“You will have to find a way to make this work,” Ambrose said softly from the other side of him. Ambrose was also a warrior angel. The man was even older than Tristan. In fact, he was pretty sure only Dante was older. He’d seen countless civilizations fall and rise from the ashes, and yet he’d found his true happiness in a demon named Balin, and Jamie, a djinn with eyes only for her men.
Tristan turned to the other man and frowned. “What do you mean?” He looked around them, making sure no one could hear the other man’s words. Though that would be out of his hands since practically everyone was supernatural.
“The only ones that can hear me are the ones with senses that allow that,” Ambrose continued. “And they know what I’m going to say as it is. We all know what you and Seth are feeling.” A shuttered expression passed over Ambrose’s face for a moment before he washed it away. “Talk to her. Get her away from here and find out what is going on. Because there is something going on.”
Tristan shook his head, even as Seth turned toward them. The merman sat on the other side of the table yet still a few people away from Amara. It was as if the group knew the three of them needed to be separated before they took the next step…or at least figured out what that next step was. Only, he was as confused as ever.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tristan lied.
Ambrose raised a white-blond brow. “Don’t I?” The angel shook his head. “Don’t let your stubbornness get in the way of what you could have.”
Tristan risked a glance at Amara, who had her attention on Lily and Shade rather than the other half of the table. His body pulsated just by looking at her, and he could imagine her dark red hair splayed across his pillow as he claimed her as his own.
Only that wouldn’t happen, and he had to get it out of his head.
Ambrose let out a curse under his breath, so low Tristan had almost missed it. “You’re more of a lost cause than I was.”
Tristan didn’t know the story behind the other triad’s mating or what exactly Ambrose had meant by that, and frankly, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He knew he wasn’t thinking rationally when it came to Amara and Seth, and that killed him. He was a Conclave member and a fae prince, damn it. He held power and responsibly and didn’t shirk those. Only when it came to his personal life and what was left of it did he seem to be at a loss.
Seth met his gaze at that moment and heat flared between them.
Damn it.
If he and Seth didn’t get Amara alone soon and talk to her, he’d kick his own ass. His days of staying back from her and being afraid of what might not happen had to be over.
Amara’s phone buzzed at that moment, and she looked down at the screen, biting her lip as she did. Tristan wanted to take the phone from her and tell her everything would be okay, that she didn’t have to look so worried, but it wasn’t his place. And frankly, women in this century didn’t appreciate barbarian tendencies. At least, that’s what he’d heard from the others.
He was nine hundred years old and hadn’t been celibate by far, but he’d also only dated fae as he rarely left the realm other than to go to the Conclave. Fae women had their own set of rules when it came to sex and relationships, so he’d learned to live in that fashion.
Now things were different. The realms were becoming more open to other races as news of the lightning-struck women reached their barriers. He didn’t know how to react to a twenty-something human and a thirty-something merman. He was so far out of his depth, he was drowning. Yet he hadn’t done anything about the situation, and it had been months since he’d seen Amara at Faith and Levi’s home following the wizard attack.
If he weren’t careful, his indecision would be his undoing.
Amara stood from her chair then and sighed. “I need to take this. It’s my new boss. Sorry.” With that, she grabbed her bag and scurried toward the exit, leaving the rest of the table frowning after her.
Faith let out a curse and shook her head, her dark cap of hair swaying back and forth. “I hate that new job of hers.”
Tristan sat up straighter in his chair. “New job?” He’d been in the fae realm for the past month, and hadn’t heard that Amara had found new employment. He knew she’d been looking, and had heard that she’d subsequently declined offers of jobs and financial help from her friends.
“She’s working as a personal assistant to an asshole downtown,” Eliana explained. “Amara applied for the job because the man works in management for a series of hotels, and that’s what her degree is in. Yet her job doesn’t actually have anything to do with what she’s trained for. Instead, she gets him coffee, fetches his dry cleaning, and picks his kids up from soccer practice because, God forbid, he do it himself. And the man’s wife is too busy with all her committees and bullshit circles to deal with her own kids, as well.”
Tristan fisted his hands on the table. “There has to be a better job out there for her.”