Page 27

Chapter 27

Caspian

Rachel bared her teeth at Frost, almost growling at him, then turned her glare on me. “You have these little fools completely convinced of this fantasy world you live in, don’t you? That I’m some kind of beast who wants you dead.”

I looked at Kit, his arm still wrapped around my shoulders, and Frost, who was trying to get his mother even farther away from her, and finally back to Aunt Rachel. “Like Kit said, they’re the ones who convinced me. I didn’t get it. I know, ridiculous, right? You’ve been trying to kill me since I was twelve. There’s no one else who wanted me dead. No one but you had anything to gain from my death. But it still took me this long to figure it out, because I didn’t have any friends there to point out that nearly dying all the time wasn’t normal.”

Delta’s eyes narrowed at that, and she frowned, finally seeming to listen to something other than her own annoyance.

“All the time?” she asked.

“He’s been in the hospital twenty-three times that he remembers, Mother,” Frost told her.

“That’s enough,” Rachel hissed, glaring at me. “I’m sick of you spreading these lies.”

“Fuck me, she listens even worse than Delta,” Kit muttered almost in my ear, then aloud, slowly, said, “He. Did. Not. Tell. Us. We told him. Remember? This has been covered. He thought you were family and for some reason, he thought that mattered to you. The three of us? We’re all too familiar with family treating us like an inconvenience, so we informed him of the truth.”

Delta turned the most hurt expression on him, so pained that I might have agreed with her if I hadn’t spent so much time with her children, learning what they had gone through at her hands. I gave her credit, in that she wasn’t secretly trying to kill them. She wasn’t a monster like Aunt Rachel. But she was definitely kind of a jerk who thought of herself first, second, and third, and everyone else came in fourth at best. I suspected even Frost, despite Kit’s comment about him being her actual child, was more like ten on the list of her priorities.

Before she could intervene with a longer conversation about how her intentions had always been good or that he was ungrateful or something, I nudged the conversation back on track. “My father died last week. With a prostitute in the old downtown. Janelle.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “And who would have told you a thing like that?”

“Oh, you mean because you had Janelle killed so she couldn’t tell anyone what happened? We found the payoff money you gave her so she wouldn’t tell anyone he was dead. So let’s put the pieces together, shall we? My father died, but that made me the Sunrunner, and you couldn’t have that. So you hid his death and stepped up the attempts on my life. Except ever-inconvenient me, I went and noticed he was gone, then disappeared myself.”

“You’ve always been the biggest pain in the ass,” she hissed. “Well, no, that was your whore mother. I didn’t start trying to kill you when she died, you know. She just kept fucking stopping me when she was alive, the worthless bitch.”

That should have done . . . something. Shouldn’t it? It should have hurt, or been nice to know my mother cared about me, or just something.

It should have elicited an emotion.

But apparently, my mother had known someone was trying to kill me and hadn’t bothered to tell my father. Or me. Hadn’t bothered to stick around and stop them. It wasn’t a major revelation, not really. Just another disappointment from my family, heaped on the pile of them.

Odd that in that moment, Rachel seemed the better option. So much more straightforward than either of my parents, whose actual love had come with a coating of barbed wire, cutting me open even as they had at least cared if I lived or died. Sometimes. When it was convenient for them. When they weren’t busy getting high or low or whatever else.

Next to Frost, Delta covered her mouth with her hand, shocked at the revelation that we’d been telling the truth.

Frost’s shoulders dropped, disappointed at his mother’s continuing stubbornness.

Incredible. I was pretty sure I was in love with Frost, but the man was a total innocent, a kind of innocence that was such a foreign concept in my world that I didn’t know how to react to it. Kit had been right about her all along. She’d have helped Rachel kill me, then been ever so shocked about it, and gone right on with her life, forgetting about the mess she’d made, because it didn’t affect her.

I wondered what she was going to think of her son staying in Sunrunner lands to be with me. Because I was going to do everything I could to make sure it wasn’t just for a little while, but forever.

I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of it. When he looked over at me, abashed about his mother and ducking his head, I smiled at him. “I love you, you know. I know it’s fast, but . . . you’re amazing.”

