50. Lenna
50
Lenna
“ N o fucking way,” Lenna repeated, wide eyed and unable to replace her jaw in its usual non-dropped position.
This woman was a replica of Raoul. Same snow-white hair, same light blue eyes, same pale skin, same devastating beauty. After months of wanting to see him, to find him and take him somewhere safe, the sight of this woman seemed to ease some of the tightness in Lenna’s chest, even if she wasn’t him.
“You must be one of the Brachyan sisters,” Raoul’s sister said, looking at her red hair. “Raoul was always talking about you when we lived in the North House,” she smiled, and her smile was the sweetest thing Lenna had seen in a long while.
As if her own sister had felt somehow summoned, Lenna felt a tickle on her forearm and read Ayla’s silver ink:
The ink vanished from her skin as quick as Lenna dismissed her sister’s words, the memory of her lost heirloom and her current powerlessness. Enough was going on in this place already to be worrying about her own sister, too.
“Did you just appear out of nowhere? How the Cardinals’ fuck did I not know you existed?” Lenna frowned. Swearing in front of her sweet smile made her almost feel bad. Almost.
“Your mother always kept me busy with laundry and kitchen duties at the North House.”
Of course, her mother did. Lenna knew perfectly well how her mother exploited much more the female servants than the male servants, just because they seemed to cope with multitasking and not having any spare second for themselves.
“As for just appearing out of nowhere… It’s a long story, but that’s a pretty accurate description.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nina,” Raoul’s sister smiled. “If you were going to say something about my brother’s situation, please go ahead.”
Lenna turned to Ciaran and Indianna and asked, “How are we getting him out?”
“We have a plan,” Ciaran said, and turned to look at Jake, “We need to have a brief trip to the Cardinals Temple as soon as possible. If you want to make yourself useful, ensure your father stays the fuck away from there when it’s time.”
Jake cocked his eyebrow as he said, “One thing is not agreeing with my father’s methods and his general assholeness. Another very different is helping in rebellious or unlawful activities behind his back.”
“Don’t you keep saying that you like to push limits and boundaries? Prove it, then,” Lenna spat.
“It would be my pleasure.” The word pleasure with the now dark gray tone of his eyes did funny things to the rhythm of her heart, and the shiver down her spine seemed to agree.
Lenna’s lips tightened in a thin line. She faced the dark-haired woman with two long braids, Hope, and said, “Nobody has lost anything in that Temple unless they need a conversion. I’m guessing you will have your Fifth Ceremony there as Ciaran is convinced you have pure Core blood. All I will say is, enjoy the powers while your father lets you, or before he finds out. Because he took mine away.”
Ciaran tensed, and his voice was low and somber as he asked, “Is that what he did?”
“Yep. After I called him a piece of shit with powers and refused to apologize for telling him to fuck off,” Lenna smiled sarcastically, and she could have sworn something like respect emanated from Hope, but Ciaran only stared at her golden eyes gravely.
“So, what do you have now? Mark wise?”
“A whole sweet nothing,” she said. “Other than my very useful ink and very pretty floaty golden sparks. Basically, what I had before my Fifth.”
Ciaran walked towards her, and asked, “May I see?”
Lenna opened the zip at the front of her top, revealing the skin underneath, both sides of the top covering her breasts. She felt Jake tensing at her side, surely noting her lack of bra. She said to Ciaran, “Nothing. I told you.”
Ciaran touched the skin where her mark used to be, and Lenna felt a small prickle. “No one can remove the original core of the owner’s mark without leaving them dead.”
Lenna zipped her top up and said to Jake, “How generous of your father to not kill me.”
Jake’s fists tensed, his chin lifting upwards as if he was considering what he would have done if that had been the case. “You wouldn’t have been the only dead one.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant that he would have killed his father or that he would have died trying to. Considering how untouchable the fucking Organ Mandor seemed to be, probably the latter.
“You could be a full panom again if you get the four petals donated,” Ciaran said. “I have one petal for you.”
Even though the donations to Brendon, Carson, Indianna and Sasha were single petals. How the Fifth did Ciaran ever have enough for all those donations? She doubted he would be willing to share that information in a room with so many open fronts, especially as Jake’s eyes were glimmering with profound interest.
