36. Deacon
Chapter 36
Deacon
Bucharest is beautiful. As much as I’d like to say it’s just another city, there is something magical about it. Aside from the scenery, wolves freely greet me here, eyes flashing to golden tones to pay respects.
While I did take one of the pills Patrick gave me, they’re near the dose I’d take back home. It’s just enough to keep the wolf quiet, but I might be able to shift if a fight breaks out. However, tagging along with the royal guard, I doubt there’s even reason to think about that. Probably rules about it anyway.
I’m talking with a little kid who is practicing his English when Patrick pats me on the back, his phone extended toward me. “Her Royal Highness is ready to meet with you. I’ll take you to her.”
“Sure thing.” I nod but look back at the kid. “Thank you for talking with me today. I’ve got to go see the queen. Keep up the hard work.”
“Goodbye!” He waves before running back to his mother.
Patrick gives me a weird look, eyebrow cocked in the same direction as his head.
“Don’t tell me that kid wasn’t real, and you just let me talk to no one for ten minutes.” I look back, but the woman and child are still there.
“Not at all.” Patrick is quick to affirm. “They’re very much alive. With your reputation, I wouldn’t have assumed kids would be your forte.”
“Nah, kids are easy after they’re potty-trained until they become teenagers. Then I’m cool because I’m not a narc.” I shrug and look around. “Lead the way.”
We walk a few blocks with more haste than the wandering we had done to get here. “Hey, Patrick,” I ask, looking around at the city streets. “Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to be human?”
He laughs and pulls up his jacket sleeve just enough that I can see the start of scarring. “I was bitten in.”
“So, do you miss being human?” I change the question.
“No.” Patrick shakes his head as the castle comes into view. “But my situation is different from yours. I don’t miss how fucked my life was before I became wolf and before I became pack. Had more in common with you now than what I suspect you’d be like as a human.”
I don’t comment on that. The implication of his words is enough that I don’t need to.
The front gate lets us through like it isn’t even a security stop. The guards at the front entrance open the doors for us, and we waltz in, unlike when I first arrived and thought I might be turned away.
Two minutes pass before Patrick stops in front of a room with a guard on either side of the door. They nod him through, but he knocks first.
“Open.” Revecca’s voice comes from the other side .
Patrick twists the knob, pushing the door open a fraction, but he doesn’t enter. Waving me in, he leaves me to find my way.
Revecca is seated at the large ornate desk, typing on a laptop.
“How was your visit with your mother?” Revecca doesn’t look up from her computer.
“It was bias confirming. I have the same ask of you as when I started, just a greater conviction for it,” I answer, sitting in one of the chairs in front of her desk.
It feels no different than sitting across from Cade.
“I was afraid you would say that.” She sighs, closing her laptop.
The blue eyes staring at me hold pity.
Making this so fucking easy. The sarcasm in my own brain causes an eye roll. “Listen, if you don’t want to take my wolf, that’s fine. But do some sort of ancient magic to fix Henri with another mate. Don’t punish her to a life with me because I’m fucked and you won’t fix it.”
“I am not some benevolent dictator you all seem to think I am.” Revecca shakes her head. “I was afraid you would say that because this isn’t as easy as you’re hoping it will be.”
She’s not wrong. I did think she was a dictator.
I bow my head, submitting to her power for a minute.
“You were born for greatness.” Revecca’s gaze bores into mine. “Born to make a difference in people’s lives.”
“I wasn’t born,” I tell her flatly. “I was bred. The people who stole Cade and killed your parents used that woman to have me created for them.”
Revecca confirms with a small nod. Did Revecca find this information out when she borrowed my gift? That thought changes in my mind with the realization that I can only pick out the image of the woman in my brain. I don’t even know her name.
“She may have thought she had no choice in the matter, but she had two sons, and both of us ended up alone in the world.” I find myself raising my voice and force it back to speaking volume, but it doesn’t change my coarse words. “I don’t know what county in the state of delusion she lives in. I was not born but brought into this world as a sick guarantee that no one would look too closely at Robert’s lack of a gift.”
Revecca is eerily silent. She tips her head ever so slightly to the side, watching me.
With a shake of my head, I dismiss it all. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.” Revecca corrects in an uncharacteristically sweet and caring way.
I lean back into the chair. “With all due respect, it doesn’t. I can’t be this person everyone wants me to be.”
“What did they do to you that made you so resentful of your gift and stopped your wolf from developing?” Revecca’s words don’t match anything anyone has ever said to me, and it hits me hard.
