Wait. What? “Probably more so,” she said modestly. Well, modestly
The grin widened. Clearly, Neeka had taught herself how to read lips. “Good. That’ll make the next few weeks bearable. So, tell me. About a year ago, someone mentioned you hung a human outside a sixty-story building. By his hair. That true?”
“Well, yeah.” And she wasn’t sorry. “Gwennie was missing, and he was the last one to see her.” She shrugged. “I wanted answers.”
“Rock on. What about—”
“Enough,” Juliette snapped. “You are wasting our time with your exaggerations when you should be
Exaggerations. Please. Rather than defend herself—and look as though she protested too much—Kaia repeated what had been said. Juliette was behind Neeka, so the poor girl had no idea everyone now watched them, quietly waiting for their cooperation.
The admonishment didn’t send Neeka back to her clan. She remained beside Taliyah. Odd. What was—
From the other side of the spacious room, another set of double doors opened. And then Kaia was staring across the distance—at her mother. Tabitha the Vicious. Juliette quieted as gasps of awe abounded.
A legend had just arrived.
Kaia’s stomach knotted, and she gulped. She’d known this moment would come, had thought she was prepared for it. But… Oh, gods. Her knees knocked together, and she had to press her weight into her heels to steady herself.
Damn it, her sudden case of nerves needed
Over a year had passed since she’d last spoken to her mother, and that final conversation had not been pleasant.
Kaia had gaped.
Their definition of
Footsteps had echoed as her mother walked away. For good. There’d been no phone calls, no letters, no emails or texts. Kaia had simply ceased to exist. Juliette still hadn’t attacked her, so she had assumed her mother had continued to “protect” her despite that fact.
Maybe she’d assumed wrong.
Maybe that’s why she now found herself in this place.
And yet, even knowing Tabitha might want her hurt and broken, her gaze drank her mother in, her first glimpse in all these months, unbidden though it was, and gods, Tabitha was lovely. Though she’d lived for millennia and given birth to four (beautiful) daughters now past legal drinking age—
A few times over the years, she’d dyed her hair red and Kaia had thought, hoped, that meant… But no.
“Tabitha Skyhawk,” Juliette said, her tone reverent. She inclined her head in greeting. “Welcome.”
“
“She’s only my mom by birth, so don’t hold it against me,” Gwen replied. “And I assure you, she’d break your face without a thought to her nails.”
Gwen had always been the sensitive one, the one in need of safeguarding. Yet she hadn’t cried the day Tabitha had called her unworthy. She had simply shrugged and moved on. Not once had she looked back.
“She can’t be all bad,” Sabin said. “Not with those legs.”
Men. “She has the heart of a child, you know. Yeah, it’s in a box beside her bed.”
After the Unfortunate Incident, Kaia had dogged Tabitha for
Her mother entered the room the rest of the way, nine Harpies filing in behind her. When the doors shut with a soft whisk, the group stopped and surveyed the room, the occupants. All ten gazes zoomed past her without even the slightest pause, as if she were invisible.
Did it matter? A bitter laugh welled in Kaia’s throat. Then she noticed the matching medallions hanging from each of their necks, and the laugh escaped on a choke. Small wooden discs, intricate wings carved into the centers, the precious symbol of Skyhawk strength. Kaia had always been fine with the fact that her mother had trained Juliette, as well as other members of allied clans. But giving someone other than a Skyhawk a medal? Oh, that burned!
Another memory surfaced. Suddenly she felt the scrape of leather against her nape as
“Our flight was delayed,” Tabitha explained, her hard voice echoing from the domed ceiling. “We apologize.”
Even so stiffly uttered…an apology? From Tabitha the Vicious? That was a first. Was Kaia dreaming? Had she entered some sort of parallel universe and just didn’t know it? No, she couldn’t have. If so, Tabitha would have smiled at her. She hadn’t.
So the apology
Her knees started knocking again, and there was no stopping them.
“Sorry I’m late,” a husky male voice said from behind her.
And back to the dream theory. No way Strider was here and apologizing. That would mean he was her lifeline—a line to more than just insanity. Kaia whipped around, certain there would be no change in her surroundings. To her eternal shock, her eyes supported her ears.
Strider was here in all his warrior glory.
A smile from Mother Dearest or not, she
“Thank gods,” Sabin muttered. “Gwen almost had my balls for breakfast when she heard I’d let you leave the fortress this morning.”
Gwen blushed. “Sabin! Now isn’t the time to spill our bedroom secrets.”
Bianka chuckled behind her hand. “I don’t think that’s what he meant, Gwennie-bo-Bennie.”
As she spoke, Lysander inserted himself between her and the two demon-possessed immortals. He might have agreed to a truce with the Lords of the Underworld, but that didn’t mean he liked them. And as he’d cut off