Chapter Seven
I stepped into our assigned apartment and breathed in the heavenly smell of whatever Eddie was cooking and wished that Trent and Fen weren’t out scaring people on the bayou.
Evan set the backpack down on the big table in the middle of the living area. “So now we try to figure out who got into Relda’s cabinet?”
“I’ll have Fenrir and Trent take a smell when they get back.” Luckily the witches wouldn’t die with the dawn the way the vampires would. Talking to the primals would have to wait until tomorrow night since they were all in some mourning ritual now that I’d taken the samples I needed from Alvis’s apartment. Most of the nest was busy with the rituals and rites that went with a couple-thousand-year-old vamp exploding, so my investigation was on pause. “Unless someone is covering their tracks with a spell. It’s the only thing I can think of that would fool Trent’s senses.”
“There are a lot of ways to cover a scent, but what Fen was describing seemed more magical,” Evan agreed. “There are herbs that I could use, but it would have the scent of the herb. Fen told me it was like nothing was there.”
“Can he still do that?” I hadn’t asked before, and the question struck me. “When Fen was a kid, Trent couldn’t smell him. It unnerved him.”
Evan shook her head. “Nah. He hit puberty and now pretty much everyone can smell him from a mile away. He scares the crap out of other wolves just by walking into a room. I’ve watched big-ass alphas avert their eyes when they catch his scent.”
He’d gone through puberty. He’d grown up. I’d promised him I would be his mom and he’d grown up without me.
“Kelsey, it wasn’t your fault,” Evan said quietly. “He knows that.”
“Am I being so obvious?” I had to take a deep breath and shove that emotion down because Trent wasn’t here to soothe me and sometimes I get violent when I get emotional.
Although this didn’t feel like anger. Or fear.
This felt like unimaginable loss.
Somewhere in this nest a group was mourning their friend.
I was mourning years. I was mourning potential. I was mourning for Liv and Gray and the whole world that had changed into something I didn’t completely understand.
“Not as obvious as my mother,” Evan replied. “But I don’t think it’s a huge leap to understand how much losing that time must have hurt. I was so young I barely remember you. My parents—I have some memories of them, but it’s hard to remember exactly what it was like before. I was five. I remember how safe I felt. I remember they loved me. I wonder if they can still love me.”
“Yes.” I knew the answer to that one, and I didn’t have to consult the queen. “They love you.”
“They don’t know me.”
“It doesn’t matter. They love you. Your mother is processing. It’s what she does. Don’t be surprised if she comes up with some plan to right this whole thing.”
A brow rose over her hazel eyes, an expression I’d seen many times on her mother’s face. “Like turn back time to when I’m five again?”
I could see the queen trying. It wouldn’t work, but I could see her plotting. “She’ll think about it, but in the end she’ll understand that there are some things we can’t undo.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because Gray saw this years ago, and he’s never wrong. There was nothing in his prophecy that said we would get a mulligan on this one.” I thought about the fact that in some ways, I’d seen it, too. “You know sometimes I have prophecy dreams. I hate them because they don’t make sense to me until after things have happened.”
“You have them because you were connected to Grayson Sloane when he transitioned, right?” Evan asked.
I’d been his balance that night, holding onto his kite strings so he didn’t fly away. It had affected me mightily. It had been the first time I’d realized how much Trent would come to mean to me, and the first time I’d seen my children.
My demon boy and she-wolf.
“Yes. I sometimes dream, and one of the dreams I had a few months ago…it’s been years for you.” My heart hurt to think about it. For me it had been a few months since I’d gone into those woods with Casey and Liv and my guys. And little Lee. I’d gone into those woods and come out with my son, Fenrir. “We were in Wyoming.”
“When you found Fen.”
I nodded. “I had a dream about Lee and Fen. I saw your wedding, Evan. Your wedding to Fen.”
A soft look came over the princess’s face. “You did?”
“Yes. So don’t worry about Fenrir. He will be there on the day, and he won’t let anything stop him,” I promised her. “And so will your parents. I saw them there, too.” I didn’t mention that only one of her dads had been giving her away. Zoey and Devinshea had been standing to the side. Huh. And now so much of that damn dream made sense. “I think that dream told me about Lee. Jacob, the heavenly prophet was there, and he kept going on and on about the new world beginning and how the crown is twofold. And then Lee stabbed himself with a sword and died.”