“Oh, genius plan. Like what will the first stage be? The part where I separate him from the only family he has left? Or where I send him to the mortal world to get rid of him?”
He looked at me and then away. “You were only trying to protect him.”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I told myself, but let’s face it, I was glad he was gone. Back then you remember how they were—just little pests who followed us around everywhere, getting into trouble whenever our backs were turned.”
“They missed their mother and father.”
“Don’t you think I know?” I looked down at his beautiful face and sighed. “Damn it. They didn’t get much help from us though, did they? Neither of them.”
Keion flushed and turned an even darker shade of red. I knew he hated thinking about this.
“Well, I’m still going to compel him. Just at first. Enough to calm him down anyway. We can’t chance him leaving again. I think he really was close to death when we found him.”
“All right,” I said, reluctantly. “If you think that’s best. I hate this though.”
“I hate it too,” he said softly. “And I’ll hate it even more once I find Aden again and he looks at me the way you said Kailar looked at you.” Keion was quiet for so long, I thought he’d said all he was going to on the subject. I stared down at my mate, the only one in the world I’d ever want to be with and said the unthinkable.
“We might lose them,” I said. “They may decide they don’t want to be with us and go back to their own kingdom.”
He glanced up at me with pain in every line of his face. “I know that. But we can’t change the past.”
“You’re right. Do whatever you have to do for now. It’s not about what will make me or you feel better now. This has to be about Kailar and keeping him safe.”
We fell silent again and Keion watched as I held Kailar in the water, both of us watching him grow more and more beautiful with every passing minute. Maybe Keion was right. There would be time to tell Kailar what I’d done when he was feeling better—and not so defeated and ill. It was selfish and arrogant to want his forgiveness and his absolution right now. Especially considering I didn’t deserve it.
“Is the salt water still protected by magic?” Keion asked. When I nodded, he said, “It’s good you have him there then. I noticed at breakfast that he’d gotten better during the night with just the little bit of magic I used on him to compel him. Keep him as low as you can in the water with just his face up—like that. Good. Now stay with him. Float him around.”
I didn’t hesitate to follow Keion’s instructions, even though I figured he was just making it up as he went along. At least he could still think. My brain had gone full tilt when I saw Kailar pass out and it hadn’t come back online yet. I steadied Kailar on his back, his body completely underwater except for his beautiful face, and I balanced him on my arms.
“Now what? What do you think is wrong with him that the water can fix?” When I sent him away, the seaside should have been his home. And it had been, hadn’t it? That had been the orders and the plan I’d given to Theos before I lost touch with him. Even though he’d moved away from the home I’d bought him in Greece, he surely would have kept Kailar near the water,wouldn’t he?What could have gone so drastically wrong? Why hadn’t he told me what was happening?
I’d begun searching for Theos as soon as I realized his reports hadn’t been filed in weeks. My face burned with shame when I realized how that sounded—it had taken me weeks to notice. But why had Theos gone off grid that way? Was he running from something? Someone? And had they finally caught up with him? And again, why hadn’t he reached out to me for help?
“Kailar…uh…he seems to be afraid of water,” Keion said.
“I know, but I don’t understand it. What’s happened to him? How did Theos not let me know this was going on?”
“According to what his widow told me when Kailar was packing, Theos died under suspicious circumstances. He’d told his wife that he had enemies—he said it was his late wife’s relatives who wanted to steal Kailar away from him.”
“What? What ‘late wife?’ Theos never married until he reached the mortal realm. Could he have meant Queen Beathag? Could she have discovered where her son was? If so, then why didn’t he contact me? I could have helped.”
“I don’t know. And the wife, Martha, only seemed to know what he’d told her. He told her if anything ever happened to him, she should take Kailar and run. He told her to hide at least until Kailar’s twenty-first birthday. She said she was trying to honor his request by hiding out with Kailar. She said she knew it was important for him to be in the water frequently, but she didn’t fully understand that he’d become so ill if he didn’t.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I think I do. I used compulsion on her, but she was willing to talk anyway, after I gained her trust.”
If my hands hadn’t been full of Kailar, I’d have started tearing my hair out. “Damn Theos! Why didn’t he contact me?”
“I don’t know, and it does no good to yell and curse at me about it. He got married to this Martha right after he sold the villa in Greece—about two years after he left Atlantis. Kailar was homeschooled before that, according to the stepmom, and she met Theos when she was on vacation to Greece. She said it was a whirlwind romance and he swept her off her feet. It was his idea to resettle in the States right away—his being married to a US citizen made that possible.”
“Do you think he was using her to get out of the country?”
Keion shrugged. “I think so. It’s possible anyway.”
“Why haven’t I heard of this before now?”
“I was planning to discuss it with you once you’d calmed down some. You’ve been in a frenzy of worry since Kailar got here.”