“Oh,” I say, but as ever I can’t just leave it at that. “Do you know who his father is?”
She spins me around with such force, I twirl twice before I practically stumble over. Her look of outrage matches CK’s expression when he is mad, and I try my best not to giggle.
“His father is Luceres Aquila,” she snaps at me.
“Err, no, he isn’t. Wasn’t,” I say, shaking my head.
“What are you suggesting?” she asks me. “And be very careful as that is my mother you are talking about,” she adds as she steps closer.
Man, this woman is all about protecting her family members. I thought she was a cold bitch, but it
seems only towards me.
“I happen to believe that his father is Laurentis of the House of Dracul,” I say.
She glares at me and I meet her gaze, even though I have to tilt my head up to look at her. “Does he know?” she says softly.
“I think so,” I say just as softly. He said he accepted that in the library and that is why we are here.
“Well,” Rosalina says, clearing her throat. “I don’t suppose there is any more need to discuss this.”
And just like that the subject is closed.
She points to the bath and I climb in, relieved to be covered up by the rose-scented water. I lean back against the tub and close my eyes and then feel a slight whoosh in front of my face. I open my eyes to find a sword inches from my nose.
Chapter 15
Minerva, March 2014 - Liv
“Excuse me!” I declare and push the sword out of my face as I sit up. Turns out it wasn’t one made from steel, but from wood. Thankfully. Not so sure my armory would protect me from Elfin or Druid-type weapons.
“This,” Rosalina says as she whips the sword back to her side, “is the only thing I ever saw Constantinus cherish. Before he could walk, our father,” she says this with a glare at me to keep me quiet on their exact parentage, “gave this to him to get his hand used to the feel of it. He took it everywhere with him, slept with it even.”
My heart just goes into a pile of gooey love for him as I picture him as a toddler sleeping with this little wooden sword.
“Once he was older, he practiced with it every hour our mother would let him until Father said he was allowed to handle a real one. Our mother threw this one away thinking he no longer wanted it, but he took it out of the garbage and kept it in his room, so attached he was to it.”
She gets a faraway look in her eye and I keep quiet, wondering where she is going with this story. Not that I am complaining. I am practically drooling to get this information on my secretive husband. It’s the most precious thing in the world.
“I know not why he chose to keep it, nor why he chose to leave it behind after he was made. But nothing, not a single thing in his life ever meant as much to him. I have seen him discard everything and everyone in his life, even Vincentius on occasion, but when I saw him look at you and call you his wife, I knew he had found something new to cherish. Something that he truly loves.”
“I love him too,” I say with tears in my eyes.
“Good,” she says, nodding her head and sending the sword back to wherever she got it from. “Because I don’t care who you are or what powers you claim to have, if you hurt him in any way, I will slice your insides out with that very wooden sword and burn them before your eyes before I rip your head from your shoulders and turn you to ash.”
I swallow loudly and take her threat quite seriously. The idea of being gouged out with a wooden implement is a very scary one by someone who, I can tell, wields the power that she does. “Understood,” I say, acutely aware that she is just as bloodthirsty as her brother. Damn Romans.
She smiles at me, suddenly all friendly and holds her hand out to help me out of the tub. I hesitantly take it and step out and she sweeps me up in a gossamer gown and ties the belt tightly. “So tiny,” she murmurs while staring at my hips. I am sure she is imagining me huge with child and finding it impossible. “I know of the goings-on between the Dragons and the Faeries,” she says. “The tension is dark and worrisome. I have recalled all of my subjects back to Minerva. I don’t want them being caught up in this fight.”
Minerva? Is that the name of this strange place?
“Fight?” I ask. “It hasn’t come to that yet.”
“But it will. Your use of the word ‘yet’ only confirms my fears. I have a favor to ask of you,” she says.
“Sure,” I say a bit warily, but not really in a position to refuse.
“Keep me out of this,” she says straight away. “I am helping my brother because he is my family. My only blood family left. But please keep this to yourself that I helped you. I cannot allow my World to be invaded by the Faeries when they find out I helped get you with a Dragon child.”