Kolina bowed her head, descending the dais toward Jori. The queen remained as she was while they were led away.
Jori pulled his shirt on, catching Kymri from the corner of his eye and stopped to pull her into his embrace. Her arms enveloped him.
Kolina stopped several paces ahead, “Come along.”
Kymri couldn’t read her mother’s expression.
Jori twined his fingers with Kymri’s and resumed walking. He didn’t appear to have noticed Odson behind him with his escort of guards bringing up the rear.
She didn’t know why Odson was walking with them, but what little she knew of him, she doubted he would have done so without good reason.
Kolina led them into the queen’s antechamber, which was much less formal and more comfortable. The escort resumed their position to either side of the door. Jori turned then, as the door clicked shut, and he noticed Odson, the shock of his presence clear in his expression.
“Uncle Odson, what are you doing here?”
“Your father sent me to look for you.”
“My father?”
Odson nodded, “After your last broadcast was never followed up on, he started calling the Coast Guard, and anyone else he could, to go out and find you. Even me.” His mouth quirked at the corner.
“Shit,” he breathed. “My dad called you and the Coast Guard?”
The door at the opposite end of the room opened, and the Queen’s Guard filed through, followed by the speaker of the council and then the queen herself. She’d removed her assembly robes. As soon as she crossed the threshold, the door closed behind the queen. She walked up to Jori, looking up into his face, ignoring his linked hand with Kymri’s.
Finally, her gaze fell to Kymri, “Have you told him?”
Which part?
She shook her head. None of it.
The queen’s gaze then slid to Odson, the corner of her mouth rose, “Now I understand why you’re here. You should have told me.” Her expression shifted to immovable steel.
Odson cleared his throat and bowed his head, “I promised her I wouldn’t.”
The queen looked stung. She stepped back.
Kymri held her breath.
The queen returned her attention to Jori, and after several long moments, she seemed to accept Odson’s reason.
She turned away from them then, moving to the decanter at the back of the room and poured from it into several tumblers. She brought two forward, handed them to Jori and Odson, then returned for the third. She didn’t offer it to Kymri, “None for you,” she said, with a finger pointed at her from over the glass before she knocked the drink back, swallowing hard.
Jori and Odson drank theirs and Kolina moved in to take the glasses away.
“It seems there is a long, interesting, story going on here that needs to be told,” the queen said, gesturing toward chairs surrounding a table. The queen took the chair at the head of the table, Kolina and the speaker to either side. Kymri sat next to her mother and Jori moved in beside her. Odson took the chair across from her, drawing the full weight of her curiosity.
Indeed.
She was about to find out more about her lover than she had expected.
“He hasn’t been initiated,” the queen said.
Initiated? Her heart lodged in her throat.
Odson shook his head, his eyes on Jori.
She studied him for a long moment. No one spoke.
Kymri’s impatience was about to bubble over.
The queen’s gaze finally returned to Odson. “Tell me what you know.”
Odson’s mouth compressed under the steady gaze of the queen.
Jori stared just as hard.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Why did this queen react that way when she saw his mother’s name tattooed on his chest? She’d instantly shut down the proceedings.
“And why the hell are you here, of all places?” he threw at Odson. The queen seemed to know him?
His father had called him, and the Coast Guard, to find him? What the hell? He and his father hadn’t exchanged two words in years, and he called out the hounds to find him? He thought he’d forgotten he even had a son.
Why call Uncle Odson?
And initiated into what?
His thoughts were a tornado in his skull, bouncing hard against the back of his eyeballs.
His eyes slid to Kymri’s profile beside him. What hadn’t she told him yet?
He scrubbed both hands over his face and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to ease the beginnings of a serious headache.
Odson was watching him. He was mostly unreadable, but there was a flicker of compassion in his eyes.
Jori sat a little straighter.
This couldn’t be good.
Odson drew in a breath, still hesitating.
Not good at all.
Odson looked at the queen, opened his mouth then shut it again, clearly not know where to start.
His eyes turned back to Jori. “I’m not just a family friend, Jori, we really are blood.”
“But why-”
“It’s complicated.”
“Just fucking start somewhere,” Jori snarled, his nerves fraying. Maybe he was in the grip of a solid delusion. He already thought he’d been seeing dragons. He was probably still stranded on the little island with is crashed plane, eyes blank and drool oozing from his mouth waiting for rescue, because none of anything that’s happened since had made any fucking sense.
He had the feeling that it wasn’t about to get any clearer, either.
Kymri’s hand slid into his again, and his heart rate slowed at the contact. He gave her fingers a little squeeze of reassurance, turning to look at her lovely face. She was so beautiful. And her expression was so full of concern for him.
This really wasn’t going to be good.
Odson seemed to have found his starting point. He turned his attention back to the queen. “As you know, Elora fulfilled her mission to establish alliances with the other paranormal communities nearby on the continent. That’s where we met. We got to know each other at Blue Creek, where I was working for the Wolf boys.
It was incredible meeting my sister for the first time—but that’s another story, for another time.” His eyes flicked to Jori. “She left, heading back here.”
Jori was struggling to absorb Odson’s words. Paranormal community?
“She never returned,” Kolina said.
Odson shook his head, “Some weeks after she left, she showed up at my door looking like hell.” He swallowed hard, keeping his eyes on the queen. “She’d been captured and force-mated until it took hold.”
The queen snarled, rising from her seat, and began pacing.
Jori’s heart had stopped. Force mated? Raped?
“Continue.” the queen snapped.
“I don’t know if they let her go, or if she escaped them. I just know she didn’t want to come back here in case they followed her back.”
The queen stopped pacing, her face blanching. “Why you?”
Odson straightened his shoulders. “During our time getting to know one another, I had told her I didn’t prescribe to their ways. That’s why I was at Blue Creek in the first place.”
The queen seemed to accept this.
“She asked me to help her find a place in the city. She refused to stay with me in case they came looking for her, and she wasn’t wrong. They showed up within days after she left. I helped her get a job and a place in the city where she could blend in.” He drew a breath then, his eyes returning to Jori, “She met your father there.”