Chapter 171

Theodore’s POV

The Bravern-Fairweather Bash, as Marcy had insisted we call it, had been everything. The mingling of our two magical families, separated from us for so much of our lives, felt like the righting of a simple but powerful wrong. Like the wedding celebration we should have had instead of the disaster Lucas had unfathomably been pardoned for that still haunted my dreams.

The next morning, as soon as I awoke, I rolled over to cuddle my mate and tried to fall back asleep. Every one of the past ten mornings, I had been excited to wake up next to her, to spend my days with her. But I didn’t want to wake up today, on the day I’d have to leave her again.

My wishing we wouldn’t have to didn’t stop it from happening though.

We had the car all packed before we joined everyone at the barn for our farewell breakfast with the Braverns and Fairweathers alike. The moment we walked in though, I noticed the mood was notably different.

Yesterday, people had cheered upon our entrance. The kids had been running around, the adults drinking and laughing. The barn had been a cacophony of love and joy and faith.

Today, the only acknowledgment of our arrival was Marcy raising her head and nodding us over to her. The kids were still running around, but even their playful screams seemed muted. All nineteen pairs of aunts and uncles, plus a few cousins from both families, were seated solemnly at a single, long table, looking at us expectantly.

Marcy waited for us to fill our plates with food before asking. “What’s the plan?”

I looked at my mate. It was a question we’d been working on every day during every spare minute we could manage. We didn’t have every detail laid out yet, but we had a decent outline.

I let Violet answer the question first. She was always better with a crowd than I was.

“We can’t share everything with you all for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to your own protection. But we’ll share with you what we can.”

I marveled at how effortlessly she projected her voice so even the farthest cousin all the way down the table could hear her.

“First, we have to keep playing along, letting Owen think that he has successfully separated me and Theo.”

We hadn’t shared the fake mate bond with everyone at first, but as we grew to trust some of our newest family members and realized how desperate we might become for allies, we risked telling all of them.

“Part of playing that game may result in headlines showing we’re separated. They will not be true, and we ask for your discretion in sharing that information with others.”

We had also had many conversations with everyone about Owen’s spies and about being prudent in deciding who to trust.

Violet splayed her fingers out on her still-flat stomach, and I knew what she would bring up next.

“Auntie – the High Priestess,” she added for my family’s benefit, “estimates that I’ll start showing in three weeks. If Owen finds out I’m pregnant with Theo’s child, and ultimately an heir to the throne, the child and I will likely become targets. To avoid that, we are hoping to take Owen down before then.”

“How?” Uncle Caleb asked. I wondered what it might feel like for the only survivor of the Bloody War in our family to see King Pavis’ son get punished.

Violet took a deep breath. “We haven’t figured that part out yet. If we can find out how to prove he used magic, thereby breaking the rules of his own Unlawful Magic Charter, and that he did so to willfully bring harm to two Alphas in his country, we believe even his staunchest supporters would agree to have him dethroned.”

“But you still haven’t figured out how to prove that?” Aunt Prynne asked. Violet shook her head.

“Has anybody else?” Aunt Marissa, and Caleb’s wife, asked to the long length of table, reminding me that every person here had been scouring their own local libraries during every minute they could spare us.

Even if we didn’t have the answers we needed yet, by the Goddess, were we blessed.

No one spoke up at Aunt Marissa’s question. When they didn’t, she turned her gaze to us. “I was thinking,” she said, “maybe the answer to that question is less important than Owen thinking you have the answer.”

I blinked as I considered her words. It was… a good idea, possibly. I turned to my wife and was delighted to find her eyes unfocused, flitting back and forth.

She was already strategizing.

I couldn’t help but smile as I responded while my brilliant mate mulled over the suggestion. “Thank you, Aunt Marissa. That is an excellent point that I’m sure you can see Violet is already taken with.”

A few family members chuckled, and the sound seemed to bring Violet back into the room, though I knew her calculations had only just begun.

“And what do you need from us?” Aunt Marissa spoke again, her arm wrapping around her husband, and I understood. Only he had been allowed to go to war, but in her soul, Aunt Marissa was a warrior.

And if this was the battlefield she had access to, she was going to fight like hell.

I didn’t quite know what to do with that information yet, but I knew it would come in handy.

“We’re not sure yet,” Violet responded. “Bennett will continue to make weekly deliveries to Theo and act as a point of liaison should we need to contact the families here in Henosis. I know that many of us have exchanged phone numbers over the past ten days, and as a reminder, we need to assume that Owen could have access to anyone’s phone records.”

Several sets of teeth clenched around the table at the mention of the king’s violation of privacy.

“Until you receive the okay from us, we are bummed to need to ask you all not to contact us via phone.”

“Except me!” Bennett yelled from the far end of the table.

I rolled my eyes at his exuberance. We had come up with a cover story that he and I had “run into each other” during my trip, recognizing each other from his weekly deliveries to my home, and become acquainted. “Yes, Bennett, except you,” I agreed, and chuckles reverberated down the table.

Violet took my hand, and my heart clenched at how right it felt. “The words do not exist,” she said to the entire barn full of our family, “to express the difference each of you has made in our lives over the past ten days… and over the course of our entire lives. For now, all we can say is thank you, and we love you.”

Around the table, relatives nodded in agreement, some blinking away tears, others resting their hands on their hearts in deference.

We finished the rest of the breakfast in companiable silence as the weight of what was coming settled into the room. When the food was gone, we begrudgingly said our goodbyes, our parting words not conveying enough and our hugs too brief. Then with a smack on Violet’s ass from Marcy and a brash, “Not get outta here, you sassy cow,” my mate and I piled into the car with smiles and tears on our faces.

My heart nearly broke as Violet silently unclasped my mother’s token hanging around her neck and zipped it into her suitcase.