Blaze called the meeting for the following morning.
No preamble on the beast wire summons. Just a time, a location, and the words attendance mandatory in the clipped, non-negotiable syntax of a man who had spent enough years commanding things that he had forgotten how to phrase requests. Nerion read it over Ella's shoulder at the breakfast table, said nothing, and portaled them both to the capital's meeting room forty minutes early.
Lucian was already there when they arrived.
He was seated at the far end of the table with one ankle crossed over his knee and a cup of something hot steaming beside his beast wire, looking for all the world like a man who had simply decided to be wherever the room was before the room existed. His hazel eyes moved to Ella the moment she stepped through the p
