Navuh
"Coffee," she said. "And pastries. There is a vending machine in the lobby of the building above us. I had no idea they made vending machines that brewed cappuccinos. There is not a day that passes by without some technological marvel wowing me."
"We have advanced technology on the island."
The island he had built for the Brotherhood had all the necessary amenities, including sophisticated communication systems and the most advanced weaponry available on the free market.
So what if he hadn't thought to include vending machines that brewed coffee because he had people to do that for him.
Areana wore wide-cut black pants made of a soft fabric that hung smoothly over her long legs.
The quality was evident, even though he wasn't an expert in Western women's fashion.
Still, they were just pants, and his mate shouldn't dress like an ordinary human.
She should be adorned in gowns crafted from the finest silks, custom-made to fit her perfectly.
"Why are you frowning at me?" Areana asked.
"I'm not frowning at you. I'm frowning at the pants you're wearing."
She looked down at the offensive garment. "What's wrong with them?"
"Nothing. It's just that you do not wear pants."
"I do now." She smoothed her hands over the fabric. "I'm experimenting with modern styles."
"Why?"
She smiled the indulgent smile she had been giving him with increasing frequency, the one that he had come to dread because every time she gave it to him she was telling him without saying it that the gap between them had widened.
"You are so old-fashioned," she said. "Women wear pants now. They have been wearing them for almost a century. I am behind the curve, if anything."
"Women can wear whatever they want, but you are not just a woman. You are a goddess. Your attire should befit your station."
"My station is currently that of a guest."
"Your station is who you are, not where you are."
"Right now, I have no station. I am my sister's guest and a mother who is finally getting to know her sons, and a grandmother to a small boy who has just recently learned to walk.
I am wearing pants because they are comfortable and I want to feel like I belong in this world and not in a prison on an island that's frozen in the time of the gods. "
He was speechless for a moment, which didn't happen often. He always had the right retort. He always won his arguments with her and everyone else.
"The gowns kept changing with the times, but they were always the most elegant, flattering, and stylish. Those pants are beneath you."
She chuckled. "Yes, they are. I'm sitting on them, and they are under my bottom. Come on, Navuh. It's just pants. The world is not going to end because of what I'm wearing."
He didn't respond because to keep arguing about her clothes was petty, and it was beneath him.
Ironically, he would have loved to have some pants on instead of the damn hospital gown, but he couldn't wear pants because he couldn't go to the bathroom on his own, and the nurse would just come in, pick him up, and set him on the toilet whenever he needed to go.
He eyed the cups of coffee and wondered if he had enough strength to hold one up. They were quite sizable.
Areana spread a napkin across the rolling table, unwrapped the bag, and pulled out two golden, flaky pastries that smelled fresh. His mouth watered even though he knew they wouldn't be nearly as good as what he was used to.
"They are not the best you've ever had," she said, reading his thoughts. "But they are not bad."
She picked up her coffee.
"Drink yours before it cools down," she said. "It is better hot."
He reached for the cup even though he wasn't sure he could lift it. If it proved to be too heavy for his emaciated muscles, he would put it down and say that it smelled subpar and he wasn't going to drink it.
He lifted the cup with his right hand and immediately supported it with the left. The cup was hot to the touch, but he was holding it, and that was a triumph.
He drank.
"It's good," he admitted.
She smiled brightly as if he'd given her a compliment for making the coffee herself. "It is, right? It's better than what I can brew myself. I have a very good coffeemaker in the penthouse, and Lokan got me excellent coffee, but I still can't get it to taste right."
His gut twisted as it always did when she talked about their sons and how well they were treating her.
Those traitors who had betrayed him.
She took a bite of her pastry and set it back on the napkin. "Take a bite. They are really fresh."
He couldn't take the pastry even if he wanted to because he needed both hands to hold the cup up.
"In a moment." He took another sip from the coffee.
"Darius is running around already," she said. "And to think that he only started walking a month ago."
He didn't respond.
"Darius loves it when Kalugal pretends to chase him. He squeals with joy, which is so cute. He's such a serious little boy most of the time that it's nice to see him laughing."
