15. Florian

Chapter 15

Florian

When I finally got my head together and went to check on her, apparently Fawn was with Frost Moonstriker. It was strange, hearing that someone I’d known less than a month had taken my sister off alone and not being worried about it at all. But it was Frost, so I wasn’t.

It was nearing dinnertime, so I assumed they would make their way to the dining room without me. I hadn’t decided whether to tell anyone about Father’s call yet. Not that I wanted to keep the thing a secret, exactly, but it wasn’t like I’d learned anything of value, and telling anyone meant I had to admit just how little my father thought of me. That he thought I was only of value because I could slide into someone’s bed as a distraction.

I didn’t want to have that conversation with Cove, let alone my little sister, or worse, Cove’s vassal—who already seemed to think that Father’s wishes were my plan. No, there was no reason to tell them what had happened.

Probably.

To my shock, when I got to the dining room, Cove was escorting the lot of them out of the room. Fawn’s arms were wrapped around one of his, and she was smiling up at him like he’d hung the moon.

Huh. Hung the moon. Maybe that particular colloquialism had started with some ridiculously perfect Moonstriker.

“She’s very clever,” Fawn was explaining, holding up her doll for his inspection. “She said when Father and Florian left that she didn’t think Father would come back. I hoped she was right.”

“That’s very impressive,” he agreed, nodding as he looked the doll over.

Frost was following them, carrying his computer and walking next to Coral, who looked incredibly confused. “—and this is normal?” she was asking Frost, and it instantly got my hackles up.

I’d learned to hate the word normal over the course of my life. Almost always, it was used by small-minded people who wanted to push Fawn around. In their minds, they lived in a world where they were “normal” and that was good and acceptable, and Fawn wasn’t allowed to be a part of that. She was different, abnormal, and it was bad.

Frost, on the other hand, snorted and shook his head. “I’m starting to think nothing we thought about the Dawnchaser family was true of anyone but Huxley.”

“No,” I denied, whipping around to face them. “He’s just like the rest of them. The cousins. They’re...they’re...”

Normal?

“Monsters?” Frost asked instead.

All the fight went out of me. He wasn’t belittling Fawn. Of course he wasn’t. Frost had given me no indication that he would ever do such a thing, and Coral being annoyed that she found me sprawled across Cove’s lap wasn’t rude of her. It was the perfectly acceptable reaction of someone who thought her friend and boss might be in danger from a scheming asshole member of my family.

“Now Frost,” Cove said. “We have to give the entire Dawnchaser family a chance to rise above all this.” Frost winced and nodded, as though of course everyone deserved a chance.

Coral scowled, as though that was the last thing she wanted.

I shook my head wildly. “No. No, we shouldn’t do that. They’re terrible. They’ll stab you in the back the moment you give them a chance to.”

That made Coral turn to me, new interest in her eyes, but Cove stepped forward and put his free arm on my shoulder. “Everyone should have a chance to do what’s right, Florian.” His voice was soft and kind as he said it. Like he understood my fears and was trying to soothe them. Then something hardened in his gaze. “But only one chance. After that, we do whatever we need to, to protect the Summerlands and all its citizens.”

It still terrified me, this idea of giving my family a chance to hurt people. To hurt Cove.

I couldn’t allow it.

We won’t allow it, Lucky , Navia promised me. He’s ours now. He gets to be lucky too .

I swallowed down my fears and nodded to Cove, then decided that a change of subject was in order. “Where are we going? It’s dinner time.”

Cove smiled, and it was incredible. His smiles were always beautiful, and this one was all the more amazing for the sheer happiness behind it, infusing his gray eyes with warmth. “I promised Fawn we would eat in the garden, remember? So I asked the staff to set up a buffet at the tables out there. We won’t even need to bother them for extra food for Coral.”

“There’s always too much food anyway,” Fawn said, nodding. She leaned on Cove’s shoulder, smiling up at him. “Winnie says it’s wasteful.”

“It would be,” Cove agreed. “But I’m sure the staff eats whatever is left.”

I winced, because honestly, I doubted that. “Maybe...maybe we should tell them they can and should do that, starting now. Just in case.”

Cove looked at me, frowning, and seemed to consider for a moment before nodding. “You truly think your father had them just...throw it away?”

Did I think my father refused to let the staff eat what he considered his food? Damn right I did. There wasn’t much I’d have put past the selfish bastard.

