Battle Ground (The Dresden Files #17) - Jim Butcher Page 0,166

. . .” Her voice lowered. She never said the word Nemesis.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we owe it to Thomas to try to save her. And the child.”

Lara’s eyes became grim, and she gave me a small, firm nod and offered me her hand. “Shake on it, wizard?”

I nodded and traded grips with her. “Agreed.”

And a flickering something went between us. It wasn’t White Court mojo, I didn’t think. Just . . . a shivering note of energy. A harmony.

It was a promise both of us had put a measure of will behind. It was a promise both of us meant to keep.

We both had the same feelings about family.

“Excellent,” said Mab from behind us. “Lady Lara, upon due consideration, your third favor is granted. You have my permission to court my Knight. The wedding will commence at sundown.”

“Uh,” I said, “what?”

Lara arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“WHAT!!??” sputtered Molly.

I blinked at her. Then at Mab. Then at Lara. And then Lara and I both more or less simultaneously jerked our hands out of the grip they’d been in.

“The third favor requested of Winter,” Mab clarified. “Lady Lara desired a binding alliance with Winter. This seems wise to us. It will be done.”

“Not that part,” I stammered. “The part with a wedding.”

“The fusion of bloodlines is how these things are generally arranged,” Mab said in a deadly reasonable tone. “And you passed responsibility for such decisions to me when you swore your oaths, my Knight.”

“Hey, didn’t nobody say anything about weddings,” I protested.

Mab stared at me for half of a frozen second before saying, “You knew.”

Yeah, well. There wasn’t any weaseling out of that one. When Mab had staked her claim, she had done so in . . . an unmistakably intimate and thorough fashion. Mab had laid claim to my life. And I’d agreed to it. Also unmistakably.

I looked away from Mab, because she was probably in the right. I’d made a deal and sworn my oaths. Mab, as my liege, had not only the right, but the obligation to marry me off if it meant a more stable and secure Winter.

But that didn’t matter.

Because I’d had a long damned week.

And Murph was gone.

And the Winter mantle didn’t do a thing for that kind of pain.

“You know what you can do with your wedding?” I asked Mab pleasantly, and even though I knew I was about to offer her open defiance in front of witnesses, and that there was only one way she could react to such a thing, I felt the words coming up.

Mab’s gaze turned icy and settled on me.

And some part of me said, What the hell? and started looking for the most childishly insulting thing I could possibly say to her.

But before I could come up with something really good, open my mouth, and doom myself, Molly and Lara had both come between us.

“This is inappropriate to force upon him at this time,” Molly said in a cool, rational tone to Mab, as she put a hand on my shoulder. Her fingers closed in an icy vise, hard enough to make my arm go numb. It wasn’t quite as effective as slamming a gag over my mouth would have been, but it was close. “In the immediate wake of the battle and his personal losses,” Molly argued, “there is nothing to be gained by putting further strain upon him.”

“Your terms are acceptable,” Lara said immediately upon Molly’s heels. “But the customs of both my people and his own call for a more graceful and appropriate period of time before a formal union is commenced—as well as for a mourning period after the passing of one of the honored dead. To ignore either of these requirements would be for you and me to openly disrespect each other. It would send mixed messages to our vassals upon the very foundation of our alliance.”

Mab looked coldly furious, but her gaze flickered aside to Molly and to Lara for maybe a tenth of a second. She stared at me and then arched an eyebrow, daring me to defy her. “Do you concur with this assessment, my Knight?”

The part of me that missed Murphy and was sick of hurting wanted to scream, Go pound sand, you frigid witch. I am not your Ken doll.

Molly’s hand clenched me hard enough to make things in my shoulder crackle.

Maybe she and Lara hadn’t shown up only in an effort to keep me from losing it on Marcone. Maybe they’d come in an effort

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