“You’re an intelligent woman,” she said, “I’d have thought that was obvious.”
I shook the droplets of water from my hands, then dried them on the back of my jeans. Her nose twitched slightly.
“Well,” I drawled, “I guess you’ll just have to enlighten me.”
She took a step forward. I realised that she was at least a foot and a half taller than me. I tried not to feel small and insignificant by comparison.
“You are friends with Solus.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s Fae.”
“Yeah.”
“You are also friends with that mage. Alex? The one with the appalling vocabulary?”
“Yeah.”
“And with the Lord Alpha.”
Well, I didn’t know if I’d call him a friend, but okay. I shrugged. “Yeah. What’s your point?”
“Nobody else has the ear of all three groups. You even have a vampire on your side.”
“Ex-vampire.” I had a horrible feeling I knew where she was going with all this. I really hoped I was wrong.
“You have strength. And magic. You have proven yourself worthy in a number of situations.”
I had the faintest inkling that the dryads might beg to differ slightly on that point, but I kept my mouth shut.
She continued. “You are the obvious choice to lead our new little anti-necromancer council.”
Fuck. “No. Absolutely not. I am the worst possible choice.”
“Hear me out, Mackenzie. You saw how bad things were in there. How much everyone disagreed with each other. The only person who’s ever had any real success in getting us to work together is you. You did it at Haughmond Hill and you did it to some extent in that room.”
I felt slightly nauseous. “I have a terrible temper. I’d be as likely to bite someone’s head off as to motivate them to work with others.”
“It seems to me,” she said, “that you have somewhat conquered those baser impulses. Besides, people need their heads bitten off on occasion.”
I swallowed. “I like working alone. I’m an independent kind of person. There’s no ‘I’ in team,” I added for cheesy melodramatic effect.
“There’s an “I” in council. And it needs someone independent to lead it. Someone who will get things done.”
“I don’t want to,” I stated petulantly.
“We all have to do things we don’t want to do from time to time. That’s what responsibility is. You know as well as I do that if we can’t work together then we’ll never be able to overcome someone as powerful as this Endor is. He’s a genuine threat to each and every one of us. You don’t want more blood to spill, do you?”
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe she was pulling that card. “Fuck off,” I said rudely. “Whenever I’m involved, that’s exactly what happens.” I leaned in towards her, bloodfire lighting up along the lines of my veins. “I get people killed. You need someone else.”
“There is no-one else,” she stated implacably, ignoring my aggressive stance. “You know there’s no-one else whom everyone will be able to respect.”
“She’s right, dragonlette,” Solus quietly said.
I looked away. Fuck the pair of them. I didn’t want to be anyone’s leader. I certainly didn’t want to be the leader of these idiots who could barely agree on the fact that sky was sodding blue.
The Summer Queen was watching me carefully. “What alternatives are there, Mackenzie?”
Damn it. There were none and she knew it. The shifters would never accept a faerie or a mage. The faeries and the mages would be the same. There was Balud, but I was pretty sure that his main motive lay with his profit margin.
“What about Aubrey?”
They both just looked at me, unblinkingly.
I sighed. “Okay, fine. Whatever. I’ll do it. But not for long, alright? Only until we get rid of Endor. And only if every single person in that room agrees.”
The Summer Queen permitted herself a small smile. There was a tentative knock on the door, and the Arch-Mage’s head curved round.
“Well?” he asked.
“She agreed.”
He exhaled loudly. “Great. Did you…?”
The Summer Queen shook her head. “Not yet.”
I stared at them suspiciously. “What?”
“You need to be impartial, Mackenzie.”Well, duh. “I think I can manage that.”
“If you’re not impartial,” chimed in the Arch-Mage, “then the council will fall apart before it even starts.”
“Okay. I’ll be fair. I can’t think why you’d believe I wouldn’t be.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realised what they were getting at. My mouth dropped open. “No.”
“You know that we need you to head the council if we’re going to have any chance of beating Endor.”
“You can’t make me do this.”
“You grew up with the shifters, Mackenzie. Even with your other alliances there will be concerns that your loyalties will lie with them.”
