Chapter 15 Navuh
NAVUH
After Areana had left to meet Annani up in the penthouse, Navuh closed his eyes and tried to imagine what was happening on the island in his absence.
Was Losham already sitting in his chair, issuing orders to his men? Had his other adopted sons begun circling like vultures, each one eyeing the throne? Or had chaos descended, the various factions tearing each other apart in a bloody scramble for power?
Some parts of him hoped for the latter. If the Brotherhood collapsed without him, it would prove what he'd always known—that he was irreplaceable, that his vision and his iron will were the only things holding the empire together.
But another part, the more practical one, hoped that Losham was holding things together so when Navuh finally found a way to escape and return to the island, he would not find his life's work in shambles.
Losham was clever enough to maintain order, at least temporarily.
At some point during his musings, Navuh must have fallen asleep, and the hissing sound of the door opening jolted him awake.
The footsteps didn't belong to Areana. They weren't light enough, nor were they accompanied by the whisper of silk or the familiar scent of her. They weren't the doctor's brisk, high-heeled clicking either, or the nurse's soft and efficient strides.
These footsteps were distinctly male, even though they weren't heavy.
A warrior's footsteps. Careful and measured, and at the same time confident and deliberate.
The small hairs at the back of Navuh's neck began tingling, confirming his assessment of the intruder.
It was a warning signal that immortal males felt when encountering an unfamiliar immortal male. A potential rival. A potential threat.
"Who are you?" Navuh asked, hating that he couldn't turn his head to see who it was.
The male who appeared in his field of vision was as handsome as he was fearsome. A warrior through and through, despite the tailored business suit and the light brown hair that was long enough to brush the male's shoulders—probably hiding those damned compulsion-filtering earpieces.
The hard look in his eyes gave him away. The cold assessment. The hatred, the loathing that was barely concealed beneath a thin veneer of civility. The gloating was unmistakable and deliberate. The male wanted Navuh to see the satisfaction he felt seeing his enemy diminished and humiliated.
"I'm Kian. Annani's son."
Of course. That was what Navuh had already deduced.
"You were always a thorn in my side," Navuh said, his lips twisting in a smirk. "I still don't know how you pulled off some of those stunts against my men. Had the Fates been whispering in your ear where to find them?"
Kian's expression flickered with surprise that was quickly suppressed. He was trying to maintain a neutral facade, but Navuh had caught it.
"I didn't expect you to open with that," Kian admitted.
Navuh allowed himself a full smile. "What did you expect? Groveling?"
"No." Kian shook his head. "I didn't expect that either. Frankly, I don't know what I expected."
He moved to sit down, disappearing from Navuh's field of vision. The loss of visual contact was immediately disorienting, leaving Navuh staring at the ceiling while his enemy sat somewhere to his left, studying him at his leisure.
"I can't see you when you're sitting down," Navuh said, keeping his voice even. "I can't move my head."
"That's a disadvantage." Kian's voice came from below and to the side. "To you. Not to me."
The words were delivered without malice, simply a statement of fact, and somehow, that made them worse than if they'd been spoken with glee.
"I see," Navuh said. "So, you are going to sit there and enjoy my predicament. Is that the motive for your visit? Did you come to gloat?"
"In part." There was a hint of humor in Kian's voice. "I wanted to see for myself the great Navuh, leader of the Brotherhood, the big bad wolf himself, paralyzed from the neck down, and at my mercy. I have to admit that it feels good."
"Enjoy it while you can. I will heal."
"Of course. Bridget says you're making impressive progress, healing almost as fast as a god. But not quite."
Navuh filed that information away. "Bridget strikes me as the type who follows orders. What did you tell her to tell me?"
Kian chuckled. "You are wrong about Bridget.
I have no jurisdiction over her when it comes to medical issues.
Besides, why would I want to deceive you about your medical condition by overplaying your progress?
It would have been more logical for me to convince you that you were never going to recover and crush your spirit.
Defeated people are easier to interrogate. "
"Everyone has their own reasons to deceive. Perhaps you want to raise my hopes only so you would have more to crush later."
Kian was silent for a moment. "You are even more paranoid than I am. That's no small achievement."
"Paranoia implies irrational fear. My fears are entirely rational, given my circumstances, and given that you've been fighting me for centuries, yours are justified as well."
"Fair point."
Another silence stretched between them. Navuh waited, letting the quiet do its work. Kian had come here for a reason, and he would eventually get to it. In the meantime, Navuh would learn what he could from whatever scraps of information Annani's son let slip.
"Bridget told me that you want to speak with my mother," Kian finally said.
"I do."
"About what?"
"That's between your mother and me."
"Anything that concerns my mother concerns me."
