61

                                    

                                          

Some smells are unavoidable. So powerful they refuse to be ignored.
Scents can trigger memories.
Or post traumatic stress disorder triggers.
Scents can be a warning of danger lurking unseen, but not unknown. Rot, infections, death all have a scent. 
Yet others are more benign. Only cinnamon is cinnamon. The warming, comforting smell of bread baking on a cold grey day. Depending on if hard wood or softwood was being burned, a fire could smell vastly different than another. Was the wood dry? Wet? Green? Was it a complex structure fire with more than just wood burning? 
Then there were smells that once known, you never wanted to remember again. Joe purposely tried to forget everything of the worst day of his life. What he had seen, what he had done. What Theo had done. The smell of so many dead men, and blood in the air. 
So many answers and unavoidable truths were held in scents. This was true, no matter the circumstances. Joe had felt Theo returning. Theo was still angry. Joe did not like how Theo felt right now. Joe knew Theo had an altercation while in town. The flow of information was fairly one sided. Theo could burst into Joe's mind, could give commands, could read Joe without any real effort.
Joe had spent decades studying Theo with endless enthusiasm. If Theo would always be able to know Joe's every thought if he desired to know it, Joe knew he would have to work harder. Joe believed he had a fairly firm grasp on how to interpret the subtle shifting emotions he could gleen through their bond. Could read Theo's face when he was trying to hide his emotions. Joe knew and loved his mate.
Joe didn't need to read Theo to know his mate had killed someone in the village. Joe was able to smell the unavoidable scent of brain matter that was clung to his mate. Worse was how Theo was trying to hide what he had done. Theo had changed clothes, was wearing boots that Joe knew were not the ones his mate had been wearing earlier today. Joe was not dumb. No one ended up with brain matter on their person without the owner of the brains already being dead.
Atticus and Esti were speaking by her luggage, Joe watched Theo's approach. Theo felt perfectly at ease to Joe through the bond. Theo smiled at Joe, and Joe couldn't feel any shift in the perfectly even plane of emotions. "What did you need to do in the town." Joe asked. 
Theo rolled his shoulders, "Followed up on some rumors. What have the two love birds been talking about?" Euphemism mixed with distraction. Joe didn't get a chance to answer, as Esti and Atticus moved closer to Joe as Theo came to stop.
Esti turned and focused her eyes on Theo. Who thought she was squinting her brows just a bit to fight the glare of the sun. Joe had a different vantage point, and knew without question Atticus had Esti's heart. "Norman, Nigella, everyone I know and care about are in danger. I have to help them." Atticus took her hand in his, standing firmly at her side. Theo felt the longing from Joe.
The ends would justify the means. 
All the better that Esti herself was the one suggesting they return to the Sovran court. Theo had wondered how he was going to lure her back to what had to be the backdrop of several of her worst nightmares. "In that case, I might have a plan." Theo had spent decades learning all he could about the various power factions. How to work within their individual rules, and how to exploit any weakness.
The Council knew the Sovran existed, and had a cache of dragons and resources dedicated to trying to convince the reclusive society to come out from the shadows. The Council wanted to have real unity, with all parties participating in a common world. The Sovran knew there was a uniting Council and a far reaching wider world outside the closed borders and territory of the Sovran, at least on this side of the sea. The Sovran Dragons had fared far better in Europe, and still controlled several countries in the Continental Union outright.