My Little Ventrue - Book 3

Chapter 8

~~Jack~~

The meeting with the Invictus triumvirate went better than he expected. He told Julias first, about the werewolves, and then Julias insisted he tell the triumvirate as a whole; the problem was bigger than just him. So Jack scheduled a meeting to stand before the council, and like filing a report, detailed the issue with the werewolves.

Conveniently, he told no one he felt the werewolves might have been hunting Fiona. It'd have been an assumption, not enough evidence. And Fiona stuck around for a while when she visited that night; she was fun, and nice. Why would the wolves be hunting her?

Did Natasha tell the Prince though, that was the question. He wanted to leave Fiona out of it, and he didn't put it above the Invictus to throw Fiona to the wolves — literally — to keep the Uratha out of Dolareido. And he kind of liked her. He hoped Antoinette would like her too, or she was well within her right to do more than throw Fiona to the Uratha, she could just kill her herself.

He did tell the triumvirate that he wanted to introduce a newcomer to Dolareido though, a Begotten. It'd earned some groans from the three of them. Apparently they knew about such monsters, and none of them seemed excited at having one of them in the city. But none of them seemed overly concerned either, so that was good. He also left out the part that Damien and Fiona were friends of a sort. Didn't need to make that man's journey any harder.

A meeting with the Primogen though, he had no idea how that was going to go. Never done it, never wanted to do it. It was going to be his first meeting with the strongest Kindred of the city and he was already trying to figure out ways to cut corners on information for his own gain, for his friends' gain. One misstep and he was going to end up pissing off everyone. And yet he stood in front of the Elysium building with Fiona beside him, staring up at the glass tower, sighing.

How many times had he stood in front of this tower and smiled, excited to get inside, to talk to Antoinette and chat about music or life? Dozens. Now he was fidgeting, anxious, and dread was sitting in his stomach like rocks.

"Ye alright?" Fiona said.

"Yeah, yeah I... I don't know."

"What's the worry?"

"I... I'm dating the Prince."

"... ye're what?"

"The Prince is my girlfriend... we love each other."

"Oh, that is nae something I expected. Damien said you stopped him from killing her — still very much in the mirk about all that by the way — but I didnae realize you two were an item." Fiona grinned and bounced in front of him. "He said she was ancient."

"She is."

"And ye're very young. Young as me."

"Yeah."

"Well, ye love her. I'm guessing she's an intelligent, wise person?"

"... she is."

Fiona shrugged and started to walk around him in circles. "Then what's the problem?"

"I have to talk to her about city matters. I have to try and control a conversation about serious shit that has nothing to do with her and me, but it's putting us against each other."

"Against? I thought ye said the werewolves just wanted ye to be the middleman in their talks."

The monster sat down on the steps of the tower, and stretched her arms over her head. Jack was in his typical Invictus business suit, but they had to find something for Fiona to wear; no way she'd be wearing jeans and a leather jacket to such a meeting. Natasha and Damien helped find her something a little less street, a little more business. Some gray business pants and a nice chestnut blouse with frilly cleavage. It looked good on the curvy creature.