“Do I want to be a panom again?” Lenna said, a slight hesitation lacing her words.
“Fuck yes, you want, Brachyan,” Jake snapped.
“When I had finally assumed I wouldn’t be a panom, and that I was not an absolute damned loser because of that,” she swallowed. “But if that means becoming the heir again… Cardinals guide me, I don’t want that .”
She didn’t take her amber eyes from Jake’s silver ones. What sort of being it made her that she cared more about being with Jake in whatever way than representing the House that had raised her? The House could get royally fucked. She was not ready to say it out loud, and definitely not in front of more than the being in question, but the order in her priorities had definitely changed over the past few weeks, days, hours.
“In an ideal world, the Organ Mandor does not find out that you have become a panom again, otherwise I don’t see any scenario in which he doesn’t kill you for reiteratively confronting him,” Ciaran said. “Death and him are the only ways to transfer heirlooms, so you won’t become the heir of the North House again.”
Lenna grinned, “What a shame.”
Jake looked at her with a side smile that seemed to say Free reign to fulfill our mutual desires, sweet fire , and her core heated at the thought of everything she wanted to do to him and everything she wanted him to do to her.
Ciaran looked at Jake and Lenna. “You two shouldn’t have a problem with panomquakes even if Lenna was the heir, though. Because Hope has pure Core panom female blood, which means—”
“That she is the true Cardinals-blessed heir of the Organ House,” Jake finished, his voice cutting, his eyes narrowing as the fact sank in.
“Cardinals above, I don’t think I can take any more big revelations in the span of an hour. I’m going to fucking collapse,” said Sasha, sitting down on the couch. She put both hands at the sides of her face, black curls going in all directions.
“But we caused a panomquake when… Well, the other day. That big panomquake, it was Jake and I doing things. Hot things. The type of forbidden things that two heirs shouldn’t be doing.” Lenna put her hands on her waist, a frown on her face.
“The about-to-fuck type of things,” Jake unnecessarily clarified.
“Inconveniently similar timing,” Ciaran said. “Because I saw Hope stepping into Thyria for the first time in her life, and the panomquake was definitely caused by her presence.”
“And you have known this since when exactly, Ciaran?” Hope spat, anger lining her voice.
“I had suspicions since I saw you, but you were busy throwing blades at me.” Jake and Ciaran crossed a sort of sympathetic stares before Ciaran continued, “then the Organ Mandor intercepted us, then we were in the woods… I didn’t know for sure until I checked your blood.”
Something that Lenna couldn’t identify passed through Hope’s eyes as he mentioned the last bit, but it was gone quickly, replaced by cold irritation.
Lenna turned to Jake, doubting how he would take not being the lawful heir of the Organ House, the successor of his father, and the future Organ Mandor, but Jake didn’t seem to have his mind there.
Instead, his expression had no trace of doubt as he looked at her right back.
“I will donate two petals to you,” Jake said, and the glimmer in his eyes read more than physical heat. It heated another part of her being, a part that she didn’t want to hand over so easily. That she didn’t even know if she was ready to offer. A part that, if hurt, it would destroy her much more.
“You have two to give?” Ciaran asked him.
“I would be stupid to offer what I can’t give.”
Ciaran nodded, looking at Jake with all seriousness and consideration. Lenna’s words had left her, so she only swallowed. And while she was at it, she also swallowed the emotion threatening to make her throw herself in Jake’s arms and kiss the fuck out of him. This was dangerous territory.
“We need one more petal and we are good to go,” Ciaran said. “Two Fifth Ceremonies in one. The Cardinals won’t know what has hit them. Any ideas of someone who could donate you a petal?”
Lenna hesitated, an option forming in her mind.
The chances of pure offering coming from her Ayla’s guilt were slim. But Lenna had some bits of information that she could use to blackmail her into donating a petal. Information that Ayla would not like her parents to know, like some illegal magical devices she owned, the net of spies she had formed in the North House, and some of her escapades from it.
She lifted a hand and sent her very useful golden ink with a wicked smile on her face.