Chapter 12 The report

Chapter 12 The report
Dorian
The report took him four hours not to write.
He sat at the desk in his apartment on the north side of Ashveil, clean lines, minimal furniture, nothing that couldn't be left behind in under ten minutes, a habit so old he'd stopped noticing it, and opened the encrypted channel to his father's court and stared at the blank document with his hands on the keyboard and didn't type anything.
This was not a problem he was accustomed to having.
Dorian Blackthorn did not hesitate. Hesitation was a luxury for people who hadn't been raised in Aldric Blackthorn's court, where uncertainty was weakness and weakness was invitation. He had filed reports on vampires who broke covenant law, on wolves who crossed territorial lines, on humans who had stumbled too close to things they shouldn't have seen. He had filed all of them without pause because they were correct and necessary and the law was the law.
The law was clear on hybrids.
He looked at the blank document.
He thought about silver-grey eyes and a girl who had kept her voice level with his hand around her throat and said I look forward to it like she was daring him to underestimate her.
He thought about the way she'd flinched at the word abomination and then straightened up anyway.
He closed the document without typing a single word.
This was tactical, he told himself. Filing immediately was premature. He needed more information. The hybrid's bloodline, her capabilities, her connections to the wolf pack, these were relevant details that a thorough report would require. His father expected thoroughness. Filing an incomplete report would be worse than filing late.
He was very good at convincing himself of things.
He poured two fingers of whiskey he didn't touch and sat in the dark of his apartment and thought about Evangeline Ashford.
Because that was the thing. That was the detail that had stopped his hands over the keyboard and wouldn't let him start.
He'd recognised the scent underneath everything else. The old bloodline, the specific signature of it — he'd been trying to place it since the car park and it had come to him at three in the morning two nights ago like a door opening in a dark room.
Evangeline Ashford. Old nobility. One of his father's — guests. That was the word used in the court. Guest. As if she'd chosen it. As if the tower on the eastern wing of his father's estate had a door that opened from the inside.
Dorian had been twelve when they'd brought her in. He'd seen her exactly once, walking in the garden under guard, dark haired and grey eyed and holding herself like someone who had not yet decided to be broken. He'd asked his father who she was and Aldric had said a complication, resolved in the tone that meant the subject was closed.
She'd been there ever since. Nineteen years.
The hybrid girl in Ashveil with the silver eyes was Evangeline Ashford's daughter.
Dorian sat with that in the dark for a long time.
His father had the girl's mother. Had kept her for nineteen years. And now the daughter had walked into Ashveil — the one place her mother's letter had apparently directed her, which meant Evangeline had planned this, had been planning it, had spent nineteen years in a tower working out how to get her daughter to the one place she'd be found by the people who could protect her.
He thought about filing the report.
He thought about what his father would do when he knew where Evangeline's daughter was.
He left the document blank.
His father's summons came at noon the next day.
Not a message. Not a request. A summons, the formal kind, the kind that arrived via two of his father's personal guard appearing at his door in full court dress with expressions that communicated exactly how optional his attendance was not.
Dorian let them in with the unhurried calm he'd spent years perfecting and poured himself the coffee he'd been about to make before they knocked and took his time drinking it while they stood by the door and tried to be intimidating.
"Tell him I'll be there this evening," he said.
"His Majesty requested"
"This evening," Dorian said pleasantly. "I'll need to travel. Unless he'd like me to arrive looking like I was dragged there, in which case do feel free to insist."
A pause. The guards exchanged a look.
"This evening," the taller one confirmed.
After they left Dorian stood at his window and looked out at Ashveil's grey midmorning and understood two things with the cold clarity that had always been his best feature.
His father already knew. Somehow, through whatever network of informants had kept Aldric Blackthorn ahead of every threat for three centuries, he already knew about the hybrid in Ashveil.
And Dorian had approximately eight hours.
He put down his coffee cup and picked up his jacket.
He found Caden Wolfe at the edge of the eastern wood, which suggested the wolf had been expecting him. Dorian appreciated efficiency even in people he found objectionable.
They stood six feet apart in the cold morning air with the particular careful stillness of two people who had maintained an armed neutrality for two years and were now being asked to do something considerably more complicated.
"Blackthorn," Caden said.
"I've been summoned," Dorian said, without preamble. "My father knows she's here. I don't know how — I didn't file the report."
Something moved in Wolfe's expression. Surprise, controlled quickly. "Why not."
Dorian considered several answers and selected the most defensible one. "Because I recognised her bloodline. Her mother is Evangeline Ashford."
The wolf went very still.
"She's been at my father's estate for nineteen years," Dorian said. "Not as a guest, whatever the official position is. She's been sending letters — I assume you know about the letter."
"Scarlett told me last night," Caden said. His voice had dropped into something quiet and dangerous. "Your father has had her mother for nineteen years."
"Yes."
"And you knew."
"I knew a woman named Evangeline Ashford was kept at the estate. I was twelve when they brought her in. I didn't know why until two nights ago." He held Wolfe's gaze steadily. "I'm telling you now."
The silence between them was a different kind than usual. Less like a boundary and more like two people standing on opposite sides of a problem and realising the problem was the same.
"What does your father want with Scarlett," Caden said.
"What he wants with all things he considers valuable and dangerous," Dorian said. "Control of them. Or elimination of them. Depending on his mood."
"That's not going to happen."
"No," Dorian said. And then, because it needed saying plainly, "It's not."
Caden looked at him for a long moment. Reading him the way wolves did, all instinct and attention, looking for the lie in it.
He apparently didn't find one.
"You're going to your father's court tonight," he said slowly.
"Yes."
"And when you get there."
"I'll find out what he knows and how much time we have." Dorian straightened his jacket. "And I'll see Evangeline Ashford, if I can manage it without drawing attention."
Another long look. "Why are you doing this."
Dorian had several answers for that too. He selected none of them.
"Because my father has had an innocent woman locked in a tower for nineteen years," he said instead. "And because" He stopped. Looked away briefly at the tree line, the fog moving through the pines. "Just because."
Caden Wolfe was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "If anything happens to her while you're gone"
"I know," Dorian said.
"I mean it, Blackthorn."
"So do I." He met the wolf's eyes. "Keep her close. Don't let her out of pack territory. And..." He paused, the next part costing him something he didn't examine. "Don't tell her I'm coming back."
"She's going to want answers."
"She'll get them." He turned to leave. "When I have something worth telling her."
He walked back through the fog toward his car and didn't look back and told himself the cold feeling in his chest was tactical concern and focus and had nothing whatsoever to do with silver-grey eyes and a girl who straightened up after every flinch.
He was very good at convincing himself of things.
He was becoming considerably less good at it.