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He brushed the leaves from his clothes. The light was stronger outside, so his sunglass implants flowed to cover his eyes. The world came into sharp focus, and he could hear Meg. She sat beside the river, and his heart fell when he realized she was crying. The rain cloud was gone, and the tree seemed to be just a tree again.
Dante rushed to her, kneeling down. “Meg? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
She glanced up at him, her face streaked with tears. She brushed them away with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. It’s just been a rough couple of days.”
Dante sat beside her. “Meg. Talk to me. You can talk to me.”
She stared at her lap and took a deep breath. “It’s really happening.”
Torin. Yes, he was feeling that, too. “Meggie, it’s going to be all right. Beck can handle anything Torin throws at him.”
“He sent a group of goblins to destroy our village. Beck said it was horrible. We lost people, and they burned down our farm. Our home is gone.”
Dante reached for her hand. He felt a strange mix of rage and sorrow. He loved that village. Beck and Ci had built it with their own hands. Dante had been there, too. They had just been kids when Beck and Ci had lost their throne. Dante had just started college. Dante’s father had offered them asylum, but the kings had chosen to stay with their people on the Refugee plane and build a world for themselves.
Beck and Ci had been forced to grow up fast. So far, Meg’s journey as a royal hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be.
“I don’t want you to worry about a thing, Meg. You and Beck and Ci can come home with me and Kaja.”
“That won’t solve anything, Dante. It will just make things worse in the end. There was a reason Beck and Ci didn’t go down that road the first time. They have people depending on them.” Her hand tightened in his. “Torin isn’t going to leave us be, is he? He’ll try again.”
“Yes,” Dante replied. It was a hard truth. Torin had to kill the twins, or he would never feel safe. He would never be able to open the plane again. Torin had been patient, but it appeared his patience was at an end.
“Dante, I’m scared.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and held her close. They had been through a lot together, he and Meg. It looked as though they would go through much more. “Beck needs to get serious about alliances. My father has been working to move the Council toward repudiating Torin.”
“It hasn’t worked in thirteen years, Dante. The Council is close to acknowledging Torin, not repudiating him.”
“Only because we need the trade. Royal vampires need consorts. If the Council realized Beck and Ci were serious about taking the throne back, I think they would change their minds. We need to talk to the Unseelie. King Fergus will never acknowledge Torin.”
“He’s heard the rumors,” Meg muttered. “Torin is enslaving the non-sidhe on the Seelie plane. He believes the Unseelie are impure. If Torin gets strong, he will go after the Unseelie on their own plane. Fergus doesn’t want that. But you know Fergus has sons, too.”
“I’ve heard the rumors,” Dante replied carefully.
“They aren’t rumors.”
Prickles of trepidation rode his arms. The Unseelie kept to themselves for the most part. Their borders were guarded. Trade flowed, but the king of the Unseelie never left the plane. It was said that he had sons. “Are they symbiotic?”
Say no. Say no. Dante didn’t want to think of super-powerful Unseelie twins. Beck and Cian had been raised in the light court. He couldn’t imagine twins with their power who had been raised by monsters.
Though Dante was rapidly realizing sometimes monsters came in many forms.
“Yes. Their names are Lachlan and Shim,” Meg explained. “They need a bondmate. They aren’t as far gone as Beck and Ci were when they found me, but it’s getting bad. It’s why Fergus reached out to us. He believes placing Beck and Ci on the throne is the best shot he has at saving his sons.”
Dante’s mind was racing. Fergus would have to be dealt with very carefully. The Seelie and the Unseelie had never exactly gotten along. The Unseelie had sent an emissary thirteen years before, Fergus’s daughter. She’d died when Torin had slaughtered the royal family. Fergus had sent assassins after Torin, but hadn’t had any luck getting to him. The word was he wouldn’t risk his sons in a war.
But what if Fergus blamed all the Seelie? After so long, it was all happening fast. There was much to consider. Dante should sit down and strategize with Cian. If Torin was making his move, it was time to get serious. Beck and Ci wouldn’t be allowed to hide anymore. They would win or they would die.
Dante meant to make very certain they did not die.
And how would he do that from the desk of his lovely office? Who was he kidding? He’d just gotten married to preserve his cushy future. He wasn’t about to throw it all away to go to war. He would make certain that his cousins had all the money he could throw at them, but he wasn’t a warrior.
Some odd emotion made his chest feel far too tight. That beast that Kaja always seemed to bring out in him was right there, pounding at him. He wasn’t a warrior. But he could be.
“Dante, don’t worry about it,” Meg said with a sad smile, as though she could read his thoughts. “You just need to worry about Kaja right now. We’ll figure all this out.”
Gods, he was sick of being treated like a kid. He was thirty years old, and everyone acted like he was a fucking teenage boy who didn’t need the stress of real life.
