Page 38 of Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1)

“But they didn’t have to make their beds.”

He seemed relieved that I got it.

“Mom tried, but Dad wasn’t happy she did it with me. He put his foot down with them.”

“And as such, they never learned inner accountability,” I deduced, then carried it forward.

“ And since you have, and due to your position in your family and your popularity, you’re used to covering their foibles and missteps, which puts more pressure on you to be perfect.

To perform. To put yourself out there when you prefer privacy. ”

I just knew this was going to spoil my appetite.

And it did, as I harked back and put together times when Aleksei would show up at a youth ring ice match after Timothee stole some pit ball player’s girlfriend then promptly dumped her, making her cry prettily on social tape while he squired around another pit ball player’s girlfriend he also stole.

Or when Aleksei was walking a street during some village’s septuacentennial, accepting flower bouquets from little girls and smiling at crowds waving handheld Night’s Fall flags with its purple dragon on black, doing this after the Palace allegedly paid off some males who got in a back-alley shifter fight with Errol and some of his bros.

“I love them.”

When Aleksei said this, my eyes shot to his.

“They can be funny,” he went on. “ They dote on Aleece . And they’re just my brothers.”

“Okay,” I replied, not having any siblings, so not really getting it.

“That’s why it’s so disappointing, bissi , especially what I learned today.”

“Because they can be better?”

“No, because they never will.”

Oh gods.

“Also, they just get worse,” he carried on.

“ Today , with what we learned, the worst of all. I can’t even wrap my head around doing that to anyone.

He should be facing charges, but instead, Dad will pay the female off, and it’ll all go away.

And learning that after finding you’d been drugged against your will was bad timing, but even if that hadn’t happened to you, I’d be livid.

Making it worse, it won’t stop. They never learn, and they’re not stupid.

They can. They simply refuse to. And since Dad makes it so there are no consequences to their actions, they have no reason to try. ”

I had to bury how I felt that Timothee would get away with what he’d done. I just had to hope that the payoff was worthwhile for the female.

And I didn’t have time to think too long on it.

I had to stay here with Aleksei .

“I’m sorry, honey,” I whispered.

“I am too.”

“With the bullying when you were younger, didn’t your parents intervene?” I queried.

“At first, Mom didn’t because she thought it built character. The length of time it went on, and how unrelenting it was, she eventually tried to put a stop to it. Dad was adamant she not get involved, saying, ‘ Boys will be boys, we have to let them be boys.’”

King Fillion seemed to be a dab hand at platitudes.

“Are you close with Aleece ?” I asked.

A fond smile hit his beautiful mouth. “ Yes .”

I was glad he had that.

And Sirk .

And now…me.

“What about your parents? Are you close with them?” I asked.

“There’s love, it’s remote. Duty is in the way.”

I nodded.

“My father is proud of me, and he shows it. My mother’s expectations are high, and she has no problem voicing them.”

Hmm.

Not sure what to think of that.

“We’re not a normal family,” he finished.

“Who is?” I asked in an effort to make him feel better.

“I suppose that’s a good question.” He bit off the tip of a stalk of asparagus, chewed it, swallowed it, and asked, “ And yours?”

Blast.

It was my turn.

Okay.

We were here.

Get it done and over with.

“They’re just…”

I looked down at my plate.

Forked into my potato.

Ate the bite (really, so yum, even in the middle of discussing all this garbage).

Pulled in a deep breath.

And looked to Aleksei .

“Bitter. Dad found his mate. I don’t know how it happened, but he didn’t have her long before she died.

He married Mom , who…again, I don’t know.

I think maybe she was too lazy to quest for her mate.

Whatever the reason, she took him on, but I have no idea why.

She didn’t want him either. There was no love in our house.

Not them for each other. Not them for me. ”

“And this translated to physical abuse?”

I pulled my shoulders forward, then released them. “ Dad’s just mad at the world. Maybe it’s because he found and lost his mate so young. But for him, it’s everything. Taxes are too high. His boss is too demanding. Mom doesn’t fold his underwear right.”

“He could fold it himself,” Aleksei remarked.

I ate an asparagus crown. Fortunately , it too was yummy enough to cut through the ash in my mouth.

“Yeah,” I replied. “ She’s told him that. Repeatedly . Shouted it even.”

“Darling.”

I looked from my plate to him and got into the tough stuff.

“The wrist thing, she was just being rough with me. Impatient . It wasn’t good it happened, but it was an accident.

She was actually kinda horrified she did it, though she was more horrified what people would think about it than upset at the fact she broke her child’s bone.

The ribs. Well , that was something else.

Truly , he didn’t often get physical. Mostly it was an icy-coldness, disinterest. But even though the times were rare, it would get physical.

And that time, with the ribs, obviously, it was really bad. ”

“This seems very…” He struggled for a word for so long, he didn’t find one.

But I had it for him.

“Matter of fact. Like you were this morning, when we talked after our so-not-fun, inter-family mingling.”

“What I’m dealing with is a scar left from my family’s dynamic far less deep than what you have.”

I shook my head. “ It isn’t about comparing scars. Deciding who had it worse. Doing that diminishes the fact you didn’t have it that great either.”

“Agreed,” he returned. “ With the caveat that not recognizing how much worse you had it is a form of diminishing how bad it was for you. And that can hinder finding effective ways of healing from it.”

He had me there.

“It was all you knew,” I stated. “ It was all I knew. They were never affectionate. They mostly were so wrapped up in their…whatever was wrong with them, they spent a lot of time stoking it, encouraging it to sour, fester, infect them deeper. The physical abuse didn’t last long,” I told him hurriedly when it appeared he was getting annoyed I was blowing all of this off.

“ They took me to an uncredited clinic for my wrist. The ones people go to so records won’t be filed.

