He Took the Heirs' Emblems, Then Became Their King novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Tape Line

James lays a tape border across Room 4 and each heir hands him Bella's share transfer; at midnight Grant knocks on the air, crosses, pins him to the bedpost and orders him to sign, and James says: Try.

By dusk, James had laid a strip of binding tape across the common room floor, and three heirs were staring at it.

"What is that?" Grant asked.

"A border."

James sat down on the end of his bed, because laying tape had been standing up for too long.

"Nobody crosses it without knocking," he said. "That's the rule for Room 4."

"Knocking on what?" said Harry. "There's no door."

"Knock on the air. I'll hear it."

Harry turned a page of his book. "I would rather drown."

"Then stay on your side."

Grant took a ruler out of his coat, knelt, and measured the tape from the stove to the wall.

He measured it twice.

"It is two fingers off center," he said. "Your side is larger than mine."

"Good."

"It is not fair."

"It's mine," James said. "I'm the heir. I'm told it comes with a floor."

Grant moved the whole strip two fingers to the left, pressing every inch flat with his thumb.

Harry's bed was now on the wrong side, and without a word he dragged it across the line, tape and all.

Felix watched this from the stove with a mug of soup in his hand.

"You've been awake six hours," he said, "and you've started a border war."

"I'm very efficient."

"You're lying down."

"That's how I stay efficient."

Felix laughed, and it filled the room.

The note in the trunk was still sitting under a shirt, and James looked at that laugh and could not make the two things agree.

Grant crossed the floor and set a paper on the bed in front of him.

It was the share transfer, with the clan seal at the bottom.

"Sign," Grant said.

"Good evening to you too."

"Sign, and my clan's debt to your uncle is paid. Bella has promised it in front of witnesses."

Harry did not look up from his book.

"Mine as well. I would like it done before supper."

Felix came over with his soup and his own copy and held it out with both hands.

"I'm required to give you this," he said. "So here. I've given it."

"Thanks."

"It's cold. You can put your pastry on it."

James looked at the paper.

He picked up the half pastry on the table, set it in the middle of the share transfer, and handed the whole thing back to Felix as a plate.

"Thank you," Felix said, and ate it.

Grant's jaw clenched so hard it clicked.

White letters rose across the inside of James's eyes.

SYSTEM: Dusk has arrived. Bloodline of Desire is now active.

SYSTEM: Here is what it does, in a short list.

SYSTEM: One. At night, while you are in skin contact with a partner, you can read and learn his bloodline ability. The copy is yours to keep.

SYSTEM: Two. During the night, you take charge.

SYSTEM: Three. Every ache, soreness and pain from the night is delivered to your partner at nine the next morning.

James read that third line twice.

"Delivered to who?" he whispered.

SYSTEM: Your partner. You will not feel any of it. Standard terms apply.

James put one hand over his eyes.

It was the best offer anyone had ever made him, and it came with a bed.

"Are you all right?" Felix asked.

"I'm moved," James said. "I'm very moved."

He lay down at last in the dark, with the tape line a pale stripe across the floor and three heirs breathing in three beds.

Harry fell asleep at once and did not move.

Felix hummed something under his breath for ten minutes, and then stopped.

James stared at the ceiling and ran through the plan he did not have.

He could sign.

He could run.

He could put the whole kingdom to sleep and wake up in his old couch.

The bed creaked on his left.

A bare foot touched the floor, then a second one, and a hand moved in the dark.

Three knocks sounded on the empty air above the tape.

Precise, evenly spaced, and exactly firm.

"I knocked," said Grant's voice.

James sat up. "On what?"

"On the line. You said the air. I did the air."

"That counts."

Grant crossed the tape in two strides.

He had a pen in one hand and the share transfer in the other, and his shirt was open at the throat.

Moonlight lay on his silver hair, and the sight of him was so completely not what James had expected from a man with a ruler that he forgot to be sleepy.

"I have until Friday," Grant said. "I will not wait until Friday."

"That's very organized of you."

Grant put one knee on the bed.

He caught James's wrist, pulled his hand toward the paper, and pinned it against the bedpost above his head with a grip that did not give.

The heat of him was everywhere at once.

SYSTEM: Sky bloodline detected. Contact: strong. Partner scent: ice and clean linen.

SYSTEM: Would you like to begin?

Grant leaned in so that his mouth was an inch from James's ear.

"Sign it," he said, low. "And I will leave you alone."

His breath shook on the last word.

James felt it, and so did the wrist under his hand, which was beating fast and very hard.

The room was entirely still.

"Funny," said James. "You're holding me like you'd rather be doing something else."

Grant went rigid.

His grip did not loosen, but his eyes went to James's mouth and stayed there a moment too long.

Then he sat back, and the pen in his hand clicked against the paper.

"Sign," he said, in a voice that no longer sounded steady, "or I will make you."

James smiled in the moonlight.

"Try," he said.

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