His father’s arm dropped. “Why? What the hell happened? Did you get in a fight? Was it a tourney?”
Dante held his hands up. If he didn’t stop his father, there would be doctors all over the place. “I’m fine. Kaja’s fine. We got attacked in the marketplace, that’s all. Torin is finally making his move. I guess the asshole realized Beck and Ci aren’t going to conveniently die.”
His father had turned a little pale. “Torin attacked the marketplace?”
“He sent mercenaries to attack the Refugee plane, as far as I can tell. Some asshole impoverished royals have formed their own little army, and they are all about letting trade flow.”
There was a tight set to his father’s eyes that told Dante he didn’t like this subject. “They want consorts. It’s all the government can talk about these days. There are so few to be had. There’s an entire generation of royals who can’t find consorts. They’re aging, and they don’t like it. You have to understand, Dante. A royal is brought up to believe that finding a consort is his or her right. We live longer with a consort. Without a consort, we might as well be peasants.”
It was a hard truth to swallow, but Dante knew his father was only laying it on the line. “Now that Beck and Cian have come into their powers, maybe things can change.”
The look in his father’s eyes was grim. “I don’t know. I think it might be too late for that.”
Dante turned and looked his father straight in the eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that when your cousins come to visit next week, I’m going to try to convince them to leave.”
“What are you talking about? Where the hell would they go? Torin decimated their village.” Dante had wanted to cry. Beck and Cian had built the village up over the years, and it had taken a single afternoon and some well-placed sonic charges to bring it all down. He’d mourned with his cousins the loss of their home.
“I think it’s time they went to the Earth plane, son.”
The words hit Dante like a grenade threatening to explode. “Why the hell would they go to some backwater plane that isn’t connected to anywhere else?”
There were a few doors to the Earth plane scattered around, but they were very difficult to access, and few braved them. The Earth plane was almost entirely cut off. In Dante’s mind, if his cousins fled to the Earth plane, it was an admission of defeat.
“Because the tide is turning, son. If our government decides to recognize Torin’s claim to the throne, they have to acknowledge that Beckett and Cian are renegades. Those mercenaries who are after them now, they’ll be joined by every soldier on every plane who hears the news.”
Dante’s stomach turned. How was this happening? “Beck and Ci won’t go.”
They would stay and fight. They wouldn’t leave their people behind.
His father simply shook his head and sat down behind his desk. “Let’s talk about something more pleasant. We’ll deal with your cousins’ situation when the time comes. Now, I know you need your bonding time, but the sunscreen project is at a critical state. I want you to get to work. The chemists have the formula down, and we’ll be ready for testing very soon.”
He knew he should be excited. This was the very reason he had gotten married. He’d changed his entire life to stay on this one project. Now all he could think of was how to keep his cousins alive.
“Dante?” His father leaned forward. “Are you all right?”
No. He wasn’t all right. He was changed, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. This was his home, and somehow he felt out of place. It would be all right. He’d just been through a lot. He needed time and space to forget what had happened in the woods. It was just a little post-traumatic stress disorder.
He would be fine. He would get back to normal.
He wanted to see Kaja.
“I’m good,” Dante said, forcing a smile on his face. “Just a little tired.”
Yeah, almost dying would do that.
His father got back up and walked around the desk. He enveloped Dante in a bear hug. Love for his father rushed over him. Dante hugged him back. Despite their differences, he loved the old man.
“I was wrong to say what I did to you, Dante. You’re my boy, and I would never kick you out,” his father said, emotion choking him. “You’ll always be my boy.”
Now the emotion that flowed over Dante turned bittersweet as he realized he was leaving something behind. He might live in this mansion forever, but he was changed, and his childhood was irrevocably over. He had been Alexander Dellacourt’s boy for thirty years.
But now he was Kaja’s man.
“I love you, too, Dad.”
Kaja came awake slowly, her brain opening in layers. She’d slept so deeply that no dreams had jarred her. Just sweet sleep. Each time she had awakened, her eyes would open and she would see Dante’s face hovering over hers, protecting her, and she had known she could sink back into sleep.
This time, however, he was not there. Kaja opened her eyes, and Dante was not holding her or standing watch over her.
She sat up in bed. She felt stronger, but there was still a delicious weakness to her system. She had saved him. Dante was alive because her blood sustained him.
All of her life, she had allowed things to happen to her because she knew no other way. Until she had been kicked out of the pack, she had not known that she could change things. She had saved Dante. She was strong.
She pushed back at the blankets that covered her. They were rich and soft, made of some material she’d never felt before. She touched the gown covering her body. She vaguely remembered Dante slipping it over her head and calling her a princess as he tucked her in.
Where had he gone?
She looked around the room, her memories surfacing. Dante’s room. It seemed larger than her pack’s long house. Dante’s memories of this room were strong. She’d seen it when he fed. She could see it as it was when he was a child. He’d loved hovercars and bikes. He’d followed racing circuits, and he’d been past disappointed when his father wouldn’t let him enter something called the BMX Sky Racers. She found the desk where he’d sat and worked on homework when absolutely forced to. He preferred to play with his tablet. It still sat on the desk.
Kaja touched it and was startled when a woman popped up. She was small, but lifelike. How had she fit inside the thin tablet? Why was she half-naked? If Kaja had learned one thing about Dante’s people, it was that they preferred to be clothed. Not this woman.
“Hello, Master. What can I search for tonight? I’ve found some amateur pornography guaranteed to shock and arouse you.”
Kaja took a step back. “I do not think I wish to be shocked.”
She was already shocked by the small woman who hovered above the tablet wearing what appeared to be strips of leather that did not cover her incredibly large breasts. And the minute Kaja spoke, the woman changed, morphing into a much older woman in a business suit.
“Apologies, ma’am. I’ll go into ‘mom mode.’ Now, would you like a rundown of stock quotes?”
Kaja turned away, a little frightened. She looked around, seeking the doorway out. There were double doors with filmy curtains covering them. Kaja walked over and threw them open and gasped. She was no longer in a building, but outside and so close to the sky. Lights twinkled all around her, like fireflies in odd colors. Yellows, pinks, blues, and purples lit up the sky in the distance.
Kaja held on to the doorframe. There was ground beneath her, but she could tell she was high. Very high.
“Kaja, you’re awake.”
She turned her head, and Dante stood at the edge of the railing. Balcony. This was a balcony.