Once they’d disappeared down a hall at the apex of the staircase, Nick turned to face Benjic and Arit. The sly elder had taken advantage of Nick’s preoccupation to join the group’s security team at a set of double doors where porters had begun stacking trunks packed with surveillance equipment. The rooms set aside for their bodyguards lay beyond the doors, Nick presumed. Arit, meanwhile, rocked his weight from foot to foot as he stared, unabashedly, at Nick with a mixture of fascination and abject horror that entertained Nick exceedingly.
Nick had learned to never argue with his mom because her instincts were usually right, and Rosalind Goode couldn’t have been more correct about Lydia and Rolan accompanying him on this infernal visit to the tribes. They could always be relied upon to save Nick from himself…but not today. Rather than examining why his friends would abandon him to his whoremones, Nick instead embraced these few quiet moments alone with Arit. “Are you a virgin? Please say yes,” he said, clapping his hands in anticipation.
Arit’s brow furrowed. “You aren’t all there, are you?”
“You are!” Nick hugged his side as joyful gratification rolled through him. “A virgin. At your age, no less. Tell me you didn’t fall for tribal nonsense about sex mystically cementing a mating bond between partners.”
“Sex provides the link for shifter mating. A few moments of fleeting pleasure can result in a permanent and unhappy marriage.” Arit grumbled. “Physical relationships should be approached with caution.”
“If that were true, I would’ve bonded with Kenny Danner behind the bleachers in the ninth grade.” Nick rubbed his watering eyes. “I had no idea the tribes were still so superstitious.”
“In the capitol, shifters are not—as you say—superstitious, but marriages there are rarely blessed by the Goddess with a mating heat.”
“From what I’ve seen, marriages in the outer territories are as much a business arrangement as a coupling for love or affection, too.”
Arit sniffed his contempt. “Some have not turned our backs on our heritage.” His mouth tightened. “I built this business on honoring my shifter roots and would prove myself a hypocrite by turning from the old ways.”
Nick shook his head, already trembling at the idea of teaching Arit the pleasures of his body, but curse him, Rolan was right. A quick fuck would never do if Nick wanted to maintain any chance at mating Arit and thereby establishing an alliance with Benjic. Not that he’d decided on a closer relationship with the elder yet. Nick hadn’t. He hadn’t known forging such a connection was still possible until he’d exited the train and smelled a potential mate with scent markers that so strongly mirrored the elder’s that the association had to be close. If his birth parents had taught Nick anything, however, it was the value of strategic prudence. Instead of grabbing Arit as he wanted, he enjoyed the buzz of longing that intensified inside him with the pounding of his heartbeat and the sizzle of desire warming his blood. He must be content in knowing Arit felt it, too. For now. “If it helps, although Eton and Olina were no strangers to arranged marriages, my birth parents would have agreed with you about remaining chaste. I subscribe to a more modern approach to life they would have abhorred.”
Frowning, Arit walked to the staircase and gestured for Nick to accompany him. “I don’t know. According to my dad, Benjic said the emperor and empress had begun maneuvering from traditional rule toward a new order before war disrupted their plans.”
“They were working to incorporate elements of human government into the tribes when the riots started, yes.” The stairs were wide enough to allow them to walk side by side. When Nick joined Arit as an equal climbing the steps beside him rather than an omega’s typical position walking behind, Arit started. Again. The others hadn’t noted behaviors that didn’t jibe with their image of who they believed Nick should be, but satisfyingly, Arit hadn’t. He remained surprised, but Nick gave him credit for refusing to ignore the unexpected. “Near the end, Father gathered tribal elders to negotiate the duties of a rudimentary parliament, but infighting and jockeying for power stretched the process out too long.”
“Benjic left my dad before the revolution.” Arit exhaled a prolonged breath, his shoulders sagging. “He must have played a part in the political turmoil.”
Of that, Nick entertained no doubts, but he only hummed vague assent. At the top of the stairs, Arit marched down a hallway. Beside him, Nick allowed his attention to wander to open doors, noting at which room Rolan and Lydia’s scent lingered the strongest. He and Arit moved around trunks and suitcases to continue to twin doors marking the end of the corridor. Arit reached for the doorknob. He pushed both doors wide.
“The imperial suite,” he said as he ushered Nick inside.
If the rest of the resort was plush, this set of rooms was its crowning jewel. Nick hadn’t imagined such luxury outside the capitol, but Arit had cultivated the same sense of wealthy excess, from the mosaic pattern of tiles embedded in the entry’s richly burnished oak floor to elegant tapestries at least as old as Nick, if not older, gracing the walls. As the name of the suite suggested, the furnishings were in the imperial style, built from carved redwood common in the palaces that had been ransacked near the capitol and upholstered with intricately embroidered cushions. Some showed wear. Nick didn’t recognize any of the pieces, but he and his siblings had stuck to the private quarters in each of the palaces. He wouldn’t have been as familiar with the grander furnishings displayed in public areas. Still, the antique couch, wingback chairs, footstool, and secretary’s desk had almost certainly been spoils of war from the rebellion. Nick’s sisters might have stitched the intricate designs on any of the pillows.
Nick hated all of it.
Heavy velvet drapes had been pulled away from picture windows with jeweled tiebacks, but the emeralds and rubies didn’t catch his attention as much as the mountains beyond, scarcely concealed behind a layer of wispy sheers. Nick still walked to the window, lifting a hand to nudge the lace aside. The Urals rose majestically into gray clouds promising rain or possibly snow at this elevation. Rocky crags interrupted the heights, green trees and brush thinning as the mountains climbed higher and higher. The unrelenting gray rock at the top melting into the storm caught Nick’s breath. “Beautiful,” he finally said.
Arit studied him with narrowed eyes, his jaw tipped at a curious angle. “Benjic sent much of what you see in this suite after the war ended. According to him, the furniture came from the Crystal Palace in the south while the art and tapestries originated in the capitol itself.”
Shrugging, Nick bent closer to the glass to peer up the mountainside. “He said you’d added an upper camp. How far is it?” He squinted, trying to spot snow on the ground. “I’d like to see the camp, weather permitting, as soon as practicable.”
Frowning, Arit focused first on Nick, then the posh suite, and then back to Nick. “You don’t care, do you?”