To the Court of Love by M.C.A. Hogarth

Author:M.C.A. Hogarth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: M.C.A. Hogarth

BETROTHED

“So what burr’s under your saddle now?”

“Good one,” Petaq said over his steak, smothering the words with approving silvers.

“Thank you, I try,” Armin replied dryly.

“He’s really getting into this spook business,” Petaq continued, and didn’t drop out of Eldren on the last words… which created a piece of nonsense that Haladir was still parsing as his brother went on. “Ferreting out clues. Putting together puzzles. Assembling the big picture….”

“For Speaker-Singer’s sake, it wasn’t that hard. We’re barely into our one day break from our ‘training regimen’ and he’s already so distracted he’s practically walking into walls.”

Petaq grinned. “It’s love.”

“What?” Haladir said, drawn back to the conversation. “God and Lady, I falter one moment in my attention and the two of you are matchmaking, is that it?”

“Projection,” Armin said to the Glaseah sitting beside him.

“Oh, absolutely.”

None of the repressive looks that had worked on his daughter as a young girl had ever shown any effect on his blood-brothers, so he didn’t bother with the attempt. Reaching past them for the carafe, he refreshed his glass, wishing the wine had not been so well watered. Briefly. A pang gripped him, but he brushed the memory away. “You are speaking, I presume, of the flattering pursuit of the prince-consort’s mother.”

“Yessss?” Petaq said.

“Has this situation been upgraded to ‘pursuit’?” Armin applied himself to cutting his meat, almost daintily. It amused Haladir that someone so obviously related to a predator could have such delicate table manners. “Last I checked, we were still at the ‘cautiously circling one another’ stage.”

“There is nothing cautious about her circling,” Haladir said. “She has made it quite clear she means to wed me, bed me, and get an armada of children off me.”

“Great!” Petaq said. “When’s the ceremony?”

A long pause, during which Haladir struggled with the corners of his mouth.

“Come on, you know you want to laugh.”

“I…” He gave in and smiled. “Fine. It does strike one as humorous.”

“Strike ‘one,’” Armin said. “But not you, is that it? So what’s the problem?”

He had chosen two perspicacious aliens for his companions, so he had only himself to blame when they lived up to expectations. “Other than the scandal potential inherent in the princess’s father wedding her husband’s mother?”

Petaq snorted. “I seem to recall you saying something about preferring to be outrageous, rather than pitiable.”

“Outrageous as the man who dared grasp his own destiny, yes,” Haladir said. “Outrageous as the man who dove into an incestuously close relationship with a fresh woman not even a year after being granted a divorce?”

The Seersa frowned. “But you’re not related… are you?”

Petaq paused and rubbed his forehead.

Armin eyed the Glaseah. “What?”

“The genepool’s microscopic, Armin.”

The Seersa looked at Haladir and lifted both brows. “How bad is it?”

“We share grandparents, I’m afraid.”

“What he’s not telling you,” Petaq continued over the Seersa’s sputters, “is that sharing grandparents isn’t weird here. They tried to curb the problems with marriage taboos, but they didn’t make nearly enough headway. The medical staff’s slammed, hunting genetic errors now that my daughter’s got her clinic running.

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