By the time breakfast was ready, my other husbands had come downstairs to join us. Even Odin was back. The only one missing was Viper. I looked around the table after we'd all sat down with our plates, then frowned.
“Has anyone seen Viper?” I asked.
The men looked at each other. We were the only ones at the table now; everyone else had finished their meal and gone about their night. Or, in the case of the children, been carted off to wash the remnants of their meal off their faces.
“Did you patch things up with him?” Odin asked.
“Not exactly,” I muttered. “He said he needed more time to cool off and decided to do that by exploring the snake tunnels.”
“And he hasn't returned?” Odin glanced at the other men again.
“I checked Viper's room before I came downstairs.” Azrael set a grim stare on me. “He wasn't there.”
Awhile back, I added towers to the palace. They branched off my bedroom suite and bracketed the balcony. Inside them were bedrooms for my husbands so they each had a place of their own in the palace. Above the balcony, filling the space between the towers, were now two additional floors—one held Vero's nursery and the other was Lesya's bedroom. Each tower had three floors with one bedroom per floor. The tower to the right of the balcony was where Odin, Azrael, and Viper slept while the one on the left had rooms for Trevor, Kirill, and Re. So, it hadn't been a big deal for Az to check on Viper.
Itwasa big deal that Viper wasn't there to be checked on.
I got up and went to an intercom near the dining hall's doorway. I pressed the button. “Lucas? Are you home?” I waited a few minutes then called again, “Lucas?”
“Here,” Lucas finally answered.
“Lucas, did Viper ever return to that snake house?”
“No, Tima. And we didn't find anything of the snakes beyond some discarded clothing. We gave up and came home.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I looked over at my men and that was all that was needed to convey my worry.
“He probably fell asleep somewhere,” Trevor suggested. “I'm sure he's fine, Minn Elska.”
“Well, it's not as if I can text him,” I grumbled. “Cinderella's slippers! He doesn't even have clothes. If he needed to get something to eat, he couldn't.”
“That's a good thing,” Azrael said dryly.
I looked at him askance.
“Like a runaway pet, Viper will come home when he's hungry,” Az explained. “He can trace here anytime he wants, Carus.”
“I'm going to try speaking to him again,” I warned them before going mental. Mental as in using my mind link with Viper, not crazy, though I was on the verge of that too. I pressed into Viper's mind but the connection felt strange. I didn't feel any anger from him but I didn't get any other emotions either.Viper? Viper, wake up. Viper!
“What is it?” Odin asked in concern.
“I'm not getting a response.”
“I guess he's still angry.” Kirill shook his head. “Foolish.”
“I'm not gettinganyemotion from him,” I clarified. Then I tried again.Viper, I need you to answer me. You're scaring me.
Nothing.
“Something's wrong,” I whispered as a horrible certainty filled my gut.
“He could be blocking you,” Azrael pointed out.
“No, I feel the connection. I'm in his head.”
“If you're in his head, then he's alive,” Odin said reasonably. “If something were wrong, Viper would be scared or angry. He wouldn't be blank. He's probably sleeping.”
“I suppose,” I murmured and tried to calm my racing heart. “I should have made him a ring.”
