against the stone railing and actually listening. For once.

“Or we could have an actual conversation with Mirth about all of it,” Sully says, moving as if he’s going to go chasing after the princess.

“Give us a moment more,” Christoph says.

Sully pauses, but he doesn’t look pleased about it.

I cut to the core of the topic. “We’re stronger united.”

“What?” Bolan frowns.

“The Mertons bonded Noah, their awry, the morning they got their invitation,” I say, focusing on presenting all my evidence.

Sully and Bolan are natural loners, except for the connection to Mirth.

And Armin. “Archie and Noah have been lovers for years, but Archie’s father is a prejudiced asshole about same-sex relationships.

Lord Merton allowing them to formally bond, and to bring Isla into that, is only strange if you also didn’t know that the Mertons were looking to entice another chosen. ”

“Explain quicker,” Sully says, something slightly desperate in his tone.

“I’m still piecing the fine details together,” I say cautiously.

“The awry connection,” Bolan murmurs thoughtfully. “Because Armin is dead.” He slumps to the floor, cradling his head in his hands.

Sully glances at the rock star. “The intersection point …” Desperation leaks through his tone, his entire body seeming to vibrate with it.

“You need to explain that to Christoph and me,” I say.

Bolan’s head snaps up. “After you lay out your plan.”

Christoph takes a step forward— and I realize we’ve gathered together. Slowly closed the space between each other.

“We form a bond group,” the duke says. “We four court Mirth as one united group. Together, we’re stronger than the Mertons or the Hernandezes.”

I flick my fingers dismissively. “The Americans aren’t really in play. I do think her father will factor in Mirth’s desires, but he’ll push her toward the Mertons. He can control the Mertons.”

“We’re stronger,” Christoph rumbles.

Bolan laughs a little harshly, a little wildly. “You want us to bond.”

“I’ll draw up contracts —”

“Contracts?” Bolan stumbles up and onto his feet. “If it were just about the type of power that can be contained on paper, Mirth could just fucking marry the filthy rich Lord Savoy! No alliances or paperwork needed.”

“There is no Lord Savoy,” I say, a bit more caustically than intended. The rock star’s attitude seriously tests my own control.

Bolan snorts, then looks pointedly at Sully .

Sully, completely uncharacteristically, shuffles slightly, then runs a hand through his hair, causing it to stick up at off angles.

“Explain,” I snap, because I’ve somehow missed whatever this is. I knew Salvatore was on the guest list but wrote him off as a childhood friend and former lover of Armin’s. “Your father was an oil baron, no lands or title.”

“Oil baron,” Bolan mutters derisively— letting me know that there’s more to uncover in Sully’s lineage.

“Well …” Sully says, “there aren’t any lands anymore, I suppose. But the title comes from my mother’s line.”

“But …” My mind reels. Sully’s mother was a … well, a high-fashion model is the best way to put it. One of those with only a first name, just like … Salvatore. “She was a Savoy?”

“And murdered by the so-called oil baron,” Bolan adds darkly. “Right before he carted baby Sully here off to school, then got murdered himself. Isn’t that right?”

Salvatore’s cheeks flush with anger, but he doesn’t deny Bolan’s assessment of his childhood.

“That …” I feel oddly shaky. I’ve been off kilter since receiving Mirth’s invitation, but I’m outright rattled now. “That puts you fifth in line for …”

“Fourth,” Christoph says.

Because Armin is dead.

A heavy quiet falls, all of us looking at each other. In my head, and even in the brief notes I’d started to put together, forming our own bond group with which to counter the Mertons’ suit seemed only logical.

“We need more information,” I finally say.

Christoph takes one more measured step forward, scanning each of us in turn. Then, inexplicably, he says, “I’m practically destitute.”

I blink at him. “You could sell — ”

“No,” he says without heat. Then he passes the same look over the rest of us again. “Lay it all out now. A true bond group supports each other. The chancellor won’t accept anything less, and Mirth shouldn’t have to either. What else is there?”

They all look to me. I open my mouth to say I have nothing to hide, then pause. “The essence-wasting sickness runs in my bloodline. I helped my father end his life five years ago, before it completely took his mind.”

“Have you been tested?” Bolan of all people asks it, and like it actually matters to him. “It was on that list of tests we all had to do, right? Have you seen the results?”

“It’s not conclusive. The tests, I mean.” I rub my hand over my face, then shake my head. “I’m a bad risk.”

Christoph huffs dismissively.

But it’s Sully who says, “You’re assuming a lot, Lord Hereford, including that Mirth is even interested in having children. Let alone that we’d choose you to be the father of that child.”