"What did that mean—about the foretelling?" Aurelius slipped his shirt off and wrapped me in it. It bore rips and tears but it covered most of me—likely because I could wrap it around myself twice.
"Auri, I don't know and my head hurts," I rubbed my forehead.
"I'll fold us back, then, since I know there's no Ra'Ak." Aurelius' breath was warm against my temple as he kissed me gently and lifted me in his arms.
"Aurelius, I'm sorry—we didn't know how bad it was and there wasn't anybody we could have sent that quickly." Someone named Kiarra paced in front of Aurelius and me. Her hair wasn't as white as mine, but it was close.
"It doesn't matter now—my Reah came to get me," Aurelius was smiling down at me. I sat beside him inside Lissa's office—it was the second time I'd been inside it within a day.
"Young woman, if this had been for any other reason, I would be chewing you out, right now." Karzac flung the door open so hard it bounced against the doorstop and almost hit him in the shoulder. He glared at it and it stopped just short of his body. That look could quell anyone or anything into submission, I think.
"Karzac, I'm sorry and I have a headache. Can we still be friends?" I asked in a small voice.
"You saved one of ours. Even so, I would have been your friend anyway," Karzac placed a warm hand against my forehead. The pounding headache subsided, then disappeared. "Little one, if I yell at you at any time, it is only because I care about you and you have frightened me. There will be no other reason. Do you understand?" He had my face in both his hands, his green-gold eyes staring into mine.
"Yes," I nodded. He still held my face in his hands, after all.
"Aurelius, did she injure her Thifilatha in any way? Are her wings intact?" Karzac turned to Aurelius.
"She was whole," Aurelius assured my healer. "As am I. I would not have been, however." Aurelius gripped one of my hands in his.
Kiarra left us after a while, leaving Karzac with us. Tory walked in and together he and Karzac explained the events on Tulgalan to Aurelius. They also informed him of what had occurred since then. Aurelius growled when he heard that Nods had shot me, and then growled again over Tory's claiming. Tory flushed, embarrassed to give Aurelius the truth. I know I was embarrassed, too, although Karzac insisted that none of it was my doing. Then we went over what had happened with Norian Keef and Lendill Schaff.
"The ASD has some answers to give me," Aurelius' voice was nearly unintelligible and his eyes were red.
"Master vampire, you need to hold that back—they still have a tight grip on our young one, here." Karzac jerked his head in my direction. "I do not wish to cause her more grief than she has experienced already."
"If they allow their argument with me to interfere with their fair treatment of Reah, then they aren't much in the way of men." Aurelius rose from his seat, dropping my hand. He was angry—dangerously so. Karzac had insinuated that the Director and the Vice-Director might treat me worse if Aurelius voiced his concerns. Was that what would happen? It made me want to cry.
"Baby, hush." Tory gathered me tightly against his side. "They haven't treated Ry or me badly."
"You are sons of a queen, and the sons of Director Keef's mate," Karzac grumbled. "Of course you will not be treated as any conscript might be treated. Reah is a rare treasure and they intend to use her any way they can."
"Is that what you think?" Norian Keef slammed the door so hard against the wall it crushed the doorstop and split the fine wood of the door.
"Yes, that's exactly what I think, Director," Karzac spat. "Tell me what you did when you forced that child to walk through the entire palace and then down two flights of steps to the dungeon, when she shouldn't have been on her feet at all. Tell me what that second of yours was thinking when he dug his fingers into a ranos pistol wound. Tell me what you were both thinking when you stood there for minutes, watching our little one go into convulsions and nearly die. Were you hoping that your prisoner would confess something right then? As I hear it, he was shouting at you to help her!"
Norian's face held guilt. There wasn't any other way to describe it. I was wiping tears away—only now was I hearing the incident described. I hadn't been lucid enough at the time to say exactly what had happened. And Karzac had been warning Aurelius about voicing his opinions to Norian Keef. Well, Karzac's temper had just gotten the better of him.
"We will not be treating agent Nilvas worse, now." Norian ran fingers through his brown hair. He was slightly shorter than Karzac, and there was still something dangerous about Director Keef. I wouldn't want to be on the opposite side of Karzac's anger, however. Who knew what the physician might be capable of doing?
"You've already done that. How can the worst become more so?" Aurelius' eyes were so dark a red they were nearly black.