She smiled at the memory. "Kalugal is such a good father.
He has that playfulness about him. Little kids need that from their dads.
The mother is the nurturer who wraps the child in a blanket of safety, and the father is the adventurer who pushes the child to take risks.
It's a balancing act that children benefit from. "
He took another sip of his coffee.
She waited.
When he didn't say anything, she set her cup down and sighed.
"I would like for you to take some interest in the lives of our sons."
"I am taking interest."
"You are not saying anything."
"I am listening. I have nothing to contribute."
He'd never played with his sons, not those by blood and not the adopted ones.
Not after the first boy who was born in his harem had been murdered by a jealous concubine.
The boy hadn't even been his, but he liked the kid and enjoyed playing with him.
That had put a target on the boy's back, leading to his murder, and Navuh had learned his lesson.
None of his sons had ever gotten any attention from him, and none had reason to think one was more favored than the others.
That was how he'd kept them safe.
"I hope Lokan and Carol have a child soon," Areana said. "I would like another grandchild. A little girl, if the Fates are kind."
"The Fates are a fairy tale."
She smiled indulgently. "I know you don't believe in the Fates, but you contradict yourself. You accept that we are fated mates, and you know that to be true with every fiber of your being, but for us to be fated, the Fates need to exist."
"I didn't say that there is no such thing as fate. What I meant was that the three Fates the gods believed in and attributed matchmaking and destiny to are not real."
"Lokan and Carol are fated mates, and so are Kalugal and Jacki. The Fates matched our sons with females who carry the godly genes, so our grandchildren would be immortal. That didn't happen by chance, Navuh. That was the Fates' doing."
He couldn't rebuke her, and he hated that.
She was telling him that the path their sons had taken had been unavoidable, that it had been destiny, and that he couldn't fault them for betraying him because they had been compelled by the Fates to seek out their mates.
He didn't believe in the Fates. People loved to assign meaning to random events and to frame them as divine will or fate.
He had drunk enough of the coffee for the cup to become less of a challenge, and he managed to return it to the table with one hand.
"My sons are traitors," he said. "They betrayed me, and I will never forgive them for that."
"They just chose a different path, Navuh. They didn't stage a coup or try to overthrow you. They just left. You can call it abandonment, but you can't call them traitors."
"They escaped using trickery."
"Because they had no choice." She raised her voice.
"Kalugal took an entire platoon with him, and Lokan had been supplying the clan with information for years. They didn't just simply walk away."
She took a long breath. "It's pointless to argue with you."
He didn't like this new Areana who was wearing pants, arguing with him, and raising her voice. He missed the old, regal Areana who had always been the calming factor in his chaotic life, but that version of her wasn't coming back.
She'd been thoroughly contaminated by her sister.
"Kian seems loyal to his mother. Is it because she lets him run things? I bet he wouldn't have been as accommodating if she had held on to the reins of power."
"Kian is her regent, and it's true that she no longer runs the day-to-day operations of the clan, but she is still the ultimate authority. Both Kian and Sari answer to her."
"Sari? Who is that?"
"Kian's younger sister who runs the European arm of the clan."
"So, Kian is the oldest?"
She shook her head. "Kian is her second.
Alena is Annani's eldest. She is the true Clan Mother, but she is not interested in a leadership position.
She has had fourteen children, which is a true miracle of fertility for an immortal, so all of the original clan members are basically her descendants. "
This was new information. He had only known about Kian, but he knew that Annani had to have at least one daughter to pass her godly genes further down the line. Otherwise, it would have been just Annani and Kian, and there would have been no clan.
"How old is Alena?" he asked.
"I don't know exactly. Kian is just a little over two thousand, and she is a few decades older than him."
"Does Sari have children?"
"No, she doesn't. Amanda, Annani's youngest, has a baby girl."
He shook his head. "Fourteen is an insane number for an immortal female. She's a freak of nature."
Areana glared at him. "She has been blessed by the Fates."
"Semantics." He reached for the cup, picked it up with one hand, and took another sip. "Insane people were thought to have been touched by the gods. That didn't make it so."