The grin that lit up his whole face was the most beautiful thing I’d seen in my life. “I love you too.”

Before his mother could get all offended and ruin the moment, I turned back to Rachel. “So what happened to my father? I assume it wasn’t you, since you’d have made sure to kill me first, so you could have been the Sunrunner.”

“I am the Sunrunner,” she snarled at me. “You’re nothing but a little bastard who’s trying to stand in my way. And your idiot fucking father overdosed. It was inevitable, and the only problem was you, you little fuck, refusing to die years ago like you should have.”

“Oh yeah?” Kit said, and something combative in his tone made me turn to look at him instead of just trying to refute her. “Then prove it. Prove you’re the Sunrunner. Use Nausa. Turn into the dire wolf.”

The way her jaw clenched and she did nothing told me all I needed to know about that. She hadn’t bonded Nausa. Thank fuck. It wasn’t everything, but it was something. At least she didn’t have that.

She shook her head, the motion expansive and impatient, reminding me strangely of a racehorse waiting for the beginning of a run. “If that’s so important, maybe you should ask him to do it. Turn into a dire wolf, little bastard. Oh, wait. You can’t shift at all. You’re not even a proper Sunrunner.”

Mella was right, and it was then that I truly understood it.

If I’d been like any other Sunrunner child, bonded a tiger’s eye and had a shift from childhood, it wouldn’t have mattered what the shift was. It could have already been a dire wolf, impressive as they were, and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference, except to my confidence level coming into this fight.

I’d have relied entirely on the shift for everything. It would have defined who I was as surely as the opposite had defined me instead.

I was the runt who couldn’t shift. I’d had to learn other ways to deal with my issues, not just turned into a bull or a bear and bulldozed over everything in my way, or into a ferret or a fox and sneaked my way around them. Mella had helped me learn how to use my brain to pick apart a problem before simply reacting to it.

“And that’s all you are,” I told Rachel. “You’ve centered your whole life around the fact that you can shift into an apex predator, therefore you think no one else around you matters. No one’s life or wellbeing. No one’s hopes or dreams. Only you. That’s why you go around murdering people, stealing from hospitals and selling their drugs on the black market. Addicting our own people to the drugs those hospitals should have instead of you. People suffering don’t matter to you, as long as you get what you want.”

“That’s what it means to be at the apex,” she sneered back. “I’m more important than they are so I get what I want. They can have what they want too, if they don’t get in my way. Too bad for you, your being alive makes you in my way. If you’d just disappeared with your little friends, that would have been fine. But no. You really think some shiftless bastard is going to be the next Sunrunner.”

“My father is dead, and I was his named heir,” I told her, meeting her eye steadily. “I don’t think I’m going to be the next Sunrunner. I am the Sunrunner. Right now. No amount of wishing on your account changes that fact.”

Delta Moonstriker made a strangled sound at that, stepping forward and lifting a hand in my direction, as though trying to stop me. That was . . . well, it was actually kind of nice. The first truly maternal thing I’d seen her do, and it wasn’t even aimed at one of her kids.

Because everyone in the room knew what had to come next, if I was the Sunrunner and Rachel wanted me dead.

It was just that Kit, Ember, Frost, and I had come into the room knowing what was coming. Knowing where this would inevitably end. Delta had been surprised and was only now thinking of what the result of this conversation would be. What Rachel had to do if she didn’t want me taking over and ruining her plans.

“You’re not suited to family leadership,” Rachel announced confidently, shaking her head in that odd way again, where half her body shook along with it. “The first thing you did when you were scared was run away to Dawnchaser lands. You can pretend it was the smart thing to do all you like, but we all know the truth. You’re a shiftless coward who knew he couldn’t face the problem like a Sunrunner. Head-on.”

I cocked my head, looking her in the eye. That was . . . interesting.

She really believes that , I said to Mella.

It’s a pretty common point of view in your family , Mella answered with a sigh. It’s why I was so determined to teach you better. They think rushing headlong into every problem without stopping to think isn’t just the easy way to solve problems. It’s the right way. The only way.

