Walking back into my hotel room, I throw everything onto the bed and sink down on the edge. I need to call my mom. She has to know something. She’s not one to just let her daughters vanish and accept it, at least I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know why she’s not tearing the country apart looking for them.
Something is really wrong.
I feel like a selfish bitch. Birdie told me that I was being immature and ridiculous and she’s right, I was. I am. Now she’s gone. With my phone in my hand, I hold it tightly in my grasp as I pinch my eyes closed and just try to breathe.
I can’t help but feel that part of the reason Birdie is missing has to be my fault. If I would have just helped her. Maybe if I would have come here, offered to go to Seattle with her, something, then she wouldn’t have been alone. Then I would be with her wherever she is.
Slowly, I open my eyes and look down at my device. Looking for my mom’s name, I touch the call icon before I lift the phone to my ear. It rings a couple of times before my mom’s voice sings into the line.
She does not sound worried at all, not even a little bit.
“Mom, I can’t find Birdie, I’m here in Arizona and she’s not here. Her car was found abandoned. I’m really worried,” I blurt out.
There’s a moment of silence, then my mother actually laughs. It’s a low husky laugh, but she doesn’t seem worried at all.
“They are just fine, Dru. Don’t worry. Go home and wait for your moment. You’ll see them again, soon.”
“Are you high?” I ask on a whisper.
She laughs again but doesn’t answer me. Which means that she probably is just that. “Relax, you’re too wound up about this. I have a good feeling, deep in my gut. I’m not worried at all.”
“Where’s Dad?” I demand.
She’s quiet for a moment, then she clears her throat. “I’ve already talked about all of this with him. He is worried, but he trusts my judgment.”
“All of my sisters are gone. This is not a coincidence,” I grind out.
“Just calm down, honey.”
“I will not calm down,” I shout. “Tell me where the hell they are, Mom.”
Again, she doesn’t say anything immediately. “Go back to Florida, Dru.”
“Mom?” I whisper. “I’m scared.”
She hums, and for a moment I think that my soft, sweet, caring mom is back, but she’s not the same. Something in her is different. She is so nonchalant about this, I don’t understand it at all.
“Don’t be, honey. Things will work out the way that they are meant to.”
“How can you be so calm?” I ask on a whisper.
There is silence. It lasts so long that I think the call has dropped, but then she begins to speak again. I don’t understand how she can be so calm, even as she explains why she is. What she says does nothing to ease my worry.
“I was worried, but then I had a dream. After the dream, I went to my psychic. It’s all going to be okay. Just take deep breaths and wait for your turn.”
My turn.
What the actual shit?
Pressing my lips together, I end the call and stare at the hotel room wall.
My turn.
What does that even mean?
TIBERIUS
Standing at the edge of the maenianum, I place my hand on my hip as I survey my land. Mine. It is just that now. My father has died, with his death is the end of his tyranny. Exhaling a deep breath, I can’t help but lift my lip in a small smile. I will not do as my father has done. I will not allow my people to live in fear and poverty.
I can smell in the air that something has shifted. There is a change coming and it is not simply with the change of rule. The change of me taking over after my father’s death. Something is happening or is going to happen. I just don’t know what it could be, not yet.
Death.
I could call it untimely, however, it was very much timed.
I killed him.
Plain and simple.
It was honorable.
As honorable as it was, my blade still went across his neck and severed the connection of his head from his body. Then, that head was placed on a dolo for the entire country to see. I will not tolerate a man of his kind, not anymore.
He went too far.
Cassia walks up beside me, her scent unmistakable. “You have done what is best for the country, Tiberius.”
I hum, continuing to look straight ahead. “But at what cost?”
She reaches over to me, wrapping her fingers around my forearm and squeezes. “The gods would not have put you in this place without a plan. They will show you the way, you must have faith in their plans.”
I don’t say anything, there is nothing to say. She is justifying me taking my father’s head by bringing in the will of the gods. Although I do believe that the gods have fated plans in place, I am just unsure that those include me taking my own father’s life. Though there is nothing that I can do about it now.
The deed is done.
I am indeed a warrior and I have killed hundreds of men, but there is something that does not sit right with me about killing my own blood, even though he was very much deserving.
“He hurt you,” I grind out.
There is a moment of silence, then she shifts around and stands in front of me. Tipping my chin down, she tilts her head backward and I look into her dark brown eyes. She smiles softly up at me and I forget sometimes just how young and untouched by life that she is.
Lifting my hand, I use my thumb and slide it along the apple of her cheek. She wraps her fingers around my wrist and squeezes
