17 #2
“Yes, yes, I have, Your Majesty.” She shoved him away from me again, hard enough he thunked into the car door and then sat back in her seat.
“I don’t hate him for you like others do.
I think he’s genuine and doesn’t understand that he’s drowning and pulling you down with him while you’re drowning and trying to make sure you both can swim. There’s a difference.”
“She’s not wrong,” Onyx said after several tense moments. “But I see it more like we’re both lost in the same ocean of this trauma, and instead of staying together so we have a better chance of surviving that, we’re drifting further apart and that means neither of us will make it.”
“You’re not wrong either, but the first rule of survival is you decide together on how to work as a team. You just keep…” She blew out a harsh breath when I snorted.
I’d done the same thing.
“What do I know? I’m fucking single and have never been in a real relationship,” she grumbled. “I apologize for sticking my nose in it. I just like the queen for more than being my queen and I’m tired of everyone fucking hurting her.”
“I like you too, Lydia,” I whispered and squeezed her hands. “We can be friends when no one is looking.”
“Smartass,” Benson snickered.
“We’re not friends,” I threw right back before letting go of Lydia’s hand and glancing at Fraser, basically asking his opinion.
“It’s his family, poppet. He’s throwing in with us against his family because it’s the right thing to do. Even if you guys don’t work out, let him see this through. You’d want—need the same.”
That was probably the understatement of the year and really sound advice. I let out another breath and brought my foot up on the seat so I could face Onyx better. He got the idea and tried to do the same… And failed miserably which made us both chuckle quietly.
“I’m sorry my brother is hurting you again,” he whispered. “I’ve given up on Kole, but some part of me keeps holding out hope that Vex can be the man—the boy who once wanted to make Applerest amazing and help the people of Thovudin. I just can’t—I’m sorry, Sagan.”
I appreciated him not calling me “baby girl” given the company, but I was pretty sure he would have if we’d been alone. I wasn’t sure if I would have wanted it with everything going on. We needed less—everything got too intense too fast.
Or maybe we needed to latch on to that intensity?
Actually, I was with Lydia and I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I found out my parents never loved me—hated me even and thought I was a curse from dark gods that would ruin the royal family and then I went back to fucking a man who would never want me for real.
So I was beyond fucked in the head and didn’t know the right thing to do with personal… Anything.
“It’s not Vex,” I sighed, nodding when he frowned.
“Kole could never figure out how to get to a judge and not make a mess.”
Fraser snorted. “This isn’t a mess? Look how many already know.”
“Good point, but he’s also not that connected,” Onyx countered.
“Not Kole,” I hurried to say so we stayed on point and handled this before we arrived where we were going. “Hanna.”
Onyx scoffed. “No. She would never.”
“And he’s back to being an idiot it seems,” Benson muttered, focused on me when I glanced at the rearview mirror. “Didn’t she hang up on you when you called her about the texts and threats?”
“Yes,” I bit out.
“She did?” Onyx whispered. “Seriously? I would never have expected that of her. She’s so…”
“Oh, I’d finish that sentence carefully,” Lydia drawled.
“Especially since I fucking hate her and think she’s a…” I trailed off when I saw Onyx staring at me like he’d never seen me before. “Do you have feelings for her?”
“What? No. No!”
“Okay, this is—pull over so we can switch seats,” Fraser sighed.
“No,” Onyx snapped.
“I agree,” I grumbled, giving him a disgusted look.
He chuffed and tried to basically pull me onto his lap. “I don’t have feelings for Hanna! She’s my sister-in-law and I thought a really good person! It’s like you’re telling me—I don’t know, but I’m in shock.”
“Okay, not to defend him, but as someone who fell for Elira’s shit and I was always around her, not you,” Benson hedged. “He wasn’t around her much, right? Like he left home and was always teaching? He was on research trips and—how young did he leave? Before they mated.”
“Okay, I like you better now,” Onyx said, playing on the earlier gag.
“But that is true. I mean, you didn’t even know me as Kole’s uncle, Sagan.
I just know the times I saw her at holidays, what Vex has always told me and he thinks the world of her, and her public image.
” He huffed when I still studied him. “She’s not my type.
I thought she was a good person, but she’s passive. ”
Lydia snickered.
Yeah, I was anything but passive.
My lips twitched at that too. “Okay, fine, but—sorry. I just—it’s…” I let out a slow breath. “It was like Elira all over again where it was going to be everyone picking a different woman over me.”
“You deserve that,” Fraser told Benson, so I assumed he’d gone to say something. I hadn’t even meant it as pointed as it had come out.
But it was still fair for him to hear. It really was.
“She was always horrible to me,” I told Onyx, not caring that the rest of them heard.
“She was very clear that her eldest baby boy was meant for the greatness of being the shining Alpha of Thovudin, not the mate to a dud leader whose parents didn’t even include her in anything.
She bullied me when—she looked so far down on me it was a joke. ”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” he hedged.
“I told Vex and he joked that no one could be as perfect as Amelia and there was always going to be tension between the woman who birthed a man and the one who would date him. I thought…” I shrugged.
“Gross,” Lydia gagged.
“Yes, but I’d heard similar shit before,” I said.
“Even Treena was seeing a man who always compared her to his mother and she always came up short. There are so many cliches about the boyfriend’s mom or mothers-in-law that it wasn’t just me or something to make a huge issue about when I barely saw her. Barely saw him.”
“We’re here,” Lydia announced. “Up on the left.”
“Where is ‘here?’” Onyx asked.
“The next part of this fiasco,” I answered as the vehicle stopped.
“If you beat the judge up—even killed him. What happened next?” I snickered when he winced and got out, offering his hand to me.
I took it and kept his gaze. “You don’t think she’d just do it again?
Give the same sob story that as a woman she understood why I was so emotional, but don’t punish her son? ”
“I believe you, but I just—fuck her,” he grumbled. “I really judged the people who fell for Elira’s bullshit because I saw it from a mile away, but now I’m the next fool. I thought she was awesome. I thought she was good for Vex.”
I realized he was really upset about that, seeming a bit like someone had told him sea monsters weren’t real or that dragons didn’t really fly. I felt bad for jumping on him earlier and being jealous.
I put on my game face though and went around back with Lydia while Benson and Fraser went to the front. Obviously, I couldn’t just show up at the judge’s door.
It was much better to sneak in the back and not be seen on camera. It was easy with Lydia being a shadow dragon after all.
Judge Joanna froze in what she was saying as she stood in the foyer with Benson and Fraser. “Forgive me for not giving you a formal greeting when you broke into my home, Your Majesty.”
I snorted. “You can call me Sagan when I commit crimes, Your Honor.”
She turned so she could see all of us, studying me closely. She let out a slow breath. “So you found out what that sexist tool is planning to do?”
“Worst-kept secret ever,” Onyx drawled from the front porch and stepped inside. “Seriously.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t think that was part of the trap for the queen, Mr. Conley? I do.”
I held my hand up to hold off the others and studied her. “Maybe for the judge just to gloat when he thinks he won, but not with the Alpha Mate. She maintains a pristine image. Even her brother-in-law thought she was a good person.”
“Understood, but that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here and think I can help you with, Your Majesty.”
I chuckled darkly while the others went tense. “I’m not a hypocrite, Your Honor.” I bounced that around a moment, even moving my head as I did. “Not on fairness. I’m not planning to do what the judge and Alpha Mate were. I’m not asking you to do anything for me.”