Richelle Mead - The Immortal Crown

General Gan came down the spiral staircase ten minutes later, wearing a quilted velvet robe and the exhausted expression of one woken unexpectedly in the middle of the night. His eyebrows rose as he looked her over in her soaked state, and she didn’t need his next words to know he was thinking of the night she’d walked through the rain to enlist with him.

“Praetorian,” he said congenially. “You really need to start carrying an umbrella.”

Mae straightened and greeted him with a rigid salute, mustering as much dignity now in soaked men’s pajamas as she had in a pink party dress. “General,” she returned. “I apologize for the late hour . . . but I’ve come to ask a favor.”

Word Choice

Justin wasn’t surprised to find Mae gone when he woke. She didn’t need to sleep, and he wasn’t self-centered enough to believe that his own charms were great enough to keep her lying by his side all night.

She’s in the kitchen, said Horatio. It was the first he’d spoken in a while. The ravens had been unusually quiet throughout the recent drama, which Justin found surprising. Yesterday’s events had certainly seemed like they’d provide plenty of material for commentary.

But concern for the ravens vanished from his mind as he left his room and strode down the hallway. He was still deeply upset about what had happened to Mae, still deeply guilty for what he saw as his role in it. At the same time, he felt resigned and filled with hope. The barriers between him and her were finally down, and no matter what it took, he was resolved to track down the bastard who’d—

Justin, and his thoughts, came to a screeching halt as he rounded the corner and entered the kitchen. Mae was there, as Horatio had said . . .

. . . and she was in uniform.

In all their time together, Justin had never seen her in praetorian black, and he was startled by the effect. Once, when she’d been temporarily banned from the uniform, she’d spoken of the power it imparted. He could see it now. There was something about the uniform, with its mandarin collar and form-fitting black material, that seemed to wrap her in shadows, excellently conveying the fear and regality the praetorians strove for. She stood up straight against the wall, arms crossed, with her hair wound neatly back into a French braid. There was a fierceness to her beauty, and he decided then that she couldn’t have looked any more like a Valkyrie had she been in armor and a winged helmet.

“I feel underdressed,” he joked, heading for the coffee pot.

Tessa, sitting with Cynthia and Quentin at the table, blurted out, “Mae’s leaving.”

For a moment, he assumed she meant leaving for the day, but an assessment of the family’s somber faces set an alarm off in him that something wasn’t right. “Going where?” he asked, forcefully keeping his tone light.

“I’ve been reassigned,” Mae said. She was doing that thing she excelled at, so perfectly keeping any emotions or other contextual clues from her face and voice . . . which was, in itself, a warning sign. “I’m leaving within the hour. I can’t give the exact location, but I’ll be joining some other praetorians in the borderlands.”

“After what just happened in Arcadia? There’s no way they’d move you to active duty! Go talk to Gan. He’ll fix this.”

“I did talk to Gan,” she explained. “That’s how this happened.”

He stared at her in disbelief, as the truth of what she wasn’t explicitly saying hit him. “Then go talk to him again!” Justin exclaimed. “Make it un-happen. This is a fool’s errand, born out of a hasty emotional response and not letting yourself properly recover!” He regretted his words as soon as he said them, seeing lines of anger begin to crack her calm façade.

“Fool’s errand?” she asked. “This is an important job our country’s asking me to do! Ordering me to do. It’s not something I can just go ask to get out of!”

“You should’ve never asked to get into it!”

“Enough!” Cynthia abruptly stood up and shot meaningful looks at a wide-eyed Tessa and Quentin. “If you’re going to continue this conversation, then do it outside.”

“Gladly,” snapped Justin. He gestured grandly toward the front door. “After you.”

Mae stalked off without a word, and he turned to follow. As he did, Cynthia grabbed his hand.

“Justin,” she hissed. “If she really is being deployed somewhere, then there’s a chance you might never see her again. Think very, very carefully about what you’re about to say.”

He jerked his hand back. “I know what I’m doing.”

Outside, he found Mae waiting in the front yard and the world misty from last night’s rain. “What the hell happened?” he demanded. “Where did this come from?”

“Where do you think?” she returned, struggling to get her calm back. “I realized last night that I can’t stay here, so I went to Gan directly to override Internal Security’s request to keep me assigned to you.”

“You think running away is going to change what happened? That toting a big gun around will somehow heal you?”

“I’m not ‘running away.’ I told you, I’m serving my country as they need me.”

“They don’t need you specifically,” he countered. “They need bodies to send to the border to fight for them. Get Gan to pull you back.”

Mae’s face filled with outrage. “Why do you think it’s that easy to pull me back? And why do you think so little of my job? Didn’t you pay attention to the way they live in Arcadia? All these privileges and freedoms you enjoy here are because of the military—because of those bodies out there fighting for you!”

“I think very highly of your job,” he insisted. “It’s the rest of your motives I question.”

“I can’t stay attached to IS forever. That’s not the kind of work I enlisted for.”

His attempts at self-control unraveled. “You enlisted to be killed? If you really wanted to get out of IS, then why aren’t you being assigned with the rest of your cohort here in Vancouver? Why aren’t you doing monument duty with Val and Dag? Why are you going out to active combat in the borderlands? Why do you want to go out to active combat in the borderlands?”

He wasn’t the only one who snapped. “To get away from you!” she cried. “To get away from all of this—but especially you.”

Justin stood there frozen, as immobile as if he’d been knocked to the ground. “I see,” he said finally. “So, I guess that part about how nothing was going to change how you feel about me was kind of an exaggeration.”

“No,” she said, fists clenched at her sides. “It wasn’t. And neither was the part about you being infuriating. But there’s no way I’m going to let you do something stupid because of me. I won’t let you commit yourself to that god—”

“That’s my choice,” he interrupted.

“Not if it’s contingent on being involved with me,” she shot back. “I won’t let you do that. I’m pulling myself out of the equation. I’m freeing you from that god, and I’m freeing myself too. I’m done with this game, with godly affairs. I shouldn’t have dabbled in the first place. If I had, then last night—” Mae faltered and then found her resolve again. “Well, last night might not have happened.”

She looked so strong and beautiful out there, his Valkyrie in black, but the waver in her voice pierced his heart and told him the truth. Last night’s attack had had colossal effects. But how could it not have? Sexual assault wasn’t something one easily recovered from under so- called normal circumstances. Muddling it all up with this supernatural war . . . well, it was no wonder she wanted to leave.