Navuh laughed, the sound coming out rougher than he intended. His throat was still dry, still healing. "How touching. The devoted son, protecting his mother. Tell me, does she know you're here right now? Or did you sneak in to interrogate me while she's busy with my mate?"
"She knows," Kian said.
"But she didn't send you."
"Of course not."
"To assess the threat before allowing her into the monster's lair." Navuh smiled. "I approve. It's what I would have done."
"I don't need your approval."
"No. But you want my information. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."
Another pause. Navuh could practically hear the gears turning in Kian's head, calculating how to extract what he wanted without giving anything in return.
"You told Areana you have something valuable to offer my mother. Something that will be worth her time."
"I do."
"What is it?"
"I'll tell her when she comes to see me."
"Tell me now," Kian commanded, the tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed. "I won't allow her to come here unless I know what this is about."
Navuh felt his smile widen. This was almost too easy.
"You forget that I know your mother," he said. "I knew her when she was a girl, barely more than a child, yet cunning enough to manipulate her father into dissolving her engagement to my father."
Kian's silence was sharp, attentive.
"I knew her when she found that poor sap Khiann and convinced him that he was her truelove mate.
Quite impressive for a girl who wasn't even eighteen yet.
" Navuh let the words sink in. "Annani single-handedly ended the era of the gods.
She's responsible for their demise. Annani is not the kind of female who takes orders from her son or anyone else. You have no power over her."
The gamble was calculated. He didn't know the dynamics between Annani and her son, but he knew Annani, or at least he knew the girl she had been, and he'd known her father, whom she had taken after.
She was raised as a queen, not a follower.
She was not someone who deferred to others, not even to a son she loved and appreciated.
"You're wrong." Kian's voice had gone cold, the pretense of civility stripped away. "My mother did not cause the fall of the gods. It was your father who dropped the weapon of mass destruction on the assembly."
Navuh had struck a nerve. Good.
"Mortdh didn't go to the assembly intending to kill everyone," Navuh said calmly. "He went to threaten them, so they would drop the murder charges against him. He wanted to rule the gods, and if he killed them all, who would he have to rule over?"
"Then what happened?"
Navuh had never told anyone the full truth of what had happened that day. Not even Areana. He'd sabotaged the plane because he wanted to eliminate his father, and he had done it for Areana. He hadn't known that Mortdh had been carrying a weapon of mass destruction.
"An accident, most likely. But the fact remains that your mother put in motion the chain of events that led to this tragic result."
If Annani hadn't ended her engagement to Mortdh, Areana wouldn't have been given to his father as a consolation prize, and he could have courted her at his leisure when the time was right.
He couldn't bear the thought of Mortdh touching Areana, so he'd arranged for his plane to malfunction way before he had reached the assembly.
He'd expected Mortdh to die alone without anyone suspecting foul play.
Somehow, Mortdh had made it to the assembly first, and when his plane exploded, it also detonated the bomb, killing Mortdh along with the gods and every living thing in the area.
It hadn't been Navuh's intention to kill all the gods. It had been an accident. It hadn't been his fault. The fault was with Annani, who had started the chain of events.
"I don't really care who started what," Kian said.
"Playing the blame game does not benefit anyone.
The facts are that you've done everything in your power to undermine our efforts and kill our people.
We were trying to continue the work of the gods you pretend to care so much for, while you continued your father's hateful legacy. "
"The gods were delusional. Humans were created to be slaves, to serve the gods, and they are incapable of governing themselves.
You blame me and the Brotherhood for all the ills of the world, but we wouldn't have been so successful if the ground wasn't fertile for the seeds we sowed.
I've built an empire on pragmatism, and your people got in my way.
If Annani had stayed hidden, I would have left her alone. "
Kian snorted. "And you expect me to believe that when you spit venom every time you say my mother's name? Don't pretend like this is not a personal vendetta."
"It's not, but I don't expect you to take my word for it. Your mother is not important enough for me to design my empire around her demise."
Kian appeared in his field of vision again, standing over the bed with his arms crossed. His expression was thunderous, and his eyes burned with barely contained fury.
"Your entire organization is built on hatred toward my mother and all she represents.
Without her and the clan, you would have nothing to rile your army of hoodlums around.
You needed someone for them to hate with passion, and a goddess was the perfect target because she was eternal.
You didn't need to come up with new targets for their hate every time one died off. "
The guy was smart to figure that out, but his acknowledgement didn't change anything about their dynamics.
"Bravo. I would have clapped, but I can't move my arms."
"What do you want to offer my mother?" Kian demanded.
"I will only speak of that to her." Navuh closed his eyes. "I'm tired. Please leave."
He expected Kian to splutter something about Navuh having no say in whether he stayed or departed, or something about Navuh being at his mercy, but Kian did neither.
He just left, and the door closed behind him.