Chapter Two #2
Lana wasn’t sure what to make of the scene before her.
She had been prepared to face an intimidating interrogation, but it was turning out to be an elaborate brunch.
She wasn’t fooled by the casual atmosphere, though.
They still had serious business to discuss, and she couldn’t let herself get distracted from her goal.
“Sit,” Kingston ordered as he gestured with his fork. “We might as well eat while we wait for the others.”
Lana removed her coat, and it disappeared from her hands before she could set it down.
She noticed it was now hanging on the coat rack near the entrance, along with her satchel bag.
Thankfully, she was still wearing her black leather gloves that made her feel a little more at ease as she took a seat on the other side of the table in the designated hot seat.
A small, genuine smile tugged at her lips when Autumn placed an oversized double chocolate muffin in front of her on a pretty pink plate.
The top of the muffin was crowned with sparkling sugar crumbs that caught the light, and the sweet scent of cocoa and vanilla was familiar and comforting in a way she hadn’t realized she needed.
It warmed her heart that the goddess had remembered her favorite muffin.
Unfortunately, comfort did little to settle the storm of nerves churning inside her.
Her stomach remained hopelessly knotted with anxiety, twisting tighter with every passing second until the thought of taking even a single bite felt impossible.
She curled her fingers in her lap instead while she forced herself to calmly wait for the meeting to officially begin.
A man wearing a dark blue three-piece suit with a striped tie suddenly teleported into the room. Lana wasn’t sure who he was, but he looked very annoyed. “I have to be in court in two hours,” he said in a clipped tone. “So, we need to make this—damn, are those waffles?”
He hurried over to the table and started piling food onto a plate, no longer looking the least bit irritated.
“That’s Councilman Wade Nottingham,” Kingston announced. “He comes from a powerful mage family and is a big-time corporate attorney in California. He can be a little abrupt sometimes, but he’s not much of an asshole.”
“Gee, thanks,” Wade deadpanned.
“Speaking of assholes,” Kingston continued, ignoring the other councilman’s ire. “You still need to elect a new member to take over now that Arthur Blevins is doing time.”
Arthur Blevins had recently been kicked off the council when they discovered that he and his family had been plotting to steal magic from shifter students at the magical academies.
They had used a syphoning spell imbued into bracelets they had forced the students to wear during Magical Combat training.
Thankfully, they had been caught, and their conspiracy had been exposed before any real damage had been done.
Wade waved his fork in the air. “We are still in the process of vetting candidates, but a new representative should be elected soon.”
The three remaining council members arrived at the same time, though it was obvious that they weren’t together.
A gorgeous male with dark blonde hair and bronzed skin that radiated with a lustrous shimmer appeared in one of the empty chairs.
He had a regal bearing, making the chair seem more like a throne.
That made sense since he was Gildor, the Consort of the Queen of the Fairies.
Lana had briefly met him at Ava Fortier and Castiel Stormborn’s recent mating celebration.
Although she hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to Gildor or the queen besides exchanging a cursory greeting, it was clear the fairy royals were good friends with the dark angel now mated to her wolf shifter friend, Ava.
A beautiful blonde female arrived wearing a pristine set of white robes with gold threading and a fuck-off attitude. Lana had no idea who she was, and she didn’t seem inclined to introduce herself, but it was clear she was one of the representatives from the Celestial Realm.
The last male rushed through the front door wearing a white lab coat and a harried expression.
“Sorry, I’m late. I just finished rounds at the hospital and—never mind that.
” He took the last seat at the table, then smiled warmly at Autumn when she set an oversized cup of cappuccino in front of him. “Bright blessings to you.”
Autumn laughed. “I know how you doctors are about caffeine.”
“Too bad you can’t inject it straight into my veins.”
“I’ll be back in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes. If you need me, just tell Kingston,” Autumn told the group. She gave Lana’s shoulder a supportive squeeze, then disappeared into the back of the bakery.
“She’ll have her music on and a protective shield up, so she won’t disturb us or listen in on the meeting,” Kingston announced. “If any of you have a problem with that—”
“We don’t.” The newcomer assured. He glanced over at Lana and gave a little wave. “Hello, I’m Crispin Frost, one of the fae council members.”
