I smile, because there were definitely five minutes allotted to walking us through his multiple ventures.
“I work real hard for my money, Dorian,” Gael says. “Pardon me for bein’ proud.”
“Can you tell me more about your relationship with the woman who birthed me?”
“I didn’t have a relationship with her. I’d just met Ines, and I knew she was the one for me.”
Yet he slept with a stranger? No wonder Ines hates me.
“So you had an affair with?—”
“Let’s not call it what it wasn’t. Your mother and I had sex. The condom broke—I always wear condoms with humans.”
TMI, Gael. TMI.
Dorian grimaces.
“Granted, Atlantean sperm is real potent, so maybe it leaked?—”
“Please spare my daughter the mechanics of reproduction, Monta,” comes a voice I haven’t heard in a month.
“Dad!” I hop off the sofa and dash to him.
“Hi, bug.” He folds me into his arms and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I missed you this summer.”
“Missed you, too,” I say, savoring the scent of wild shrubs and bright sun that’s permanently etched into his skin.
“Who’s lookin’ after the mine?” Gael asks.
“Ines,” Dad says. “She landed just as I was departing.”
I almost ask if Malachi went with her, but decide now’s not the time. There might never be a right time for it, actually.
After Dad lets me go to hug Dorian, I settle back in my seat across from Gael. “So my biological mother never told you she got pregnant?”
“No. Your mama got around, so she probably reckoned the baby wasn’t mine.”
“Until I was born. I mean, I had runes. She couldn’t have thought them birthmarks.”
“They’re very small on infants,” Dad says, coming to sit beside me.
“I had a real shark for a lawyer back then. He had his hands in everythin’,” Monta says. “I’m guessin’ he paid her off.”
I sit up straighter. “Can you ask him?”
“When he started stealing from me, I sent him away for good, and sadly, unlike Tarian, I can’t communicate with the dead.”
“Tarian can’t communicate with the dead,” Dorian grumbles.
“If they’re freshly dead, he can bring them back,” Gael points out.
My brother lets out an exasperated sigh. “Not by talking to them, Monta.”
“The point is,Dorian”—Gael spits out my brother’s name in a way that makesmebristle—“the man’s dead, so we’ll never know. But, Electra, darlin’, rest assured that if I’d known about you, I would’ve taken you away and raised you.” Even though I don’t love being referred to as darling, I do appreciate his paternal sentiment.
Gaea only knows how I would’ve turned out, besides having confidence in spades. Would Malachi have been attracted to me or repulsed by mere association?
Mom returns, balancing a large platter of scones. Cillian’s… How ironic that the man isn’t even here, yet a piece of him appears just as my thoughts stray to Malachi.
