20. Plot
Plot
E ven totally still groggy, my eyes opened, and I rolled, vaguely (but contentedly) feeling the deep lethargy in every muscle in my body and the light ache between my legs.
The sun was high.
Morning was here.
I reached across the bed, already knowing he wasn’t there.
And I was so fuzzy, it didn’t hit me as strange that I also knew precisely where he was.
Instead of processing it, I just made moves to get there.
The hover bed rocked like a cradle as I found the edge of it, threw my legs over the side, and got up. I groped for my panties, tugged them on, found my cami, pulled that on too, and listed across the room to Aleksei’s upstairs office.
He was behind the desk, his eyes on me as I entered, like he knew I was coming even if I hadn’t made a sound with my bare feet on his plush carpet. His beast senses were good, I knew this, but that was really good.
He rolled back in his chair, and I accepted his invitation.
I slid onto his lap.
He hooked his arm behind my knees, pulled them up to my chest and tucked me into a ball, wrapping both arms around me and holding me tight.
Okay.
Wow.
Gods, this felt good .
I nestled my forehead into the side of his neck.
“Sleep okay?” he murmured.
“Mm,” I hummed because it was all I had in me.
He gave me a squeeze. “ Good .”
I rested in the safety of his arms, and he held me like he’d do it all day as I let the sleep drift away.
As I did, our night before floated through my head.
Our amazing first time, as well as the second, the third, the fourth (for your information, this mate business meant Aleksei could stay hard all night, we’d tested it, and both of us had passed out before we found the end of his stamina—it…was… awesome ).
Regrettably, the conclusion of our conversation about my parents also sifted into my head.
It went like this:
Aleksei: “ I’m going to grant them an audience.”
Me: “ Are you crazy?”
Aleksei: “ No . I want them to look me in the eyes when they say what they feel entitled to say after they treated their daughter, and my mate, so abominably.”
Me: “ Who cares!”
Aleksei: “ I do. Know your enemy, Laura . Them even asking for an audience tells me something. They’ll tell me more when I lay eyes on them.
And more when they say what they have to say.
In the end, I’ll know what I’m dealing with in regard to those two vipers.
And if they’re stupid enough to give me the opportunity to discover what I can use to control them, or what will destroy them, I’ll let them. ”
I was seeing his time at Red Lair might have ramifications for me.
“They didn’t even wait a day,” I mumbled into his throat as I sat in the cocoon of his big, strong body in his office.
“Pardon?”
I blew out a sigh, shook off the rest of my bleariness, and lifted my head to look at him.
“My parents. They didn’t even wait a day after learning we were mates before they reached out to try to get…whatever it is they think they’ll get. Thirteen years, I haven’t seen or heard from them. But they didn’t reach out to me. They contacted the Palace .”
“Are we surprised they’re giving indications of what we already know, they’re pieces of shit?” he asked, watching me carefully.
“No,” I huffed and then collapsed against him again. “ It’s just sucky.”
“They’re suspects, Laura .”
My head shot up again. “ What ?”
“In whatever is going on with someone trying to harm you. It’s another reason I’m granting them an audience.”
“You think they’re behind drugging me?” Dear Lilith ! It wasn’t just that. “ And attacking me ?”
“No. They aren’t high up on the suspect list. I’ve had a briefing on them as well.
A detailed one. They both make decent money, but they aren’t in a position to hire goons to attack you.
And the male we have in custody isn’t talking.
But what we do know is, he’s not some average street tough.
He’s a skilled mercenary. And they cost money. ”
Holy Hecate .
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “ I’m simply telling you because you should know they’re being investigated.”
“What else should I know?”
He pulled me closer and sighed.
I felt that with him.
Our cozy night in, sex-fest and cuddle time was over.
Back to the real world.
“The investigators are operating on two theories. That one. The one where your parents dislike your creature so much, are embarrassed by her or whatever their fucked-up mindset about that is, they put a hit out on her. The reason that seems unlikely is, first, it’s thin because it’s deranged.
They’re pieces of shit but have given no indication they’re twisted, homicidal pieces of shit.
Also , the time that’s passed with no contact between you since you left their home.