“I left them,” I said desperately. “Of my own free will. I don’t have ties to them any more. Not like that. I’ll be fair. I’ll be impartial. You can’t force me to do this.”
“We’re not forcing you. It’s ultimately your decision.”
“But unless you give him up, you can’t be the unbiased leader of a mixed council.”
“And without a mixed council, without that collaborative power, there’s little chance we’ll be able to beat Endor.”
I could feel my whole body sagging in response to their tag-team approach.
“You can’t be in a relationship with the Lord Alpha, dragonlette.”
I stared at Solus, angry flickers of fire sparking up all over my body.
“You have to be seen to be above reproach,” the Summer Queen stated simply.
The Arch-Mage’s expression was pure stone. “And you need to rise up beyond such things and think rationally. You will have plenty of opportunity once this whole nasty business is done and dusted to make it up to him. But for now the split needs to be real. You have to have a purely business relationship with Corrigan from this point on.”
“Let’s face it,” the Queen added, “it’s not as if you’re already in a long term relationship with him. It’s been what, less than twenty-four hours since you both…”
I glared at her. She fell silent. I threw Solus a dirty look for passing on idle gossip. He was staring unhappily down at the tiled floor. Screw him then.
I kicked angrily at the wall. There was no choice. Yet again. What was the point in having free will if you were constantly being painted into a corner?
“Fuck!” I shouted aloud, my cry echoing around the room. “Fuck!”
“Thank you, Mackenzie.” The Summer Queen bowed her head. She knew that inside I’d already agreed. “It’s for the greater good.”
“I’ll call the others back in,” said the Arch-Mage. “You’re doing the right thing, you know.”
Hot tears pricked at the back of my throat. How could this be the right thing when it felt so wrong?
Both the head of the mages and the ruler of the Seelie Fae turned and left. Solus and I were alone.
“I’m sorry, dragonlette,” he said miserably. “I didn’t…”
“Shut up. Just shut up.” I brushed past him, my heart aching. Sorry just wasn’t going to cut it.
Chapter Twenty Five
I wanted to talk to Corrigan on my own. He deserved to hear from me personally, without any of the others nearby. I needed to explain what was happening. By the time I’d exited from the bathroom, however, he was nowhere to be seen.
I pushed out my Voice. Corrigan? Where are you?
Back in the boardroom. Apparently we’ve been summoned to return. There was a touch of sardonic amusement in his reply. My heart sank.
I need to talk to you.
“Mackenzie, we need you inside now.” The Summer Queen was holding open the door and gesturing me inside.
“I want to talk to Corrigan first.”
“There’s no time. We need to wrap this up now before things degenerate further.”
I opened my mouth to refuse, but I was interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle from within Alcazon’s private boardroom. Heart sinking, I walked inside. Beltran had cornered one of the other mages and the pair of them were shouting at each other. I yanked at the corner of his shirt and pulled him backwards.
“Get it together, you idiot,” I hissed, despair that his petty altercation was preventing me from getting hold of Corrigan raging through me.
“Why don’t you sit down, Mackenzie?” invited the Fae Queen, her tone all sweetness and light.
It took almost everything I had not to turn around and slap her but with the weight of everyone’s eyes suddenly on me this wasn’t the time to make my real feelings clear. Unfortunately it was neither appropriate to demand a little alone time with the Lord Alpha – not any longer. Instead, I took my seat. I could feel Corrigan looking at me, but somehow I couldn’t turn round and meet his gaze. Everything was going all so very wrong.
Mack? What’s wrong?
I swallowed. Corrigan, I…
“We’ve had a little meeting just now,” declared the Arch-Mage. “And I’m pleased to say that I think we have a solution to our problems.”
“Indeed,” said the Summer Queen. “We are all agreed that we need to work together if we are to defeat Endor. He has already proven himself too powerful and, while we do not yet know what his end game really is, we must acknowledge that he is to be stopped before he even comes close.”
There were mutterings of agreement. I was really rather hoping that Endor would take this very moment to appear and prevent her from saying anything more. No such luck, however.