“Elvira has pledged her allegiance to us, she will aid us in this war with the troops she has, but with her condition, she cannot lead them. She asked me to designate that task to your pack, to Stellan.” I raised a brow at Nico’s brother. “It appears you’ve been making your way up the ranks rather quickly,Captain Elsher.”
Stellan squared his shoulders.” Someone told me I might be good at it.” His eyes darted to Nico. “Turns out he was right.”
Nico shifted in his seat, looking anywhere but at his older brother. I cleared my throat. “Anyways, what do you say, Stellan?”
“We’ll stand with you. The entire Lunar Court will, I’ll lead them to fight at your side.”
“Thank you,” Lennox breathed. “The Aquatic Court has agreed to side with us too, we are due back tomorrow tomeet up with Ceto and Alon to start marching our forces west.”
“We will stay here and ready our army, guarding Adreona from coming east easily while you travel back here. I’m assuming the plan is to get the troops to the Blood Court?”
“We haven’t planned it out in detail yet, but we want to get as far west as we can without Adreona catching on to our plans.”
“Have you talked with the Twilight Court yet?” Declan stiffened at the mention of his home court.
“We sent them a letter, but we haven’t heard anything,” Lennox told Stellan.
“They could be the difference between winning or losing this war,” Nico’s brother continued. “The Blood Court has always had close ties with The Twilight Court, even if Arlo is no longer king, Lorenzo was part of that relationship too. Declan, you need to talk to your father.”
Declan’s entire body stiffened. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out.
“We will take your input into consideration and discuss it further at a later time. Thank you.”
I could see the tension leaving Declan’s body as I continued to steer the conversation elsewhere. “Do you have a place we can set up camp for the day? We will stay the night and leave in the morning.”
“We can set you up in the spare dens. Follow me. “
We followed Isadora, stopping when she came to one of the dens on the far edge of the pack’s camp. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” we said in unison.
Once we were all settled, we jumped right back into it.
“Where do we go from here?” Nico started. “We need to discuss stopping at the Twilight Court.” The room froze at Nico’s words. “Hear me out,” he said, looking directly atDeclan. “Being here with my family has been hard—and I’m not ready to sort through our shit, but I came because I knew I needed to do this for Lennox and Luka, for Lethenia. Declan, you don’t have to even talk to your father, you don’t need to step foot in the Twilight Court if you don’t want to, but the rest of us do. We need them.”
“He’s right, Dec, we need him, we need the Twilight Court,” I added.
Declan’s jaw clenched, but he gave a stiff nod. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. I don’t know if me talking to him will do any good, but I’ll go. I’m not scared of him—not anymore.”
“It’s settled, our next stop is the Twilight Court.”
We all murmured in agreement. “But before anyone leaves, Nico ,you need to tell them.” We all turned our attention to Luce as she stared at Nico. “Either you tell them, or I will, because I’m not keeping this secret.”
“You told her?” There was a hopeful gleam to Zienna’s eyes.
“I didn’t have much of a choice, it just came out.”
I kept my mouth shut; I wanted to know what had been plaguing Nico all these years, but if he still wasn’t ready to share it I wouldn’t push him.
“I refuse to go into detail, but…” Nico sat on the bed, bracing his hands in his hair. “Ketan and Isadora are not my birth parents.”
Holy fucking shit.
“My birth mother was Isadora’s twin sister, she died shortly after I was born and Isadora and Ketan took me in as their own and they and my grandmother decided to hide it from me my entire life.”
Nico’s family had always been the center of his world. He loved them more than anything. His entire family had always been so close, they went everywhere together, did everything together. I had envied Nico’s relationship with his family when I first started spending time with them, butthen they accepted me as one of their own. The Elsher pack became my second family.
I never would have suspected Nico wasn’t theirs. No wonder he had been locked up about it.
