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  Chapter Thirty-two

  Charlotte

  Someone pounding on the door woke me up. I looked around blearily and realized that Kristoff was already alert, up on one elbow. He was also still hard inside me. Wow—how had he managed to stay hard all night like that?

  The pounding came again and he withdrew, making me give a stifled little moan. I missed him the moment he was gone.

  “Who is it?” Kristoff demanded, his voice deep and protective.

  “It’s me, Captain Verrai.” The voice was vaguely familiar. I thought it might be the Guard who had warned us that the Trials of Ascension had been moved up. What was his name again? Something with a T…

  “T’zorin?” Kristoff got out of bed and pulled on the bottom half of his uniform. He looked incredible in the short leather kilt with his bare, muscular chest.

  Mine, I couldn’t help thinking. He’s all mine now…and I’m his.

  It was a happy thought, shattered the next minute when I heard the other guard calling through the door.

  “Captain, the Council of Wisdom is demanding that the Empress appear before them right now to tell who she has chosen as her Consort.”

  Crap! I sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the heavy, gold satin sheet to my chest as though the entire Council had suddenly appeared in my bedroom to glare at me accusingly. What were we going to do? I had foolishly assumed I would have some time—at least a day or so—to make some kind of a plan. Now, here I was, summoned to a Council meeting with no idea of what I would do or say.

  Kristoff walked into the other room and I heard him conferring in low voices with T’zorin.

  “You can go to the Council Chamber and try to delay some if you want, Captain,” the other guard was saying. “I will escort the Goddess-Empress there when she is ready.”

  “No,” Kristoff said at once. “I thank you for your offer, T’zorin but this is not a meeting which can be avoided or stalled.”

  My heart sank into my shoes. If Kristoff thought I had to go, then I had to go. But what was I going to say? I knew what I wanted to say, but I didn’t think Kristoff would go along with it at all.

  “Tell the honor guard we will be going to the Council Chamber very shortly,” Kristoff told him. When he came back into the bedroom, his handsome face had a grim cast to it. “Come, my Lady—it’s time to get you ready to meet the Council.”

  “All right.” I lifted my chin and got up quickly. “Do I have time for a shower?”

  “You’ll have to,” Kristoff said. “We must do the best we can to wash my scent off you. It won’t be easy since you’re completely covered in it—inside and out.”

  I blushed but held my ground.

  “Why should we wash it off?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “Why don’t I just tell the Council this is my decision and declare you my Consort.”

  He sighed. “Charlotte, we’ve been over this. It will look like you’re committing blasphemy if you choose a non-Royal as your Consort.”

  “No—it will look like I’m making a new rule—the first one of my time as the Goddess-Empress. Which is that the Empress gets to pick her own mate and the Council has no say in her private life.”

  I liked the sound of that but Kristoff was already shaking his head.

  “Do you know what that would do to the balance of power between the Royals and everyone else? If the Goddess-Empress is allowed to take a commoner bond-mate, the other Royals will be allowed to mate with them as well. It will mix and muddy the Royal bloodlines which have been carefully protected for centuries.”

  “Protected why? Just so the Royals can feel special?” I asked. “This isn’t the Star Bellied Sneeches, Kristoff. I don’t give a damn about upholding a law that basically keeps the Majoran people from having class equality.”

  “You’d better not let the Council hear you say that,” he said grimly. “Or any of the leading Royals—you might as well paste a target on your back. My Lady, for your own protection, I beg you not to name me your Consort. If you have to say anything, tell the Council that you don’t feel drawn to any of the candidates and you choose not to have a Consort.”

  “I thought you said they wouldn’t like that either,” I said, frowning.

  “They won’t. But it’s better than naming a non-Royal as your Consort. Now come—we must get you ready to go.”

  He had me showered, dressed in another rich, royal looking gown—in shimmering gold trimmed with rubies this time—and on the way to the Council Room before I knew it.

  I wished I had more time to argue my case for making him my Consort—I didn’t like lying and I wanted to be upfront with the Council of Wisdom and let them know they didn’t own me and couldn’t dictate my life. But Kristoff seemed to think this would put me in an insane amount of danger and since he was the head of my security, I decided to listen to him

  Soon I was standing in front of the assembled Council, who were sitting on their raised, semicircular platform, looking down on me again. I felt like a kid being called to the principal’s office—not a good feeling.

  Off to one side were the three candidates from the night before—the five year old boy, wriggling to be loose of his mother’s arms, the old grandpa with gray hair who was asleep in a chair someone had pulled up for him, and Morbain, grinning like a cat who’d gotten into the cream.

  Well, I would soon wipe that grin off his face, I thought with some satisfaction. Standing beside the little group of candidates was someone else I hadn’t expected to see—Dr. Churika. She was dressed in a long gray robe and had her usual disapproving expression on her face when she looked at me. Clearly, she still didn’t think much of me. That was okay—I didn’t much like her either. Her bedside manner sucked.

  “Now then, this meeting of the Council of Wisdom with the True Incarnation will come to order,” Tannus said, banging on his podium with the fist-sized crystal he used for a gavel.

  He had a smirky expression on his face. Clearly he and Morbain thought they had this in the bag. I would be more than happy to disabuse them of that notion.

  “Let it be known that the Council of Wisdom has summoned the True Incarnation for the purpose of—” he began but Kristoff interrupted him.

  “The Goddess-Empress is here as a courtesy to you, Head Councilor,” he said, stepping forward with a frown. “But you should not get into the habit of summoning her at your whim. When all is said and done, the Empress has authority over the Council of Wisdom and not the other way around, as you are well aware.”

  Tannus frowned. “And the Council is in good standing with the Majoran Royal peerage, as you are aware, Captain Verrai. Therefore don’t make threats you can’t carry through with.”

  “No one is making a threat here, Councilor Tannus,” I said, thinking it was high time I spoke up for myself. “Kristoff is simply letting you know that from now on if you want a meeting with me, you ask for one. Don’t just have a meeting and expect me to show up.”

  He glared at me and seemed about to speak but Morbain stepped forward, stroking his long mustache.

  “Now, now—there’s no need for enmity between the Empress and the Council. It’s simply been twelve hours since the Culling Ceremony—the traditional time limit for an Empress to announce her Consort following the Culling. Myself and the other, ah, candidates are assembled that you may choose between us.” He smirked at me and said in a lower voice. “Just trying to put you out of your misery, my dear. I don’t know how you’ve held out this long but by now you must be in absolute agony to have your, ah, Royal needs met. I stand ready to service you when you finally admit what you feel for me.”

  Kristoff growled possessively and stepped forward, his hand on the hilt of his sword but I put a hand on his bicep.

  “It’s all right,” I said in a low voice. And then, lifting my chin, I addressed the Council. “I am happy to let the Council of Wisdom know who I would choose as my Consort,” I said.

  I saw Tannus and Morbain exchange a look of smug satisfac