Faith, poison people? Maybe with her horrible cooking. People would go hungry because it was always burnt, but kill them? Impossible. And so I said as much.
“She did not poison anyone.”
A new voice came from the doorway and the scar-faced man stepped aside. It grated on my nerves even more now than it had when we were both young. My cousin, Lord Wyse, now leader of the Optimus unit, if his clothing was any indication, stood before me with the same emotionless face I remembered. “Faith Jones Herakles is a traitor and a murderer, Celene. I will make sure to send her your regards.”
“No!” I didn’t want her to worry about me if she were held by the Optimus unit. She had enough on her mind as it was.
The cleric rose and walked out the door, leaving me with my cousin.
“I should have tried harder to kill you, Celene. You’re like a needle in my boot, a constant irritation.”
“You haven’t changed, Coburt. Still sneaking around in the shadows like a snake.” We’d grown up together. While he was a decade older, royal circles were small.
“Where is Destiny?” he asked.
I froze. Shit. How did he know Destiny’s name? I shook my head and stared at the wall, giving him nothing. If he didn’t know wher
e she was, then she was still safe.
“I had men on Earth, Celene. They asked around. I know you have three daughters. I know Faith and Destiny are half-human twins. I know your pathetic human male is hiding from your own government, waiting for word from you.”
“Don’t you touch him, Coburt, or I will send you to the depths of the lowest hells myself,” I hissed, my hands clenched in my lap. He had lived with me for over twenty-five years, knew Aleran ways, at least tangentially. But he was still an Earthling.
His laugh was not reassuring. “As of an hour ago, you are no longer my problem.”
The door slid closed behind him.
What the hell did that mean?
I dropped onto my side on the thin cot, pulling the blanket up over me.
Damn him.
Damn him to hell.
I hoped my daughters killed him slowly.
And they would succeed. Coburt Wyse would die.
I simply could not think of anything else.
1
Thordis Jax, Jax Mountain Lodge
The Aleran male I had bound to the chair bled, not from any torture or abuse he’d suffered at my hands, but from his attempts to claw his way through the metal binding cuffs that held him. He’d been here for a day and had told me nothing.
That was about to change.
“Where is the queen?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he spit out. “Release me. You’ll rot in the Optimus unit’s dungeons for this. Let me go. I demand it.” Of course he did.
“Yet you are the one tied up. This isn’t a dungeon,” I glanced around the servants’ room on the top floor of the lodge. We only used the retreat a few weeks a year and there were only two servants who remained year round. They lived in a small house elsewhere on the property. This room was sparse. A bed, a table and chair. A chair that the bastard was tied to now. On the wall behind me was a vid display, recording everything that was happening. He glanced up often, saw himself on the screen.
“But I promise you, I will be ruthless with you if you don’t begin to talk.”
He was noble. Rich. A spoiled son of a wealthy family. And my mate’s distant cousin. I took a moment to think of the royal family tree. Queen Celene’s mother had one sister, Zetta. She had a son, Coburt, now known as Lord Wyse. Lord Wyse and his mate had Radella. When Queen Celene disappeared decades ago, Radella moved into the palace with her mate, Danoth. A few years later, they had a son. Pawl. The little fucker before me.