He didn’t look like a fae until he waved a hand and removed the glamour spell he had been using to hide his shimmering gray eyes and pointed ears that were easy to see with the shorter cut of his dark blond hair.
“He’s also Prince of the Winter Kingdom and brother to the current queen,” Kingston explained. “And she is Mirielle Elowen, an angel from the Celestial Realm.”
“Can we hurry this along?” Mirielle demanded impatiently. “I have other places I have to be after this.”
“Then, you should have sent another representative to the meeting,” Gildor stated. His words weren’t said harshly, but they were clearly meant as a reprimand.
The angel huffed out an irritated breath, then grabbed a blueberry cream cheese muffin off a tray and took a generous bite.
Kingston pushed his plate aside and waved a hand in the air, making a folder appear in front of each of the council members.
“Lana, we have all had a chance to review the thesis you wrote for your class and the request you have submitted to the council. But now, we’d like to ask you a few questions. ”
Lana folded her gloved hands in front of her on the table. “Of course.”
“I’ll go first.” Mirielle cut in. “Why didn’t you report your secret-extracting ability to the council once you knew what you could do? It wasn’t listed on your Trifecta University application either. I also noticed no one in your family has disclosed this particular gift before.”
She had been prepared for them to ask that.
Lana knew her family was going to be furious for bringing attention to what they could do, but she was trying to pave the way for her future.
Still, it was a tricky subject, and she needed to explain it properly.
She had spent her whole life making sure no one got close enough to see the truth.
Her touch didn’t just reveal secrets.
It demanded them.
Meeting with the council meant dragging her own deepest, darkest secret out into the open and laying it at the feet of strangers who would pick it apart piece by piece.
They would analyze it with cold precision, dissect it, decide whether it was dangerous or useful, and judge her accordingly.
One way or another, they would determine what she was worth because of it.
She was exposing herself and her gift, and she was doing it willingly.
Wasn’t that a twisted bit of irony?
“My family has a hereditary gift for extracting secrets. That much is true. But it has never been a particularly strong ability, nor has it been very consistent. And it had only worked on humans and never other supernaturals, so it was deemed unnecessary to report it before now.”
“So, your gift is different?” Crispin probed.
Lana nodded. “My ability is stronger, perhaps because of my hybrid status. I never expected to be able to read another supernatural, so I was quite surprised when it actually happened. I’d like to be very clear.
I am still in the process of learning exactly how my ability works, so I can only explain what I know about it thus far.
It is not something I have experimented with much since it isn’t a very pleasant experience for me when it works. ”
Thayer tilted his head, curiosity sharpening his expression. “So, how does it actually work?” he asked. “Do you just touch someone and suddenly see every terrible thing they’ve ever done?”
“I don’t see everything all at once. If I make skin-to-skin contact with someone, like a handshake, or if my hand rests on their bare arm, I can catch a glimpse of one of their secrets.
Sometimes it’s something relatively minor.
Maybe they stole something from a store, or cheated on an exam. But other times…”
She hesitated as memories flooded into her head.
“Other times it’s much worse. Darker. I can see the things from their past that they’ve buried deep.
Moments of cruelty, violence, or the harm they’ve caused someone.
It’s never all of their sins. I can’t see someone’s entire history or all of their memories.
Just one. One secret at a time. But sometimes one secret is enough to right a wrong and expose someone’s character. ”
“But who’s to say what you’re seeing is actually the truth?” Wade Nottingham asked. “Memory is unreliable. People misremember things all the time, and sometimes they reshape events in their own minds until what they believe happened has very little to do with reality.”
That was a fair question.
“What I see isn’t a memory in the ordinary sense,” she explained carefully.
“It isn’t filtered through emotion, bias, or self-justification, and it doesn’t come from a single person’s interpretation of an event.
What I see comes from someone’s mind, but it feels…
objective. Direct. As if I’m witnessing the moment exactly as it unfolded, without distortion or embellishment. ”
She hesitated, searching for a way to accurately explain it in plain terms.