"Vampire, it was not my intention to cause that much harm. Neither Lendill nor I knew how bad off she was. We thought the healer, here, and the Larentii had taken care of things. We were wrong."
"And you did not ask." Karzac was still furious. Nothing Norian Keef had to say would make up for what Karzac might consider gross negligence and outright endangerment. I'm not sure how I knew that, but the information filtered into my mind somehow. Director Keef—he was angry as well. Angry with Karzac, angry with Aurelius, angry with Lendill and angry with himself. Surprisingly, I didn't detect anger with me and that caused me to wonder. I was still pressed tightly against Tory's side. I shivered in his embrace.
"Norian, are you destroying my study?" Queen Lissa walked through the door.
"I am surrounded by people who wish to destroy me," Norian grumbled.
"And I might be convinced to help them if you are frightening Reah," Lissa pointed a finger at her mate. It made me wonder how they'd become mated to begin with. Director Keef's actions so far hadn't spelled out an ideal mate for the Queen of Le-Ath Veronis. Not in my eyes, anyway.
"He's a lion snake shapeshifter, and he wasn't always this awful." Lissa turned her gaze to me.
"Lissa, the fact that you gave away that secret would see you imprisoned, if you were one of my conscripts," Norian snapped. "And thank you for calling me awful in front of my employees."
"She already thought that, don't you think? Norian, this isn't your normal conscript. You know that." Lissa flung a hand in my direction. "She's nineteen, for fuck's sake. She didn't tell anyone while she was growing up that her brother, who is actually her father, was doing his best to beat the life out of her. I think she can keep your secret, Norian Keef, as well as keeping her own." Lissa's eyes were now just as deep a red as Aurelius' were. And what had she said about Edan?
"Oh, no," my vision went dark.
"Reah, don't pass out, baby," Tory was patting my cheek while Karzac rushed over, placing fingers against my forehead.
Vice-Director Schaff was standing next to the sofa when I woke. I blinked up at him, wanting to cry. Was he going to hurt me again? That's what Edan had done. If I passed out after he hit me, he'd hit me again when I woke, just for fainting in the first place.
"She thinks you will harm her. State your business and leave." Karzac was still there and handing out orders. Tory was there, too, as was Aurelius. My head was in Auri's lap while Tory paced and blew clouds of smoke from his nostrils.
"Reah, we wanted to tell you soon," Lendill began. "About Edan Desh. Addah had the DNA tests run shortly after your birth. He suspected even then. We figure it was the reason he sent you to Edan. His mistake was never telling either of you what he'd found—that Edan was your father. We suspect foul play, not only in that but also in your mother's death. We are currently investigating Edan, Marzi Desh and the physician who attended your mother. We are very close to bringing charges against them—for rape, murder and child abuse. You no longer have to level abuse charges—if other, more serious crimes are committed, the abuse victim doesn't have to be involved. The state will prosecute." Lendill nodded curtly to Karzac and strode swiftly from the room.
"I was born of rape." That fact settled into my brain—it was so much like Edan to do something like that and so much like his mother Marzi to convince him it was a good idea in order to get rid of another, whom she saw as a rival.
"Reah, you can't let that upset you," Aurelius now held me on his lap. "None of this was your doing, love."
I saw the wisdom and reason in his words—it did nothing to keep my heart beating at a more steady rhythm or my mind from going in circles. They'd killed my mother. She hadn't wanted to leave me, perhaps. Her death was something that had plagued me over the years and Marzi's whispered "You should never have been born," when I was six now made more sense.
"Marzi probably wanted to tell Addah that my mother had gone to bed with Edan," I mumbled, while Aurelius kissed my temple and held me tightly against him. "But when my mother became pregnant, I guess other things prevented it."
"Reah, stop thinking about it, baby." Tory went to his knees in front of Aurelius and me. "We're trying to get you back from the other things. This shouldn't have been dumped in your lap just now."
"No time would have been a good time, my love." Aurelius stroked hair away from my face. I suppose my hair was finally growing out a little.
"Reah, I don't want to place you in a healing sleep but I will if this overwhelms you," Karzac sighed.
"I just feel cold," I muttered. I did feel cold.
"It would help if you'd drink some hot tea with Tory and me." Aurelius rose easily, even with me still in his arms. He was vampire—he was strong.
"I want to come." Gavril poked his head in the door. "Master Morwin wouldn't let me leave my lessons early. I got here as fast as I could." His dark eyes held a silent apology for me.