If this bothered them that much, it would be expected they’d do something in the last thirteen years.
And last, it doesn’t explain why they shifted targets and aimed at me. ”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “ What’s the other theory?”
“That someone took pains to discover you were my mate. And they targeted you first, in order to dispose of her, so we would be less likely to find one another.”
Oh boy.
I couldn’t say I knew a whole bunch about this mate business, not ever having one before, and not having parents who explained it to me.
That said, it was exceptionally rare a shifter would lose their beast without losing their lives as well, as in, the human side died, and when that happened, the shifter died with them.
A shifter’s beast was always something strong, cunning, wily or swift.
They healed quickly when wounded. And their senses were heightened.
So heightened, they normally heightened the human side as well when they were dormant.
Thus , they were hard to kill (why the scientists hypothesized we’d advanced from humans to shifters, because they’d appear to protect us when we were in danger).
There were some who were weaker than others (like mine), and some were nearly impossible to kill (like Aleksei’s ).
But they had evolved to keep their human alive by fighting, outwitting or escaping to stay alive.
On the other hand, part of the protection of a beast was that, if they died, the human part of them didn’t.
In other words, if you killed a creature, in order to kill the being it inhabited, you then had to kill that being.
As such, once a beast was dead, it would immediately transform back to its being.
However, again, this was very rare.
Therefore, I didn’t know what might happen when one ran across their mate without their beast alive within them. They didn’t write that scenario in romance novels.
Mates were mates, the human part of us, and the creature. But clearly, the creatures called to each other, like mine did, even being roused from a drugged state to do it.
I didn’t know what would have happened if I didn’t have her.
But I sensed I might have missed it altogether, since, when she went back to her unconscious state, I did just that.
“Is that possible?” I asked about identifying someone’s mate before they knew of their mate.
He nodded. “ Yes . There are witches who have the power to pinpoint a being’s fate. They cost a good deal of money. There aren’t many of them, but they exist.”
“Okay. But why would someone do that?”
“Well, if that someone was Anna , she’d have the means and the motive to make certain I didn’t find the being who was meant to be mine since she considers me hers.”
“Oh my gods,” I breathed.
“However, their switching targets to me does not seem like something Anna would wish. That said, she was not happy I broke things off with her, so it’s highly doubtful, but it isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.”
I was thinking we had more to talk about when it came to Princess Anna .
Aleksei kept sharing, but not about her.
“The same with means and motive for Timothee , or less likely, Errol , just to fuck with me.”
“Oh my gods,” I said a whole lot louder.
“However, considering they turned their weapons on me when they had the chance, an order I cannot begin to think either of my brothers would be behind, it hints at something deeper, more sinister and more concerning.”
Uh-oh.
“That would be?” I asked, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“I introduced a bill in the UCR that would make it illegal, and punishable by prison time, to have sexual relations with or marry, even with parental consent, a minor under the age of fifteen.”
The UCR was the United Council of Realms , the governing body that oversaw all Four Realms in matters that could supersede the laws a realm made for itself.
It also had other functions that carried on after Unification crashed.
There was a central bank, so we all used the same money.
There was open trade and open borders. And some taxes went their way, so they could allocate resources, say should there be a natural disaster where humanitarian efforts and rebuilding were needed.
“I heard about that,” I said. “ But it isn’t controversial. Each realm has a law in place that forbids it anyway. Except the parental consent thing. Even so, they say it’ll breeze through passage.”
“It has some opposition.”
Yuck. From who?
Aleksei answered my unasked question. “ Sky’s Edge .”
I wanted to roll my eyes.
I didn’t roll my eyes.
Sky’s Edge was always stirring up trouble.
“King Arnaud ,” I guessed.
“Apparently, he’s in love.”
“He’s in love a lot,” I replied.
And he was, usually with very young females. It was gross when he was in his thirties.
But they were all majority (that said, they were all only seventeen or eighteen).
“She’s twelve,” Aleksei shared.
Lilith and all her fiery friends!
“Ulk!” I gagged.
“And unofficially, they haven’t announced it yet, they’re engaged.”
“She’s just a child,” I snapped.
“He says it’s their religion.”