“Right.That...I will consider it.”She felt sadness wash over her.“I didn’t want to go alone.I am alone too much.Oh, my grandparents on my father’s side are alive.That gives me a thought.I want to check something.”
She started to work on her tablet, snorted, and then started laughing.She brought up an old image.“Torun, who does this look like?”
“You, when I first met you.”
She got up, walked over, and held the image next to Hemma.“What do you think now?”
Torun blinked.“Holy shit.You two are extremely similar.”
“Yes, and how are the Thorassen about sex after widowhood?”
“Most are fine, but some adhere to the once per lifetime...oh.She’s being advertised to alphas.She’s Uraddan with Sethir mannerisms, and your ex-in-laws really hate you.”
“I have found a number of inquiries coming from Thorassen and some from Sethir.I think she and my aunt are trying to kill me, but I don’t look like me anymore, and they haven’t seen this particular iteration.So, Hemma looks far closer to the old me than the current one does.”
Hemma was awake and staring, pointing from her chest to Ival.
“Yes, Hemma.I used to look like you.No gills, though.”
Torun grimaced.“I will have the guys from tonight questioned to find out who they were looking for.”
“If they were looking for Gorgon, we have our answer.”
Hemma typed quickly.“Ask Caska if you have any inheritance or trust funds.Ava, too.”
Ival nodded and sent a query to Ava.The response was quick for three in the morning.I will check things.Ival, Gorgon, and the wife of Zukker?
Yes.
Give me a few minutes.
Ival licked her finger again to stay alert.
Torun smiled.“You still stay awake that way?”
“Yeah.It’s a habit and great when I am finishing a book.”She smiled.
“How is that going for you?”
“Pretty good.Have a comfortable house.Live quietly.”
“Companionship?”
“Lots of calls.The contact thing is pretty extreme.My friends are huggy, so if I see them, I have to wrap up and glove up and hood and mask.So I get pretty warm.”
Torun ran his hand over his head.“I wish I had known you were in town.I could have helped.Zera is helpful and extremely smart.She can work out what you need if you give her time.”
“I don’t even know what I want.I think it is just a place I can stay where no one can kick me out and hand me over to monsters.Renovik is open to me, but they insist on my wearing layers to protect those around me.That’s fine, but I really just want to get up, walk outside, and stretch naked in the sun.Of course, I look like a scarred map of downtown right now, but I still like fresh air.”
Torun sighed.
The com pinged, and Ival nodded.“Bingo.Those two bitches are sloppy.Huh, and I had inheritances from my parents and my husband.”She looked and grinned.“Caska is beginning a claim with both courts for my accounts, as I was never recorded as having left either country.And I was sold for torture both times, which is illegal in Thorassen and Sethir.”
Torun frowned.He got on his com and started to send a message to someone.
Hemma looked at her and made a questioning pose.“Oh, my mother-in-law and my aunt have put a price on my head in order to keep the money that my husband and parents left me.My grandparents still have it in the stronghold, and my mother-in-law would get access to hers on the twentieth anniversary of my husband’s death.”She grimaced.“Now I have to travel.I hate travelling.”
Zera walked in and said, “Hamburger.”She held up a vial.“We got Khytten to make an antitoxin, and once she woke up and understood your activation, she got to work on skin healing, and if this vial can manage that, Kritz will work on your eye, getting it to match.”
