Page 67 of Microburst

“Oh, I’d finish that sentence carefully,” Lydia drawled.

“Especially since I fucking hate her and think she’s a…” I trailed off when I saw Onyx staring at me like he’d never seen me before. “Do you have feelings for her?”

“What? No.No!”

“Okay, this is—pull over so we can switch seats,” Fraser sighed.

“No,” Onyx snapped.

“I agree,” I grumbled, giving him a disgusted look.

He chuffed and tried to basically pull me onto his lap. “I don’t have feelings for Hanna! She’s my sister-in-law and Ithoughta really good person! It’s like you’re telling me—I don’t know, but I’m in shock.”

“Okay, not to defend him, but as someone who fell for Elira’s shit and I was always around her, not you,” Benson hedged. “He wasn’t around her much, right? Like he left home and was always teaching? He was on research trips and—how young did he leave? Before they mated.”

“Okay, I like you better now,” Onyx said, playing on the earlier gag. “But that is true. I mean, you didn’t even know me as Kole’s uncle, Sagan. I just know the times I saw her at holidays, what Vex has always told me and he thinks the world of her, and her public image.” He huffed when I still studied him. “She’s not my type. I thought she was a good person, but she’s passive.”

Lydia snickered.

Yeah, I was anything but passive.

My lips twitched at that too. “Okay, fine, but—sorry. I just—it’s…” I let out a slow breath. “It was like Elira all over again where it was going to be everyone picking a different woman over me.”

“You deserve that,” Fraser told Benson, so I assumed he’d gone to say something. I hadn’t even meant it as pointed as it had come out.

But it was still fair for him to hear. It really was.

“She was always horrible to me,” I told Onyx, not caring that the rest of them heard. “She was very clear that her eldest baby boy was meant for the greatness of being the shining Alpha of Thovudin, not the mate to a dud leader whose parents didn’t even include her in anything. She bullied me when—she looked so far down on me it was a joke.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” he hedged.

“I told Vex and he joked that no one could be as perfect as Amelia and there was always going to be tension between the woman who birthed a man and the one who would date him. I thought…” I shrugged.

“Gross,” Lydia gagged.

“Yes, but I’d heard similar shit before,” I said. “Even Treena was seeing a man who always compared her to his mother and she always came up short. There are so many cliches about the boyfriend’s mom or mothers-in-law that it wasn’t just me or something to make a huge issue about when I barely saw her. Barely sawhim.”

“We’re here,” Lydia announced. “Up on the left.”

“Where is ‘here?’” Onyx asked.

“The next part of this fiasco,” I answered as the vehicle stopped. “If you beat the judge up—even killed him. What happened next?” I snickered when he winced and got out, offering his hand to me. I took it and kept his gaze. “You don’t think she’d just do it again? Give the same sob story that as a woman she understood why I was so emotional, but don’t punish her son?”

“I believe you, but I just—fuck her,” he grumbled. “I really judged the people who fell for Elira’s bullshit because I saw it from a mile away, but now I’m the next fool. I thought she was awesome. I thought she was good for Vex.”

I realized he was really upset about that, seeming a bit like someone had told him sea monsters weren’t real or that dragonsdidn’t really fly. I felt bad for jumping on him earlier and being jealous.

I put on my game face though and went around back with Lydia while Benson and Fraser went to the front. Obviously, I couldn’t just show up at the judge’s door.

It was much better to sneak in the back and not be seen on camera. It was easy with Lydia being a shadow dragon after all.

Judge Joanna froze in what she was saying as she stood in the foyer with Benson and Fraser. “Forgive me for not giving you a formal greeting when you broke into my home, Your Majesty.”

I snorted. “You can call me Sagan when I commit crimes, Your Honor.”

She turned so she could see all of us, studying me closely. She let out a slow breath. “So you found out what that sexist tool is planning to do?”

“Worst-kept secretever,” Onyx drawled from the front porch and stepped inside. “Seriously.”