“Good idea.” Darius nodded with vigor. “Mother, tell Samantha how much you need her with you. It would put me at ease to know she’s safe with you. She’s a little bloodthirsty when it comes to setting fire to invading Netharat.”
Marcus agreed. “Tessa will listen to you over me. For some reason, she questions everything I tell her.” But he didn’t sound displeased.
Cadmus snorted. “That’s because you don’t tell her anything. You order her around.”
“I do not.” Marcus sniffed, but I could see the smile in his blue eyes. “I lovingly suggest. I am, after all, her lord and master.”
“Lord and Master? Please. She’d kick your ass if she heard that. From what I hear, the master thing is more Aerolus’ department,” Cadmus ragged, earning a flush from the tight-lipped Wind Mage.
I stared at my nephew. I’d once overheard Alandra saying something of the sort to Ellie, and the two had shared a wicked laugh, but I’d believed her to be joking. Apparently, my nephew liked to play games in bed…something I hadn’t wanted to know. At all.
I shook my head at him. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Ravyn coughed, not managing to hide her laughter, and tugged me away from the others. “Before Aerolus gets any redder, let’s go back to my chambers. We have a few things to discuss in private.”
I teleported us both to her room. Ravyn had never believed that I no longer cared for Lexa, so I was fully prepared to stave off any more questions about Lexa and my nonexistent feelings for the woman.
What I wasn’t prepared for was to see Ravyn’s dead husband, Faustus, shimmering with the glow of the afterlife, waiting for us with open arms.
Chapter 5
Lexa
Seattle
My fury gave me the magical strength to flip Sava over the couch onto his handsome ass, the golden strands of his hair flying over his face. “The next time you invade my memories without permission, I’ll do worse than muss that pretty hair.”
“Duly noted.” Sava groaned. Once on his feet, he ran his hands over his hair with pleasure, unable to ignore my compliment. Typical Aellei. Inhumanly beautiful, tricksters of the universe, and so utterly vain as to be comical.
Sava stretched. “Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, ready to return to Tanselm? I’ll even go with you. I need to talk to Arim about what happened at that mall.” He said the word with disdain. “Imagine purchasing prefabricated wares in an open forum. How incredibly common.”
I couldn’t help grinning. “You’re cute when you’re arrogant.”
“Cute?” He looked affronted. “Try incredible. Magnificent. Godly.”
“Yeah, yeah. All that. But I’m not returning to Tanselm yet. I have things to do here.”
“Like what?”
Like lick my wounds. Like try to get a handle on my weird libido that flares whenever Arim’s around, even after three hundred years. “I’m not fully healed yet —”
“Which you’re never going to be without help.”
“— and until I am, I need to gather my strength.”
“No. You need to grab that Light Bringer by the balls and make him see the truth.”
“What?”
Sava had the oddest manner of throwing urban slang in with his archaic rhetoric.
“The truth that you and I have always known. That you’re not as Dark as you pretend to be, or even as you want to be. You didn’t kill Muri and Esel any more than you could stop crying at the sight of Sercha mutilated beyond recognition,” Sava said bluntly. “We both know who killed them.”
“No, I don’t.” I honestly didn’t. At one time, I’d thought Sin Garu had murdered my hapless family. After some careful digging, I’d found that to be untrue. “I’m not discussing this,” I added coldly, getting well and truly annoyed as he stirred painful memories best left buried.
“Lexa.” Sava sat across from me on my solid mahogany coffee table. “Until you put it to rest, you’ll never be free. With or without your soul intact.”
He brushed my hair back from my cheek, his fingers frosting as I allowed my anger to bleed over into the physical.
