She sank into the couch. “Not to make things more complicated…”
A reddish eyebrow, so very like his mother’s, rose. “But?”
“There is the matter of my siblings.”
“What about them?”
“They don’t know what’s going on.”
“Oh. Is that going to be a problem?”
“I don’t know. But I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” His jaw dropped. “What do you mean tomorrow?”
“Elian’s driving here as we speak, and he’ll be here tonight. And Zara and Hektor will follow tomorrow, once Lord Eros can get away from his duties to transport them back to Vale Crossing.” Apparently, they had kissed and made up, according to the text from her mother. The Drakkon had followed her all the way to Santa Fe and won her back. “Look, will you let me handle things? Especially with Elian?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said with a shrug. “Your siblings will at least understand that this is all a misunderstanding and it’ll be cleared up in a year.”
“Just let me tell them, okay?” She blew out a breath. “Zara will probably be okay. But Elian’s unpredictable.”
His teeth worried at his lip. “Is he protective?”
“Not exactly. He’s just different, okay? You don’t want to get on his bad side.”
“Fine.” He picked up another piece of cake and popped it into his mouth, swallowing the whole thing in one bite. “Whatever.”
Liora still wasn’t sure what to tell her siblings. “Hey, I’m married” didn’t seem like it would cut it. She glanced at the clock on the mantle, the tick-tick-tick of the second hand seemingly mocking her, telling her she better come up with something.
By the next day, Liora still hadn’t figured out how to tell her siblings about her current predicament. The truth was, she was worried they’d be mad that she kept this from them for this long. They were siblings—no, they were more than that. They were triplets who shared a womb for nine months, bound together by blood and magic.
But really, she could only tell them the truth. There was the matter of Elian’s unpredictability, so she decided to tell Zara first.
Of course, that would mean she would have to intercept her sister before their meeting at ten o’clock at the lobby, hopefully without Elian seeing them. Her brother had a tendency to be early—“If you’re on time, then you’re late,” he would always say—so Liora had no choice but to catch them before then. An hour before the meeting, she decided she would go to them first. Unfortunately, as soon as she exited her room, Maldenis was standing there, looking infuriatingly handsome in a yellow shirtthat made the color of his eyes pop. That confident grin was pasted on his gorgeous face as usual.
“Good morning, wifey.”
The word sent a strange sensation pooling in her belly. It didn’t help that he was staring down at her with those hypnotic golden eyes.
She swallowed and pushed those thoughts away. “What are you doing here?” she groused. “And don’t call me that.”
He tsked. “So cranky in the morning. Is this what I have to look forward to everyday for the rest of my life?”
“For the next year at least,” she reminded him. “Why are you here? How did you know this was my room?”
“I have my ways,” he said mysteriously. “So, are we going to talk to your siblings?”
“We?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean ‘we’? You barely cared about what they thought yesterday and now you want to be here when I tell them?”
“Me? Who said I didn’t care?”
“‘Whatever’” she said, mimicking his voice and tone. “What changed?”
“Nothing.”
“Maldenis….”
“I swear?—”