The picture he'd had of Annani's clan needed recalibration. She had four children who did her bidding. Two were running things for the clan, one was popping out children like a human on fertility drugs, and one was doing whatever.
"Who fathered Annani's children?" he asked.
"Humans, of course. There was no one else. Annani believed that she was the only goddess left on Earth."
"I know they were human. I am asking who they were. Were they kings? Princes? Generals? Did she select them for any particular reason?"
Areana pursed her lips. "Annani didn't mention any kings or princes, but she did say something about generals and scholars.
She chose men based on merit rather than birthright.
" She chuckled. "If I am to believe the history books or the movies made about human royal families, they are not known for producing the best specimens. "
He grimaced. "No, they aren't. So, what merits did Annani look for?"
"Intelligence, tenacity, and resemblance to Khiann."
The irony didn't escape his notice. He'd filled his harem with men who looked like him so he could claim the sons of his concubines as his own. Annani wanted her children to resemble her lost mate, so she chose men who looked like Khiann.
It wasn't the same, but there was undeniable symmetry between them.
She had been selecting for the traits she valued to produce immortals who would serve her purposes. But she'd been doing it with her own body, one child at a time, and choosing each father personally.
He'd also been selecting humans with certain traits to produce his army of immortals through the wombs of the Dormants he'd originally inherited from his father, and then their daughters and granddaughters and so on.
Only he'd selected the fathers in his breeding program for entirely different criteria than Annani. The brutes had been chosen for size and aggression, then later he had switched to scientists, engineers, and doctors for intelligence.
Each method had its merits, but his tactic allowed for scale while hers didn't. If not for her super fertile daughter, Annani's clan would have been much smaller.
Perhaps fate had something to do with it after all. It leveled the scales or attempted to. His method still produced superior results.
Except, his army was now in danger of fragmenting because Areana had fallen off a cliff and he'd thrown himself after her.
He set the coffee cup down again.
"What about the daughters? I assume that the two who had children produced them with humans. Did they also look for men who looked like their mother's dead husband?"
Areana cast him a reproachful look. "Of course not. I don't know what criteria Alena selected for the fathers of her first thirteen children, but her last one was fathered by an immortal. They named the child Evander Tellesious, or E.T. for short. Sari is mated to an immortal and so is Amanda."
The only immortal males he could think of becoming mates for Annani's daughters were the men in Kalugal's platoon. Finding male Dormants in the general population and turning them immortal was statistically impossible.
"Did Annani's daughters mate with Kalugal's men?"
She frowned. "No, why would you think so?"
"Where else could they find immortals to mate with? I assume that the old taboo about mating within the same maternal line is still observed, so Annani's descendants couldn't mate with each other."
"Amanda's mate is a former member of the Brotherhood, but he's not one of Kalugal's men. His name is Dalhu."
Navuh didn't remember anyone by that name, which meant that the male had been simple rank and file or a junior commander. Evidently Annani's daughters' standards were not that high. She'd mated a traitor without rank.
Areana was still looking at him hopefully, as if he was supposed to know who this Dalhu was.
"I do not know anyone by that name," he said.
"He is very tall. Six feet seven or eight. He is also a talented artist. He paints landscapes and portraits."
So, Annani's youngest had mated a giant traitor with feminine traits.
He smiled. "Must be a perfect match for Annani's daughter. She sounds as loose with her affections as her mother. No self-respect."
Areana let anger bleed into her eyes. She'd never allowed herself to look at him that way before, and it was just another manifestation of the chasm growing between them.
But no matter how wide that chasm became, he would always be her fated mate, and she could never abandon him.
"Dalhu was tested by fire to prove himself worthy of Amanda, and he passed," Areana said. "He's even gotten Kian's approval, which says it all. Kian detests the Brotherhood."
He didn't respond, but he had to wonder what tested by fire meant in Annani's world. Had he been forced to solve complicated crossword puzzles? Or maybe he had to write poetry that reflected his love for the princess.
Navuh chose not to voice any of those musings because Areana was already angry, and he didn't want to make her any angrier.
Instead, he drank more of his coffee.