AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Neither do I." She patted his arm. "I was just teasing. You are the best son a mother could hope for, and I am very proud of you. I do not say it to you often enough."
Kian was touched, and her praise felt good even though he didn't need it, which was a lesson he should learn. He nearly never praised the people working for him, assuming that they knew he was satisfied with their performance when he didn't complain about it, but that was not the same as praise.
He dipped his head and took his mother's hand. "Thank you, Mother. I appreciate your kind words." He gave her hand the lightest of squeezes before gently putting it back on her thigh.
"I need to send out this text before Aru starts to think that I'm ignoring him."
57
ANNANI
Aru and his teammates had a cabin on the same deck as Annani and her family, so it did not take long until her doorbell rang.
Still, it had been enough time for her Odus to prepare the light meal she had asked them to make.
Her instructions had been to assemble a tray of canapés with some cut fruit and a couple of bowls of nuts, which her two Odus had done in minutes.
As Oridu opened the door and welcomed Aru, Kian pushed to his feet and walked over to him to escort him to the dining table.
The god bowed low. "Good morning, Your Highness."
"Good morning, Aru, and please, call me Annani or Clan Mother." She had asked him to do that before, but he seemed to have difficulty complying with her request.
He smiled sheepishly. "My apologies, Clan Mother. I keep forgetting. But can you blame me? You are the personification of royal grace."
"Well, thank you." She rearranged the folds of her gown. "Perhaps I should dim my glow the next time you request an audience with me so it will be easier for you to remember to call me by my given name."
"Fates forbid. I feel so honored every time I am in your luminous presence."
Laughter bubbled from Annani's chest. "Please, sit down, Aru. I am starting to think that I am not built to be a queen someday. It is not that I do not enjoy attention and admiration, but this is too much flattery even for me."
This was the first time she had said out loud that she was considering taking up the quest of becoming the queen of Anumati, and given the startled look on Kian's face, he had not missed that.
Smiling, Aru unfurled a napkin and draped it over his knees. "I will have to dial it down, then, Clan Mother." He gave her a cheeky grin. "I could never bring myself to call you by your given name, though."
"You will have to get used to it." Annani reached for one of the canapés to signal that it was okay to begin the light meal. "My grandmother is going to call me Annani, and if you and your sister translate it into Your Highness each time, it will be a waste of time. Using my name is so much more efficient."
"How about ma'am?" Aru asked. "That is acceptable even for royalty on Earth following the first formal address."
Kian groaned. "Ma'am is fine. Can we please get to the reason for this meeting?"
Aru nodded. "My sister informed me last night that the queen is ready for her first conversation with her granddaughter."
Annani's heart fluttered with excitement. "That is wonderful news. What time?"
"That's the problem. It was one o'clock in the morning when my sister contacted me, and that was the precise time the queen indicated for the day after tomorrow. I asked if it could be moved to another time, but Aria said that this was when the queen was visiting the temple. We have to somehow make it work." He looked at Kian. "The Clan Mother usually departs right after the ceremony and returns to her cabin, but you and I usually stay until late. It will be difficult to excuse our departure."
Annani had to agree. Even her diva reputation would not suffice to explain summoning her son and Aru to her cabin in the middle of the night.
Kian raked his fingers through his hair. "If not for your buddies, we could have made up a story about a spiritual ritual that was conducted at that time on Anumati, but they would know it's a lie."
Both Kian and Aru turned to her. "Any ideas?" Kian asked.
"Perhaps an emergency in one of your European companies that requires Aru's expertise on something? A new contract or something of that nature."
"Shai knows of every deal that's on the table now or ever, and he would know it's not true." Kian shook his head. "I can't believe that between the three of us, we can't come up with a plausible story."
"I can thrall Shai," Aru offered. "I can put in his head a memory of a pending contract that you are eager to get."