When we arrived on the back terrace, the staff had set out one of the outdoor banquet tables and a family style meal, with heaping bowls of food the likes of which we never ate in the dining room.

My whole life, I’d been served single plates of food, and I’d eaten them. Everything on them, because if you didn’t finish your dinner with everyone else, you had to sit there at the table until you did.

I’d once sat at the table staring at my raw octopus carpaccio for three hours until Olivier had poked his head in, a sad look on his face, to whisper that the food was not going to be improved with time, and Father had said if I didn’t eat it now, I’d be served the same plate for breakfast.

I would eat nothing else until I’d eaten the damned stuff, even if it went bad before I ate it.

I’d choked it down, barely holding it in until I’d gotten back to my private room, where I’d promptly run to the bathroom and thrown up. A week later, we’d had the same dinner. Father’s way of reminding me of the incident, no doubt, and reminding me that I didn’t get a say in anything.

Fortunately for me, that time I’d forced it down right away, and immediately afterward my throat had swelled shut and they’d had to call in the doctor. An anaphylactic reaction, he’d called it. I had almost died.

I only remembered being grateful I would never have to eat octopus again.

Pathetic, my father had insisted, even as the doctor had instructed me on the use of an EpiPen. I was such a picky brat that I’d made myself allergic to octopus.

But at least I hadn’t had to go through that again.

And there I was, standing in front of a table of food where everyone got to choose what they wanted to eat. Where everyone would share. Where Fawn was not only welcome, but her wishes were catered to.

“Florian?” Cove’s soft voice was almost right in my ear, so close I could feel his breath ghosting over my skin. “Are you well?”

A rough, callused finger swiped my cheek, and I realized I was crying. Fuck.

Fuck me.

I turned away, scrubbing at my face with both palms. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” Coral asked, coming up in front of me where I’d turned, holding out a plate like maybe it was a peace offering. “You didn’t even say anything. Just stared at the food like you haven’t eaten today, and um...” She motioned to my face, like if she didn’t mention the tears then they were less ridiculous.

I nodded, wiping my eyes again. “I know. I shouldn’t. I have no right to cry.”

All motion in the garden seemed to stop.

“What?” Cove asked from behind me, his tone as frosty as the moment we’d met. It sent a chill through me, and I spun to face him. Was this it, then? Was this Cove angry? Was I finally about to see what rage made him into?

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath and trying to compose myself. “I don’t—I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m fine. Everything is fine. I shouldn’t?—”

“Did you say you don’t have the right to cry?” Frost asked, coming up next to Cove. He had set his computer on the table next to the food, and he was staring at me, his whole face scrunched in confusion. “Crying isn’t...that’s not how it works.”

“That’s what Father always says,” Fawn said, her voice an uncharacteristic sneer. She drew herself up and mimicked his pompous tone. “You’ve brought this on yourself. You have no right to cry.”

I had to choke down a wet laugh at her perfect imitation.

Cove breathed deep, then stepped into my space. He didn’t growl or glare, though, and when he spoke, it was so very soft. “You don’t need a right to cry, Florian. Crying is a physiological response to emotions. It’s not a choice. You have the right to cry like you have the right to breathe. No one gets to give or withhold permission for it.”

“What kind of total fucking psycho would say you don’t have the right to cry?” Coral asked, sounding disgusted, and I couldn’t blame her. Odd, though, to think that her disgust was aimed at Father and not me.

Cove glanced over my shoulder at her. “Honestly? It sounds like something my father would have said as well. But that doesn’t make it any less nonsense.” Gently, he turned me around, pulling out one of the chairs at the table and pressing me into it. “Cry all you need to. That’s what tissues are for.”

He produced a handkerchief from nowhere and held it in front of me until I took it.

Funny. I’d never met anyone who carried a handkerchief around with them before unless it was a pocket square, and those were decorative, not cotton fabric intended to absorb tears.

And now I’d seen two in one day, and not only that, but two times in one day where having one had proven useful. I supposed Kit had learned it from Cove.

Somehow, the connection made me trust in Kit Emrys’s intentions more.

And Cove? Every single thing that happened, from his following through on his promise to have dinner in the garden, to his complete acceptance of me breaking down and crying like a child made me trust Cove Moonstriker more. If it turned out badly and I learned he was manipulating me, it just might prove to be the last straw that broke me irrevocably.