I knew the way by heart.
Zuzu’s pulled the curtains and shutters on the windows in the kitchen, casting it in shadows but giving us privacy. No one will be able to see inside. He’s standing at the huge copper and enamel stove, and already I smell the tasty scents of my youth.
“There you are, angel.” He turns and smiles at me and…
Yeah.
The wounded child within mehowls. I don’t want to leave. Not at all.
“What’s wrong?” He moves the pan off the burner and hurries over to me, embracing me.
“Why can’t I stay?”
I feel like a kid again, hating it every time either he or Dad hustled me out of the house under the cover of darkness so we could return to Cardiff. Daytimes were full of love and light and laughter.
Nighttime frequently meant—
Oh.
Leaving.
Loss.
Well, shit.
Nail, meet hammer.
“Sweetheart, you belong in your world, with your father, and your…guy.”
“But what aboutyou?”
He sighs. “This was always the plan, angel. Even before your father met Sorcha. Your fatherwantsto live in your world. Helovesit there. He wanted a chance to escape from the ruling class, and all I wanted was true love and a child of my own.” He smiles. “Then you came along and everything changed. Our lives changed.”
His smile fades. “ThenSerxon.” He spits the words. “He ruined everything. He ruined everything he touched and always did. Selfish man. All he had to do was wait. He had every comfort, every need met. He would have ascended once Parxon faked his death and I found another mate. But he couldn’t wait, even though he would have been far better off. And now, he’s dead.”
He bundles me over to the table. “Come, sit. I haven’t cooked for you in so long.”
And…that’s what we do. He asks me about my life, and it feels so weirdly normal to sit here talking to Zuzu in the kitchen and telling him about vampires and werewolves and…
Yeah. My crazy life.
A life I’m desperately missing, even as I yearn to stay here.
He sets out the food on the pretty cobalt blue plates I remember so well, and then I’m crying again as I eat the most delicious home-cooked meal in…
Well, no offense to Chaldis, but he’s no Zuzu. Zuzu’s love language has always been cooking and caretaking. Nurturing his loved ones.
After we finish eating, I help him with the dishes, and then we move to the living room. There, I perch on the same old hassock while he sits on the sofa and brushes through my damp hair as he sings to me.
Maybe this would be creepy in any other context, but this ishome.
“Why does my hair change color?”
He laughs. “Because you are a jotnun Alpha, little one. Well, half-Alpha. You are most definitely your father’s child, but you are as beautiful as your mother. When Alphas are upset, or happy, or in love, they can change their hair color.”
“My hair used to change all the time.”
“Especially before and after visits.” He chuckles. “You hated to leave here, or for me to leave you if I visited there. That was one thing that used to fluster your mother. She didn’t know how to explain that to people, so it’s a good thing we educated you ourselves.”
