After the damn good fucking and the even better cry, I feel restored. I wash my face and change my gown, also remembering to clean up elsewhere in the process. I am quite hurt that CK didn’t come after me, but I suppose it is better that he didn’t. I can’t say he would have taken it as well as Devon did, had he walked in on me and Xane, which wasn’t very well at all.
I go back downstairs and back to the meeting hall, where everyone is still assembled, and I am greeted with varying degrees of coldness. I can’t say that I am all that surprised. I ran out of here like a panicked moron and then proceeded to hurt the men that I love whichever way I turned.
Xane’s absence is quite noticeable, most especially as Devon is sitting with his arms crossed in the chair that Xane was in when I ran out of here, looking somewhere between pissed off and even more pissed off. Can’t say that I blame him. He deserves a response from me that isn’t an impression of a drooling, scared rabbit.
“Are you ready to discuss this like an adult now?” Drake asks, staring at the missive in his hand instead of at me. I think I quite prefer it that way, until he frowns so hard, I think his face is going to explode. He scrunches it up as he sees me looking and shoves the letter into his tunic pocket.
“What is it?” I ask, curious as to what has riled him.
“Nothing,” he says absently.
I look to Devon, but he avoids my eyes and I am about to ask again when my body starts to shake.
“Dammit,” Drake mutters with a look at Maurelle.
“What?” I yell as I lean on the table for support. I think it must be shock setting in. I have had one too many exposures tumble out today and I don’t think I have fully processed everything yet.
“You should deal with that,” Maurelle mutters back, ignoring me completely.
“What is that?” I ask loudly as the tremble gets worse. I have concluded that it is in fact not me, but the whole ground seems to be shaking violently. It stops as suddenly as it started, only to shake again a few seconds later.
“That would be your mother,” Drake says to me with a big sigh. “Wait here. Do not under any circumstances allow her to follow me,” he adds to CK, who nods grimly and wraps his hand of steel around my upper arm, his claws sinking into my flesh.
I yelp with the pain and struggle, but it only makes him dig them further into my arm.
“Get off me, you brute,” I scream at him as Drake puffs out without me. “I need to speak to Her. Explain to Her that Delinda isn’t Hers.”
“Aeval,” Maurelle says quietly and I stop struggling as she takes my other arm. “May I have a word?” She doesn’t wait for an answer as she swans off out of the meeting hall, expecting me to follow her.
CK drags me along but he doesn’t let me go.
“You can release her,” Maurelle says to CK. “She won’t be going anywhere.”
For some reason, known only to himself, CK lets his claws go from my arm.
My first instinct is to transport myself straight to Drake’s side, but Maurelle’s words stop me. “Are you really that hotheaded that you will put the life of your unborn child at risk after what happened to you before?”
I glare at her. How dare she talk to me about that? I sense CK step back and it does suddenly strike me that going off in my current condition is probably one of the stupider things I could possibly do.
“Fine,” I snap at her. “I will stay here.” I cross my arms, though, defiant as ever. “But someone needs to tell Her that Delinda belongs here so She can fuck off back to the Dragon Realms.”
“I know how distressing this must be for you. You are your father’s daughter, always needing to be part of the action. The best thing you can do for yourself and your child is stay out of it and let him handle it,” she says, flinching visibly at my expletive.
“Easier said than done,” I say sullenly.
“I know,” she says softly, rubbing her hand over her baby bump. “But an unprepared confrontation is not the best course of action, especially if you end up in a cell warded with Her magick. And mark my words, Aeval, that is where you will be if you go out there and tell Her that Delinda isn’t Her true heir. She won’t just say ‘okay’ and leave.”
“She will kidnap me and try it all over again with this child or another,” I say flatly, cursing myself for not even having considered that.
“Yes. Just let your father handle it,” she says.
“I don’t trust him around Her,” I mutter without thinking.
I hear Maurelle’s sharp intake of breath, and I look at her apologetically. “Sorry,” I say with a slight flush, hoping that she doesn’t read it on my face that the last time my parents were alone together they did things that they shouldn’t have.
“Neither do I,” she says so softly I barely hear it.
“She is a bitch,” I comment just for something to say.