Like why Great-Aunt Gwen and her house cat beat her sister .

Precisely like Gwen and her cat , she agreed with me.

But Mella, I can’t use a cat. I can’t do what Great-Aunt Gwen did. We both know that. If I try to hide away somewhere Rachel can’t get me, she’ll attack other people until I come out. Ember. Mrs. Mira. Frost .

She didn’t sound the least bit concerned when she answered. I know, kiddo. But you’ve never had a particular affinity for house cats anyway. You like them fine, obviously, but they’re not who you are .

“Obviously,” Aunt Rachel went on, unaware that Mella and I were talking. Not that she’d have cared anyway. “The family can’t have a complete incompetent for a leader. So if I want to do what’s best for Sunrunner”—she clucked her tongue and made a mock-sad face—“I’m afraid I’ll have to challenge you, little nephew. For control of the family.”

“But an inheritance duel—” Delta started, stepping forward.

“Can’t be interfered in by you meddling Moonstrikers,” Aunt Rachel finished for her. “So the lot of you can leave. Now. This is my home, and I don’t want you here.”

“Actually,” I pointed out. “You’re the supplicant here. You’re challenging me. I’m the Sunrunner. And they’re my guests. Well, Frost, Ember, and Kit are my guests, no offense to you, Lady Moonstriker.”

Part of me hoped she would take that as a cue and leave, since the others had implied she might interfere with what we had to do, but no such luck. Instead, she . . . went straight to humble.

“I apologize, Lord Sunrunner. I had no idea.” She inclined her head. “You have my deepest apologies, and anything the Moonstriker family can do to help you straighten things out with your people, we’re willing to help with.”

“I hope the offer will be extended to the real head of the family once I’ve killed this worthless whelp,” Rachel said, and her voice was starting to take on a very arctic tone.

Arctic like the bear she was on the inside.

“It will not,” Delta answered her. “Only a monster murders her own nephew, whether she likes him personally or not. Whether she wants to own what’s his or not. The Moonstriker will stand with Caspian only.”

Frost beamed at her like she’d offered him the moon on a plate, which was adorable. Kit seemed less impressed, leaning against the wall looking like he was bored by the entire conversation, and Ember was shocked, her eyes round as she stared at her mother.

Aunt Rachel, on the other hand, laughed. “Good thing we don’t need you fusty old mathematicians. You can fucking leave my palace any time old woman. You can’t interfere in the duel, and once it’s over, you won’t be welcome here ever again.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kit said. “The Sunrunner invited us, and we’ll stay. And if by some miracle, you manage to beat him in this duel, I promise, I’ll kill you.”

Delta scowled at him. “You can’t?—”

“I’m not saying I’ll interfere with the duel,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Just that she’s going to die, one way or the other. Right now, if she stops this and concedes to Cas, he’ll just put her in prison, where she belongs. If she goes through with this bullshit and challenges her rightful leader, I’m going to kill her. I’m going to cut her head off and put it on a pike to fly over Sunrunner Palace, so the people will know they’re finally free of her monstrosity.”

It was perhaps the kindest thing Kit had ever done for me, gift of condoms notwithstanding, and it made Aunt Rachel go a little green for a moment, but she shook it off quickly enough. “If you think you can beat me, little Moonstriker, you’re free to try it.”

“Oh I don’t think I can beat you. I can. And it’s not ‘little Moonstriker,’ it’s Kit. Kit Emrys. Son of Cove Moonstriker. Best duelist in the Summerlands.” He tapped one of the studs on the arm of his jacket, as though to prove the point. “So if you manage to win against Caspian, you’ll die.”

It was a good try, but Aunt Rachel was too arrogant. Too full of her own abilities, to close to her goals, to be dissuaded. She thought she could take me and then him. Maybe she thought she could handle all four of us, since I didn’t doubt that if for any reason Kit lost, Frost and Ember would be next, and it didn’t matter how good she was, she couldn’t get through a man who could freeze her in place.

You’re being morbid , Mella pointed out. No reason to assume anyone but us will fight the bitch. If they have to fight her, you’ll be dead, and I’m not letting that happen .

I could only hope she was right.