Page 24
LLEWELLYN
I fucked up.
Alphas despised fucking up.
Especially me. Especially when it affected my queen.
“Which queen is that?” Shara asked coolly once I joined her in Esetta’s bedchamber. “Me? Or my mother?”
I bowed low, keeping my gaze locked to the floor at her feet. “Only you, Your Majesty.”
“How can I know that? Especially when you keep secrets from me.”
I dropped even lower, bracing my left hand on the floor, down on one knee, my right arm curled over my chest. “I never intended to keep secrets from you, Your Majesty. Forgive me. I’m not used to having a queen work so openly, especially among her Blood.”
I heard the quiet rustle of her skirts and risked a furtive glance up. Nevarre had quietly moved to her side, took her hand, and guided her to sit on the cushioned bench at the foot of the bed. On his knees, sitting back on his feet, he gently removed her shoes and pulled her feet up onto his lap so he could massage her soles.
The sharp stabbing emotion in her bond shifted closer to hunger than rage. Threaded with bone-deep weariness from controlling such immense power. A wearying, trying day, made even more difficult now by an emotional response to learning more about her mother and heritage. Compounded by my negligence in withholding information at her mother’s order.
Which on the surface, made it appear as though I honored Esetta more than Shara.
Damn you, Esetta, for putting me in this situation with your plotting.
Rik gave me a hard, accusatory stare that I absolutely deserved. She needed to be feeding, not mulling over the intricacies of sharing Blood with the secretive—manipulative—mother she never knew. I needed to fix this. Immediately.
Shara wasn’t the kind of queen who demanded shows of submission or subservience from us, but hopefully it would mean even more coming from a former alpha. On my hands and knees, I crawled closer and dropped to my belly, my head down, my face pressed against my outstretched arms.
“I beg forgiveness for keeping your mother’s orders secret from you, Your Majesty. I should have notified you immediately.”
“What exactly were her orders to you with regards to me?”
“I must defer to your alpha in all things. I must do my best to keep you focused on the natural progression of power transfer. Only after the survivors were all brought together again, then I could tell you to beware Set. By then, you should have consolidated enough power and Blood to be prepared to defend against him, if necessary.”
“If necessary,” Shara repeated slowly. “Meaning…”
“Your mother saw infinite possibilities. Not all futures involved defending against Set. Though she prepared us for as many situations as possible.”
I didn’t lift my head as the rest of Esetta’s living Blood joined me on the floor. Khalid and Nox on my left. Gerard on my right. Nevarre backed away, as quietly as he’d come to her side, making way for us without complaint.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Khalid began. “I too have orders from your mother.”
“We each do,” Nox added.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Gerard’s voice was thick with tears, his bond shredded with agony. “It’s my fault that Zharr is dead.”
“It’s my fault that Lucian is dead.” Khalid’s voice cracked with grief. “He died so I could be here today.”
Shara’s voice quivered too, responding to the flood of agony in our bonds. “What happened?”
“They volunteered to go to House Valois.” Khalid buried his face against his forearms. “Allowing us to remain in Rome on reserve. Hoping against hope that you would make it to Rome or Paris and might need our expertise over theirs.”
No one could see my face, so I allowed my calm control to crumble. My mouth twisted in a grimace, my teeth bared, my jaws tight with strain. Holding back my rabid curses. Goddess, I wanted to rail and punish and destroy. If Esetta was still here in front of me…
What could I even say to her?
Because the truth was…
Even if I knew I would end up rotting in a tree in the swamp, I would have gone if she asked me to go. Gladly.
