“Watch your fucking mouth, V.”
“Sorry.” Even though he didn’t mean it. “Look, we only need to confirm that I’m right. Then we’ll figure out the rest.”
All kinds of chatter started up at that point, but he just stayed focused on the King. Opinions were great, but they were an asses-and-elbows situation. Everybody had one. Wrath was the decider.
“Okay,” the King said. “Tomorrow at dusk so there’s time to scope out and prepare. There’s just one caveat.”
V closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “What’s the catch.”
Nadya ascended the bolt-hole’s steps and reemerged into the garage. She had stayed down with Lucan and Rio for a little bit, but the conversation with Kane had scrambled her mind.
Something he’d said really wouldn’t leave her.
I feel like if I had the answer, I’d be able to let it all go.
It seemed like they both wanted the same thing for their futures, but it also was so fast, the whole of their relationship. She didn’t doubt their emotions, but now that she was alone, she wasn’t sure she could trust the good fortune. Plus he was heading back to his world, or what was left of it. Doubting his intentions with the aristocracy or hisshellan’s family seemed disloyal, though—or maybe it was more her lack of self-esteem that made her question what they had together. Which was just too weak on her part.
Like him, she probably needed to find her own answers to make peace with her past.
After all, her father’s decision to better her life had ended up ruining her for a very long time. And she had never been able to talk to him about it, not that any kind of conversation could have changed what had happened.
Full of nervous energy, she paced around a couple of times, then went over to the steps. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”
“You okay?” Rio called up.
“Yes. Just going to go clear my head.”
What was good for the gander was good for the goose, right? Or whatever the quote was.
Stepping out of the side door, she hung on to what Kane had said as he left: That he had no regrets, and that this was a beginning, not an end for them. She had to trust him. What choice did she have?
And hisshellanwas dead. You didn’t go back to a ghost out of a sense of duty, for godsakes.
Closing her eyes, she dematerialized in a direction she’d never thought she would head in again. And when she re-formed in front of a gracious mansion, she felt a piercing pain in her chest. As lovely as the house was… it was a grave. For her parents.
Looking at all the well-lit windows and the lovely grounds, she felt a stirring anger at how her parents had died.
She remembered what she’d heard about what had happened, thelessersbreaking into the houses of the aristocracy, slaughtering everyone without regard to whether or not they were a target from the higher class or a lowlydoggen. Or a worker.
She couldn’t imagine the fear as hermahmenand her father were locked out of the safe room, left to be killed by the race’s enemies along with all the other staff who had been denied shelter from the attack by the grand family they served.
As she stared up at the front of the formal house, she knew this was what her father had wanted for her, this materialistic upgrade. And instead, he’d ended up with a disfigured daughter who disappeared on him and then a terrible death at the altar of the very aspiration he had sought.
She had never blamed him, but nor could she forgive him—
Movement off to the left caught her attention—
Nadya gasped.
And then she simply couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Surely that was someone else, another tall, broad figure, with dark hair… and a jacket… that was just like the one Kane had pulled off a hook down in the bolt-hole.
In a daze, Nadya walked forward.
As a set of glass doors was opened by someone inside.
The female who appeared on the threshold was beauty defined. Fair and lovely, with her hair up on her head, and the most perfect bone structure, she was ethereal in a pale yellow gown.
Clasping her hands to her mouth, the female seemed shocked.