Maybe not bravery... but right now I just felt silent. I couldn't seem to get my mouth to work, and I hated that. I felt like a wimp, if we were being honest. I also felt like it was somewhat understandable.
Jeremy, ‘the understanding one’ as I’d deemed him, had the exact same pair of gold eyes that I normally had. He had explained to me several times now what they had announced in the throne room. I understood logically what they were saying, but I was having issues connecting that my mother had mated with these three demons and that they had created me. Could you tell I hadn’t had a lot of parental support growing up? The concept seemed alien to me.
I had an even better fucking question. Why was this the first time I was learning about them? Why had my mom kept quiet? Why had my grandmother never said anything? I swallowed, feeling a bit of anger surge through me.
“I blame you,” Duke, the grumpier and far more quiet one, motioned to High King Alexander. “If we hadn't kept this a secret, we would have been able to stop this. She is dating four of them. Four! This is ridiculous.”
Maker.
“Six,” I corrected. King Alexander snapped his head towards me, surprise covering his features. It was a bit odd seeing his reactions, because they really were very much like my own. It was like looking in the mirror.
He sighed and looked back at them. “Yes, that is a problem. We may need to kill them.”
A growl escaped my throat as Alaric chuckled, but I did notice that they all grew closer to me. Yeah, my men didn’t like the idea of that at all. Not them dying—no, I think they were concerned we would be forcibly separated. That shit was laughable. I didn't care who these guys were, my men were mine so they could fucking deal with it. Possessive? A bit.
I finally spoke. “Okay, so can someone please explain how the hell this happened? Why did it take my goddamn mom trapping me in Hell to find you?”
“You shouldn’t talk about your mother in that tone,” Jeremy pointed out. I blinked but ignored him, because now was so not the time to inform them what a bitch my mother had always been towards me.
“Please explain,” I demanded softly.
“She should really be here,” Duke pointed out. I wasn't sure I liked the idea at all. Luckily, Alexander waved them off and began talking. I had to be honest, I almost wished he hadn’t, because he confused me more than I already had been. Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.
“Around nineteen years ago, give or take, your mother and I met at a function your grandmother held,” Alexander explained, a small amount of sadness feeding into his gaze. “She was absolutely perfect... but I wasn't the only one who thought that.” His eyes narrowed on Jeremy and Duke, who both offered him tired looks. Abel muttered under his breath an annoyance that I had to agree with. Was it just me, or did this group seem a bit more petty than normal?
“After a few months of your mother and I seeing one another, I asked her to choose between the three of us... it was a miscalculation. She refused and left the Demonic realm, went back to New Orleans.”
“We tried to go after her,” Duke grunted, “But someone had us locked up.”
Yep. Petty.
“To be fair, I think we did threaten to kill him,” Jeremy rationalized.
“So she left us, and I fell into a bit of a state. Three months later when she came to see me, I sent her away, refused to see her,” he lamented, looking mournful. “I later found out that she’d been here to tell me she was pregnant. With you. Around seven months later when you were born, we became aware of our presence on Earth realm because you carried all of our magical signatures. We tried to go see you, but your mother told us—and rightly so—that we had no right to be part of your life until you found us on your own and chose to include us in it. For years we were miserable. I decided that if I ever had the chance to have your mother back I wouldn't mind sharing because... well, I loved her enough that I would sacrifice my selfishness just to have any part of her.”
Alright. That’s a bit romantic.
“I see,” I sighed, feeling a bit bad for my mom and starting to understand why she had acted so bitchy for so long. I mean, the guys she loved had asked her to choose, then ignored her when she came to tell them about me, only to have them show up and demand a place in my life. I may not have agreed with her decision to keep them from me, but knowing my mom, she probably thought it was the best way to protect me.
“When she died,” Duke continued with a frown, “she came down here and the four of us were reunited.”
Looking down at my lap, I tried to consider how to deal with what they had just told me. A pang went through my heart. I couldn't imagine being told to choose between my men and then to be turned away at the door, pregnant. Yeah. This was starting to make a lot more fucking sense.
“So why now?” I figured that was the most reasonable question. Right?
“I’m not actually positive,” Alexander admitted and then scowled. “Your mom hasn’t been down here as often this past month, so I haven’t been able to ask her—”
A shift in the air caused my eyes to widen as the woman in question appeared out of thin air. I expected anger to surge through me, considering what had occurred, but instead, sadness and a bit of understanding filled my chest as she met my gaze. This was going to get complicated, wasn’t it?
Don’t get me wrong, the woman sucked. There was no excuse for how she had treated me, but understanding why she was so bitter and unhappy had me feeling far more empathetic towards her.
The four lunatics totally deserved one another—they all seemed petty as hell.
“She’s here because I made sure she was,” my mother responded primly. “She found you herself like I said she would, but we couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Our daughter is dealing with a bit of an issue on Earth realm and needs help.”
“Needs is debatable,” I muttered as Declan kissed the top of my head.
My mom took a seat on the arm of Alexander’s chair, a crown appearing on her head of dark hair as she became solid instead of ghostly, her gown a deep purple that surrounded her thin, elegant frame. Alright. She was looking pretty badass. I could give her that.
“That was sneaky of you,” Alexander mumbled.
“Seems punishment worthy,” Duke responded blankly as my mother smirked.
Then Jeremy muttered something about spanking, and I felt bile rise in my throat. I was speaking before I could stop myself. “Oh, my Maker. Do not flirt around me. That is so fucked up.”
Dorian laughed softly, kissing the top of my hand he was holding. Duke narrowed his eyes at the action. “Baby, why is our daughter dating?”
My mother rolled her eyes. “‘Dating’ implies they aren’t serious. Which they are. They have been around forever and are perfectly qualified to watch out for her.”
I had no idea my mom even thought about shit like that.
“So you have been keeping this from me my entire life?” I clarified.
My mom’s eyes softened slightly. “By the time I decided I should have told you, we weren’t exactly on good terms. Well, I would actually say you rather hated me.”
“What? Why?” Jeremy demanded. Both of us ignored him.
I sighed and spoke honestly. “I don’t hate you. I mean, you are a total bitch, but you know I don’t hate you. You’re my mom, and I have wanted to know who my father— well, plural, in this case—was for forever. I would have listened to you.”