Chapter 15 #2
Not that he was sure she deserved it, and not just because she was the reason he was in this bind.
She'd evaded answering his questions about Annani, claiming that she hadn't seen her in days either.
Supposedly, the sisters spoke daily on the phone, but the topics of their conversations were limited to grandchildren, literature, and fashion.
"Darius is learning to walk," she'd told him. "He's very determined but keeps falling on his bottom. It's adorable."
He doubted that Annani and Areana talked only about inconsequential things during their daily calls, but Areana's expression had been open and unbothered, either because she was telling the truth or because she was good at hiding things from him, which he knew she was.
After all, she'd been communicating with Annani for a long time without him suspecting a thing, and then she'd orchestrated Tula's rescue right under his nose.
Then there were his sons, the real ones, blood of his blood, who didn't want to see him either.
Not that he wanted to see them. They were traitors. Both of them. Lokan had been associating with the clan for years, a spy for the clan against his father. And Kalugal had escaped a long time ago with an entire platoon of soldiers and had disappeared.
Traitors. Both of them.
The chicken was gone. The vegetables were half-eaten. He pushed the tray away.
Gertrude returned to clear it and brought Areana with her.
His mate looked radiant. Her hair was styled differently than usual, swept up in a way that exposed her neck and made her look regal. She was wearing modern clothing, well-made and elegant, and she was stunning.
Her beauty was as blinding now as it had been the first time he'd seen her thousands of years ago. An ethereal angel with a sharp mind and cunning to equal his. No wonder he loved her so. There was no one like her in this entire world.
"You look happy," he said.
"That's because I am." She leaned over and kissed his forehead, then sat in the chair beside his bed. "The boys took me to a restaurant tonight."
His chest tightened with anger and envy.
"Lokan is over a thousand years old," he said. "I wouldn't call him a boy."
She smiled. "To me, they will always be my boys. They took me to a restaurant in Beverly Hills called Spago. Have you heard of it?"
"I've heard of Beverly Hills."
"Of course, you have. But have you been to Spago?"
He shook his head. "You know that I never leave the island. How could I have ever visited a restaurant in Beverly Hills?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes days would pass between your visits. You always said that things were hectic and that was why you stayed in the mansion, but I suspected that you were secretly sojourning away from the island."
"I wasn't. I told you the truth."
She smiled benevolently. "Not about everything."
"No," he admitted. "Not about everything."
"You would love it," she changed the subject with her usual ease.
"The food was extraordinary. They bring many small courses instead of one large one for guests to taste, and each course was more beautiful than the last. One of them was a smoked salmon pizza that Kalugal said was the restaurant's signature dish.
It was delicious." She pushed a strand of blond hair behind her ear.
"The last time I ate out was back in the old country.
It has been five thousand years since I dined in a restaurant. "
Her eyes were bright with excitement over experiencing the world for the first time after a very long confinement. The harem had been luxurious, and she had run it with full authority, but it had still been a gilded cage.
Now she was in Los Angeles, eating at restaurants in Beverly Hills with their sons, and the wonder she brought back to this room was both a gift and a reproach.
"How are they?" he asked, because he could not help asking even though the answer always resulted in mixed feelings of pride and bitterness.
"They are wonderful." The brightness in her face intensified. "Kalugal insisted on ordering for the table because he's been to Spago before, of course, and he knew exactly what to get. He has such presence. The staff treated him like royalty."
From what Areana had told him, Kalugal had built a financial empire after deserting from the Brotherhood. Turned out that his son was a powerful compeller, not as powerful as Navuh, but strong enough to use his talent to ascend in the business world.
"What about Lokan?" he asked.
"I think it's difficult for him, being around Kalugal sometimes.
Kalugal is the younger brother, and yet he's achieved so much.
He measures himself against his brother, and that comparison doesn't favor him, even though he shouldn't do that.
Lokan has just gotten free. He hasn't had time to build his own businesses yet or even figure out what he is interested in. "
That hurt. What she'd meant to say was that Lokan had gotten free from under his father's yoke.
"Kalugal is also an archaeologist," Areana continued.
"It's a hobby, but since he has the resources, he organizes and funds archaeological expeditions.
He's excavated sites in the Middle East, South America, and Southeast Asia.
He has accumulated so many artifacts that they are displayed on a rotating schedule in the clan's pavilion. "
Once again, Navuh's chest tightened, but this time it was not in anger, only in envy.
His son had found something he was passionate about, and he was sharing it with Annani's damn clan.
"Archaeology is an unusual hobby for a businessman," he said. "What does he hope to find?"
"He says he's looking for traces of the gods and any artifacts they might have left behind."
That made more sense than just collecting old things that had been left behind by generations of humans.
"He could have come to me with his questions," Navuh said, and the bitterness leaked through despite his efforts to contain it.
Areana looked at him with the steady, knowing gaze that had always been her most formidable tool. She didn't argue. She didn't point out that Kalugal had had good reasons for running away. She just looked at him, and the silence said everything her mouth didn't.
"They're both doing well," she said after a moment. "And Darius is growing so fast. He's such a wise little boy. His father wasn't like that as a baby, and neither was Lokan. Jacki is not the introspective type either, so I really don't know who he has inherited his temperament from."
"Perhaps he got it from me."
She arched a brow. "Were you a pensive boy?"
"That was what my mother used to say."
He rarely spoke about his human mother, not because he was ashamed of her but because he still mourned her thousands of years after her death.
If she had died of old age, he probably wouldn't have been hurting for so long, but he could never forget or forgive the fact that she'd died from an illness his father could have cured with a tiny infusion of his godly blood.
He just hadn't cared enough about the woman who had given him his only son, or about the young boy who was losing his mother, to do anything to save her, even something that would have cost him nothing.
"They'll come around," she said quietly. "Give them time."
"I don't want them to come around," he spat. "They chose their side."