No one has ever asked .
I can’t stand feeling like I’m this big of a fuckup. That I’m the one who made this happen. Didn’t I though? I could have left. Couldn’t I?
“Tell me about them.” Revecca is more forceful; it’s coated with some sort of gift. Pressure maybe? Like Cade’s Alpha command, I can’t not comply.
“Ebenezer and Karina took me to human doctors.” I close my eyes, not able to look at her, at anyone, when I talk about this. “They started me on antipsychotics despite proving to the doctor that I really do see dead people. They kept upping the dosage until the dead people stopped showing up. But then I couldn’t be a wolf anymore.”
Revecca is snarling before I finish speaking. “And Karina is dead, yes? Through a conversation with Robert, I know Cade executed Ebenezer. Though Robert was convinced Ebenezer was The Leviathan.” She seems genuinely concerned and slightly hangs her head. “I should have visited America sooner. So much could have changed.”
Revecca’s somber tone tugs on my heartstrings. Normally, I wouldn’t share so much of the darkness I keep locked inside, but the guilt conveyed through her frown draws it from me. “I hunted her down myself. Everyone says she died of a broken heart from losing her mate. She died from an overdose, but that’s what happens when you’re force-fed pills.”
Revecca doesn’t even flinch at my words. “Impressive. Don’t let Magnus hear of your darkness, or he’ll recruit you.”
After confessing to murder, there isn’t really anything more to say. So I shrug and chuckle only slightly awkwardly with the hope she leads the conversation.
“I can’t take your wolf back until you’ve let him fully develop. You’re an Alpha wolf and haven’t come into your strength yet. It has to do with what they’ve done to you, but I’m sure it’s continued with your self-medicating behavior.” Revecca sighs, pushing her hair back in a move that suggests Cade’s tell is biological rather than learned. “I failed you. I knew there were wolves in America, aside from the Alloways, and that they were claiming ties to Romania. I should have come to have a better look once I was coronated. This could have been stopped.”
Her repetition of this idea is telling. I wish she and Cade could put aside some differences. They could be really useful to each other.
“Everyone is so quick to take the blame for this.” I gesture up and down my body, then shake my head and slouch in the chair. “All I’m asking for is help out of it. You keep saying my wolf isn’t at his full power and not developed, but I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”
“Get yourself sober and let your wolf develop into his full strength.” Revecca drums her fingers on her desk. “If you do that, you should get control of your gift. And if that proves to have been the worst of your problems, maybe life will be more manageable.”
Access denied. I nod. “And if it isn’t?”
“If it isn’t, then I’ll come and pull your wolf for you.” Revecca shrugs. “It’s a waste. But I would rather release him than see you dead. For what it’s worth, you’re equally entertaining and aggravating.”
I’m pretty sure that was a compliment. If not, I’m taking it as one anyway. “Thank you.”
“Why are you so set on abandoning your mate?” Revecca cocks her head, and I’m not sure what she thinks she’ll find by squinting at me.
“I’m not.” I try to keep the growl suppressed, but it doesn’t happen. I clear my throat. “I’m not. Until recently, like apparently right before I came here, she was with a human. She’s had no interest in being with me.”
“She doesn’t?” Revecca furrows her brow and squints. “Pe bune? A human?” Revecca tsks dismissively. “How does he even handle her heats?”
“Suppressants.” I shrug.
Revecca rolls her eyes. “Your sister makes more problems than she solves.”
“And she takes great pride in that.”
Revecca’s small smile proves that with every passing interaction between her and Lena, their disdain for each other seems to be waning .
“Are you leaving now, then?” Revecca traces shapes with her fingers on her desk.
“I guess. I don’t need anything else. I got my denial of services, so I’ll book a return flight.” Taking her words as a dismissal, I stand.
“There’s a possibility I can help you with your wolf and that we can make this a bit better for you. If you’d stay a few more days, a week even, it might give you a jumpstart on control, if you’re truly going to attempt life for her.” Revecca purses her lips.
“I think you may be my favorite.” I let my jaw go slack. “New plan: I’ll convince Cade to rule in Romania if you come to rule in the States.”
“Absolutely not.” Revecca shakes her head. “It’s far too . . . what’s the word . . .”
“Uncivilized?” I offer.
“That would be one fitting word.” Revecca sighs. “I can work with you tomorrow morning if you’re interested. I really would like the opportunity to see you try to gain control. I hate you least.”