Page 141 of Wedlock

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“My daughter is the bastard?”

“It sounds bad, I know,” he mutters where he stands, hands in his pockets, watching the children play on the shoreline, just as he had the first time he visited us here. “But it will work.”

“How? How can this possibly work?”

“If you agree to return, Talon will take his rightful place as my heir; he was after all, firstborn, and is our legitimate child. Tiger will be revealed as the hidden twin and assume the role of second son, and Suzume will be adopted as my bastard daughter.”

“And that will keep her safe?”

“Partly,” he sighs, turning back to me, “templates must be of full royal blood. The rumour will be spread through my staff and fed back to the Court that a human mistress, nothing special, birthed her, and that I’ve agreed you can raise her since you cannot have any more children.”

“Like father, like son,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he growls. “Exactly. Jaguar and Mother came up with the plan. I’ve poked holes in it everywhere I can, but even Wolf agrees it’s watertight. Of course, Suzume will have to bear the disgrace of being a bastard, even though you and I know she’s not.”

“Jag came up with this?”

“He and Mother. He said he wanted to warrant a solution that would ensure I didn’t need to abdicate, and one that would ensure you could have everything you wanted. I have to assume that includes me.”

I shake my head.

‘Still looking to keep me happy, even at the expense of his own heart. Oh, my poor secret-keeper.’

“He called me. He said you two fought…”

“Neither of us was badly injured. It was good for us, to tell you the truth.”

“Jesus!”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen us fight before.”

“Over me,” I whisper.

“Over many things,” he says gently. “Better we fight than keep things bottled up. Perhaps you and I should fight more, maybe then you’d reveal to me what’s really going on in your head and your heart.”

“You know what’s in my heart,” I shake my head.

“Do I?”

“But Falcon,” I frown, changing the subject as my mind zips from one problem to the next, “calling Suzume a bastard is one thing, but she can fly.”

“Yes, she’s remarkable, just like her brother, and mother,” he sighs, “but she will never, ever, be able to reveal that,” he says quietly, his eyes sad. “Not to anyone.”

“My God!” I push my face into my hands and take a deep breath.

“Angie,” he pulls my hands from my face and holds them down by my side, “if you won’t take me without my title, take me with it and use it to our advantage. Suzume will have a fuller, richer life among her own kind than she could ever have hiding among humans. She’s a killer; she needs to eat. You must be struggling to teach the children how to survive now that they crave fresh blood; they’re the same age as Tiger and he’s already receiving instruction from my new procurer. It’s one thing to hide wings, it’s another entirely to hide your very nature.”

“I know,” I groan, the memory of Suzume and Talon’s very recent attack on their, now-discharged nanny, still fresh in my mind. They hadn’t meant to hurt her, not ‘verymuch,’ according to Talon, she just smelled so good.

‘Nurture vs nature. It doesn’t seem to apply that much when dealing with vampires.’

The ‘unmentionable occurrence’ just a few weeks ago had been a salient wake-up call for Yin and I, and prompted many raw discussions.

“And your mother?” I ask quietly. “What makes you think we can trust her after everything she’s done? Her schemes must have taken centuries to concoct. I don’t for a second believe she’s revealed her hand.”

“I know,” he nods, his face grim. “I wanted to kill her.”