As an idea, it wasn’t a bad one. “I think you could have just asked me to mate you,” she said. “You didn’t have to kidnap me.” To think she’d been prepared to do just that, but now he’d shown his true colors. He was cold and unfeeling, and he’d kill anybody to get what he wanted. Even her.
“No, I didn’t need to kidnap you. But it was the most expedient method, and I wanted Paxton Phoenix here. When you agreed to meet in the dreamworld, I knew that the two of you would be in the same place in the real world, and I took a chance that you’d be in your bedroom in Realm territory.”
The more information she could get from him, the stronger she’d be. “How long have you known you could teleport?”
“About ten years,” he admitted, and he’d kept that secret the entire time. What else had he kept from her? “Isn’t it ironic that the Seven created this situation for us?”
She ran through the events of the last couple of decades. What else had Drake lied about? “Do you remember when my uncles were taken by the Kurjans?” Sam, Logan, and Garrett had all been kidnapped at one point and tortured mercilessly before they’d escaped. “You told me at the time that you had no idea they’d been taken. Was that the truth?”
“No,” Drake said. “I knew where they were, and I knew who was torturing them. My father was one of the people questioning them.”
“So you lied tome,” she said.
“Only because I had to. You don’t understand theway war works.”
“Nobody understands the way war works.” She threw her hands up. “The whole point of our connection was we wouldn’t be at war, that we would trust each otherand be honest.”
For years, Paxton had been warning her that Drake was lying and that he wasn’t the person she wanted him to be, the person she needed him to be. “I don’t know what my path is,” she muttered. “I do know that we’re supposed to find peace together.”
Drake reclaimed his glass and swallowed the rest of the Scotch. “I do know your path. You’re going to be my queen.”
“What if I don’t want to be queen?” She stood,ready to fight.
His gaze was cold. Frozen. “Irrelevant. I would prefer to have your acquiescence, but Idon’t need it.”
“Are you trulyso unfeeling?”
He sighed as if annoyed she didn’t understand him. “This is who I am. My path has always been clear. I knew I would lead the Kurjan nation, and I knew I would take down the Realm, from withinif necessary.”
“Lying to me through the years, even when we were kids, was an acceptable way for you to do that.” It was strange, but his betrayal hurt. She had thought they were friends. He had known theywere enemies.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
She sat, trying to find some sort of way to get through to him. “I won’t be forcedinto a mating.”
If anything, he looked bored. “You’ll be forced in any direction I want you to go. It is completely up to you what kind of life you have with my people. You can be queen and have all the freedom, riches, friends you want, or you can be queen and be kept in a nice little gilded cage. It is up to you, but you willgive me sons.”
Her mouth went dry. There was nothing soft or relenting about him. Worse yet, there didn’t seem to be any emotion. He’d never shown a lot as they’d been growing up, but she had figured that was just since he was out of his element in the dreamworld. She now realized he’d been far nicer there.
The door opened, and Vero and Hunter, disguised as a Kurjan, strode into the room. “How could you not tell me?” Vero asked, his voice a low rumble of anger.
She turned to keep him fully in her sights. She’d only met him in dreamworlds, and he’d always seemed pretty mellow. He was anything butthat right now.
“I didn’t think you needed to know,” Drake said.
Vero just stared at him, and for a moment, Hope thought he might take a shot at Drake. “Well, you’re a fucking bastard.”
She caught her breath. So much for those two being onthe same page.
Drake glanced at Hunter.
Hope was very careful not to look at her cousin. She couldn’t give him away, so she kept her focus on Vero. “What’s goingon?” she asked.
Rage mottled Vero’s handsome face. “I have a brother.”
“Not for long,” Drake said. “As soon as we announce this mating, I’m going to spend a good few days with him. There isn’t going to be anything left, I promise.”
Hope looked at Drake and then Vero. “What do you mean you have a brother?”