I think they did that because Mom was embarrassed.

When the ribs things happened, they took me to a hospital.

It was flagged. They got a visit from the RVPB . It was then, that part ended.”

“The Royal Vulnerable Persons Bureau visited them?”

I nodded.

“And left you?”

I nodded again.

His mouth got tight.

Okay.

Finish it.

Fast.

“It started when she appeared.”

His expression cleared, almost as if he was excited, no, eager to learn more about her.

“Your creature,” he said quietly.

I turned to him. “ I think she’s beautiful.”

“I’m sure she is,” he murmured.

“She’s just not… normal .”

He tipped his head to the side with open curiosity. “ Do you have a pic of her?”

I swallowed but didn’t answer him.

Because I did. Several .

But I’d buried them in a folder in my Palm , thinking one day I’d be glad I hadn’t deleted them, but not about to run across one so soon after I thought I’d lost her.

“Did they ever talk to you, at all, about what makes mates, mates ?” he asked.

“No. But I’ve read about it.”

“So you know it’s you and me. But just as importantly, it’s them.”

Gods.

This was huge.

Gods .

The fact she was there, asleep, instead of gone, like I thought, made me have to think about it.

I’d seen his creature. His beast.

His dragon.

He was massive, mighty, fierce, terrifying.

And so, so handsome.

But she…

“He is just as clicked into her as I am to you, Laura ,” Aleksei said. “ I’ll find her beautiful, because she’s his mate.”

I knew that.

I knew it.

But…

I fiddled with my roll.

“Show me, bissi ,” he urged.

Ugh!

Okay, he’d see eventually.

And anyway, my father was wrong. My mother was ignorant.

She was beautiful.

I slid off my stool, went to my bag and got my Palm .

Head bent to it, heart hammering, I dug out the pic folder and found a pic of her.

Seeing it, my stomach rolled over, because…yes.

She was beautiful, I missed her so dang bad, and I couldn’t wait to have her back.

I slid back on my stool and handed him my Palm .

He took it, his gorgeous eyes already cast down, like he couldn’t wait to see.

I watched.

His eyes widened.

I braced.

“Fucking hell,” he said gruffly.

Gods!

“I’ve never seen the likes of her. She’s very unique,” I said primly.

And she was.

Gayle said she could be in commercials.

Cat said she knew artists who would wish to paint her, and sculptors who would wish to mold her.

Mr. Truelock said he was glad she surfaced in our time, for if she’d been born years ago, wars would be fought over her.

I just loved her.

I sawed off a piece of meat that was so tender, it needed no sawing ( I did that anyway) and shoved it in my mouth.

“Laura,” Aleksei called.

“She’s small,” I said, aiming the words across the room, my mouth still full.

I snatched up my wine and took a sip, struggling to swallow because my meat needed more chewing, but by damn, I managed it.

“ Not dainty or anything. She’s like the size difference from me to you in terms of her and your creature. ”

“Laura.”

“And yes, she’s shy. She was terrified of my father.” I continued talking to the lift. “ She came out once when he was…” I shook my head. “ Anyway . He shifted and beat the crap out of her too.”

“Darling, look at me.”

I turned to him.

He had her pic on my Palm aimed my way.

“She has your eyes.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“They look like aquamarines.”

My throat suddenly felt very scratchy.

“She’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

Uh-oh.

“Aleksei,” I said soothingly.

“Someone tried to cut her out of you. A creature can’t survive an excision.”

His eyes had shifted straight from a starry night and were glowing, and the veins were standing out in his neck.

And his forehead.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“Your father made her hide. Made her shy. Made her scared.”

I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and reached my other hand for my Palm .

“You need to chill, baby,” I said carefully, slipping my Palm from his fingers since he didn’t give it to me.

“Someone tried to cut her out of you.”

Truth?

I’d wanted to get through this whole family dynamics chat so we could move on to any news he had about all that had been going down.

And he had to have news. Every agency in the realm it seemed had a hand in investigating it, and all of them paraded through his penthouse last night, reporting directly to him.

But I was sensing that would be a bad idea.

“I love it that you think she’s pretty,” I said.

“She isn’t pretty, like you aren’t pretty. She’s stunning, like you.”

He was just the best.

“You wanna have sex again?” I tried.

“Absolutely, but we aren’t going to.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s taking everything I have not to shift, explode out my windows and incinerate a few beings.”

“Let’s not do that again, at least not tonight.”

“Agreed.”

“And Jupiter likes your view. I wouldn’t let him hang out by the window if there was no actual window.”

“Mm.”

“I seriously, seriously love it that you like her,” I whispered.

“ Bissi ,” he whispered back, caught me behind my neck and brought me to him for a hard kiss.

When we broke, he kept me close, and I was relieved to see the night taking over the amethyst of his eyes.

No incinerations.

That was good.

“There are those who know they’re not much,” he stated.

“ So they don’t try for much. They don’t do anything but give up and let the world prove to them how hard life is and how little joy there is to find.

The one thing they can easily identify is the thing that infuriates them the most. Something …

or someone…special. Someone who is more than they are, just breathing.

Someone who will be more than they’ll ever be, and they can’t stand it.

So they’ll do everything to cut her down.

They’ll do everything to convince her she’s not special, so she’ll give up and wallow right along with them in their mental filth.

They knew who you were. They knew who your creature was. And they couldn’t stand it.”

I loved that he thought that.

However.

“I’m not sure it’s about me. It’s just them. Honestly , a lot of the time, it seemed like they forgot I was around.”

“No, darling. They didn’t. Because they’ve been in touch with the Palace . And they’ve demanded an audience with the king…and me.”

I went perfectly still.

Oh.

My.

Farging .

Gods!