“But-”

Whatever Az was going to say in protest gets cut off when my father turns to Zann - Zann, who once again seems to be trying to covertly back out of the room and is about three steps away from using the servant’s door again.

“And what about you, Zannador?” my father asks, making my brother freeze on the spot.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m quite ready yet for-”

“But you’re ready enough to visit the capital and mate in the flesh with Senator Glex’s daughter?”

I blink at my father. He’s wearing a calm, nonchalant look on his face, when he is clearly anything but.

“Shit,” Zann mutters quietly, wincing at the accusation - an accusation that must be true for my father to make the journey all the way here himself to ask my brother this very question.

I’m going to fucking kill him.

“Yes,” my father continues, “‘shit,’ indeed.” He walks forward, his hands still clasped behind his back as he circles a now nervous-looking Zann. “Tell me… what ‘the fuck’ were you thinking, Zannador? Enlighten me. You, of all people should have-”

My father’s bodyguards act so fast, I hardly have time to register they’d even moved until they’re already holding my brother back.

You ‘of all people’…

I growl low in my belly as I do step in front of my Niska now. Is my father seriously implying that my brother’s conception is what killed our mother? Is he suggesting that Zann is at fault in any way for that? When it was him that kept coming back to her for another contract before he finally sank his fangs into her flesh and bonded her with his venom?

My father says nothing, but he stands there, his chin tipped up, waiting. Waiting for Zann to challenge him, waiting for me to challenge him - waiting for anything to happen that lets him put us in our place.

“Zeelix?”

It had been my Aunt’s voice, the uncertain sound of her using my father’s first name without his title accompanied by the tap of her cane butting against the polished hardwood floor. Aunt Zalora has a complicated relationship with the king. But he never corrects her, not once. I remember overhearing them having blazing rows after he accidentally bonded my mother to him. She was furious - and he allowed her to be. I think she might be the only one in the whole of my father’s territories that he allows to be so familiar with his name.

My father stiffens when he hears her, but as he turns, I can see the challenge in his smile melt. It’s replaced by a softness that I can’t read. “Zalora,” he says, bowing his head in greeting as she stands at the threshold of the doorway, observing the scene before her.

“We were not prior informed of your visit,” she clips, lifting her chin. “This is most irregular.”

There’s a moment where we all know that if my aunt were anyone else, her challenge and demeanor would have been met with the king’s anger. I brace for it,even, readying myself to try and deflect the conversation, distract him away from her. But, the anger doesn’t come. Instead, the corner of his lip lifts ever so slightly as if he’s pleased by her lack of airs and graces.

“Yes, well,” my father chuckles, turning his body toward my aunt now, but glancing back at my brothers and I. “One of my idiot sons has surpassed himself in his idiocy,” he quips, giving a fraction of a nod to his security detail. In turn, they allow Zann to shrug out of their hold. My brother glares at them both while dusting off their touch from his shirtsleeves.

My aunt’s smile is tight. “Well, why don’t you accompany me to her rooms and you can tell me all about it.”

My father nods, his shoulders relaxing as he lets out a breath. “Yes, please, Zalora, that would be most welcome.”

We watch them go, my father offering his arm to my aunt. She takes it, but issues the mother of all warning glares over her shoulder aimed at Zann before they disappear, trailed by his security as they walk to my mother’s old chambers. The rooms have mostly been left alone. We painted over the crazed etchings of her madness - the million drawings of my father’s face, the words he’d told her repeated, and repeated, and repeated in blocks that filled walls. But her things are still there. Her hairbrush. Her night gowns. Her horncaps. They are a much more sanitized version of her chambers now. My aunt visits them when she wants to ‘talk’ to her sister. I have only been there once. They are a stark reminder of what happens when males like me lose control.

My gaze snaps back to my idiot brother, and I don’t even have to say anything - he already looks chagrined. My jaw ticks nonetheless.

“In my defense, I made sure she had a really good time,” the idiot says, lifting his palms as if that would placate me.

“You stupid fucking geliklik! What the fuck were you-”

As soon as I’d launched myself at him, Az is in front of me, tackling my onward motion and stopping me from advancing. Vel is in the middle of us, too.

“Look, look, look,” Zann repeats, his hands up in surrender as he tries to get me to calm down. He should be thankful he’s out of my reach. “She asked me to show her what it was like. Xoe is my friend!”

“You don’t fuck your friends, Zann! You could have bitten her for fuck’s sake! You could have just given her your permission like a sane person!”

“She was scared, alright?!” Zann shouts back at me. “She’s got her first contract coming up and she trusted me to show her what it would be like. Permissions don’t show you shit, Kiahn, c’mon. You know that.”

I snort a short breath from my nose and shrug out of Az’s hold. He keeps his hand on my chest, giving me a look that asks if I’m going to try and launch myself at our youngest brother again. I shake my head minutely, but continue to glare at Zann.

“I’ve known Xoe for years.” Zann continues, spearing his fingers through his hair. “She approached me with this, Kiahn, not the other way around, and I had my reservations. But no one else she knew or trusted would be as willing as me to take the bite suppressants.”

I tip my face up to the ceiling, closing my eyes as I let out a long, weary sigh.

“She asked me,” he repeats.

“Oh, and I suppose you got nothing out of this, huh?”

Zann rubs at his horn, his gaze focusing on nothing at all as he seems to conjure the memory in question. “It was all a bit weird, actually. Not bad. But…” he shrugs and gives me that boyish grin that has gotten him out of so many questionable situations before. “… well, I don’t normally know the female so well before we… you know.”

Of course he doesn’t. He’s the one that flits here, there and everywhere to meet new women of every different species. It occurs to me then, that this probably happened a few months ago when he’s suddenly made a trip to the capital without warning or much explanation. I groan and scrub my hands down my face. “You do know that father is going to demand you make this right, right?”

Zann only lifts a brow.

He must know what I’m talking about.

“He’s going to demand you enter a contract with Xoe… probably a long, recurring one, too. Until you’ve made amends with her senator father by binding our two families together through you siring a child on her. Maybe more than one. They may even make you keep going until she bears you a daughter.”

Zann’s face goes so pale, I swear it’s like I’ve just told him he’s being shipped off to war.

OceanofPDF.com

26

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 26 - Niska

It’s been two days since we arrived on Xaavia, and unfortunately, I’ve not seen a whole lot of Kiahn. Apparently he’s been busy with his princely duties - duties that now include making sure his brother, Zann doesn’t try to flee the planet. The king did not stay long, and I’m not going to be so arrogant as to claim that I understand the dynamic between him and his sons, but to say there is a certain kind of strain between them would be an understatement.