Sapphire Bones

Glitch

"Hello?" I pressed only to be met with silence on the other end. I repeated myself again before someone cleared their throat.

"Corvo, hello – apologies," Jeffries called over the speaker. I sucked in a breath and stood from the couch. Mattias followed my movements but I shooed him off before he got too close. I didn't need anyone else involved with L's case. Too many people were already involved. I couldn't lose Matty as well.

"What do you want?" I hissed, stepping into a side room behind the living room. The door shut behind me, cloaking the room in a dark web before I flipped the light switch. A bright formal dining room lit up underneath the fluorescents. Dark mahogany, freshly polished, nearly blinded me. The long dining room table, stretching the length of the room, but much thinner than the width of the room, was positioned in the middle. Matching high-back chairs sat around the table, a shoulder-length distance apart. There was a dark green table runner with gold thread sewed around the perimeter, that extended the whole table right down the middle. While the table wasn't set for food, it looked clean enough to eat off. Dangling just feet above the center of the table was a giant chandelier with rope-like diamonds glittering from the dim natural light that peeked through shut blinds as well as the lights that came from bulbs around the stones. Portraits of past Alphas hung on the wall around the room, in giant frames that took up most the olive painted room.

"Now, now, Corvo I just want to talk," he said. I held back a scowl and sat at the large dining room table. While the chair was smaller than I needed, I made room. I pulled one leg up toward my chest, foot on the cushioned bottom, and leaned my elbows on the bare wood table. "Are you ready to listen or do you have any more snide remarks?"

"We'll see. Depends on what you want to talk about," I clicked my short fingernails against the wood grain and stared off the other side of the table. My father's portrait stared back at me, his face healthy and without a hint of the disease that ultimately took his life. An artist from Beryl painted it several years ago. I didn't have the heart to remove it. A large vase full of spring flowers filled a tall black bowl, textured in divots.

"My bounty hunters came back empty-handed."

"Did you think they wouldn't?"

"I wasn't aware of your knowledge of Alpha Cole and Beta Roderick's survival from the Ruby attack," Jeffries huffed. "If I'd known, things would've gone differently."

"What about them?"

"You're offering them asylum under Emerald guard," His tone seemed accusatory, like it was only a rumor spread by nasty teenagers in a school hallway. "Aren't they worth any monetary value?"

"No," I hissed. "Call your dogs off. I know they're sitting at the edge of my territory, and I will not hesitate to use force if they take a step out of line," I snarled. I knew Jeffries had his men out but I didn't think they had the guts to camp out right next to the border.

"Oh, I know nothing of that," Jeffries said, a grin in his words. "They're only there to make sure you haven't made a terrible decision."

I chuckled a bit, careful to keep my voice away from the speaker.

"Cole and Roddy are my friends. No amount of money will change my mind about that," I said after a moment. "Why did you really call?" I knew he didn't want to talk about the estranged rulers of Ruby – they weren't any of his concern now that I had them under my roof.

"During your conversation with Lena and Benji, the council's decision to overturn the Twenty-Five law was brought up. I wanted to inform you of the new trial date" Jeffries said, calmer now. I rolled my eyes, hard enough that Mattias probably felt it in the next room.