Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

T he guest quarters were brightly lit, painted a bland magnolia and dotted with large armchairs and deep sofas designed to accommodate a goyle frame. There were a couple of doors leading off from the room and a smart dining area to one side.

Curi and Shar sat on one of the large sofas and Adaline and Levi on the other. They broke off their conversation as we entered.

Curi made to stand, his attention on me, before it flicked over my shoulder to Serath. He stilled, and a dull sheen stole the brightness from his dark eyes before he relaxed back into his seat.

An aching throb opened a pit in my chest—a feeling of loss that made no sense because I hadn't lost Curi. He was still here. We were friends, and that would never change.

Levi, however, did stand, his chest expanding on a breath. "You're all right." He looked from me to Serath, involving him in the observation.

"We're good." Serath closed the distance between us so that his chest was pressed to my back in a move that was probably more possessive than comforting, but after everything he'd been through—that we'd been through—I couldn't be irked by it.

An awkward silence fell, and Shar broke it. "Have you felt Derek? Seen him?"

My stomach knotted. "Not yet. I'm sure he's fine, though. He has to be." I looked to Adaline. "Right? He used his chimera and then vanished."

"It may have put him in stasis," Adaline said. "I'm sure he'll be back."

"Well…" Ignus said. "I'll leave you to catch up. Ivor will be with you shortly. I'm headed to the lab."

"Do you mind if I tag along?" Adaline asked, already on her feet.

Ignus's face broke into a warm, genuine smile. "I'd welcome the company, Adi."

Adi?

Adaline's cheeks flushed, and Levi's brow furrowed.

Shar caught my eye and raised a brow. Yeah, it seemed like Ignus had taken a shine to Levi's mother.

Adaline and Ignus slipped from the room, and I was left standing between three males that meant the world to me. Three males that I loved in different ways.

Tension spiked—a palpable hum in the air.

"O-kay…" Shar clapped her hands together. "Who wants tea? They brought three pots of it in a few minutes ago." She crossed to the table where three tea trays had been laid out.

Levi's shoulders dropped. "Tea sounds good."

"Yeah." Curi tore his gaze from me. "I'll take a cup." He tugged the band out of his hair, then raked it all up again, gathering the blue tresses into a knot at the base of his skull.

It was a move of agitation that I recognized. We'd have to talk later for sure.

Serath's sigh filtered through me. "Wait. I have something I wish to say. Levi, Curi…I know how you feel about Cameron, and I, of all people, can understand why. I know that she may have leaned on you both in my absence and that you may have grown close…" Oh fuck, he was looking straight at Curi. Curi stared back at him levelly, tension radiating off him as he waited for the punch line. "I am more grateful to you than I can express for all that you've done."

Curi's shoulders dropped, his gaze flicking to me. Was he wondering how much I'd told Serath? I gave a slight nod, hoping that he could read that as conformation that I'd told my mate everything.

"But I'm back now," Serath said. "I can take it from here."

And just like that, he'd set a boundary.

Levi dropped his head in a nod. "It's good to have you back."

"Yeah," Curi said. "Cameron was lost without you." His smile was genuine, but his eyes held the shadows of loss that echoed the ache inside me. I longed to hug him. To tell him that nothing would change, that we'd still be as close, but I'd be lying to myself and to him. Curi and I had danced around something that could have been, and during that time, he'd claimed a sliver of my heart. But a sliver was all I could offer him, and the dance had to end because it led to something that could never be.

Not in this lifetime.

I fixed a smile on my face. "Okay, let's pour that tea. I've got a lot to share with you all."

Stunned silence greeted me once I finished recounting my conversation with Ivor. Shar was the first to break it. "So Lionel lied to you. He had you taken from your mother. He murdered her?" She shook her head. "I can't fathom it. He seemed to genuinely care about you."

"And maybe he does care," Levi said. "He sent Romi to watch over her, and he knows that Cameron is his…sister." He winced as he said it. "Damn, that's a strange thought."

"He killed her mother," Shar reiterated. "Carter and Travani were given poison to give to her."

"We can speculate as much as we want," Curi said, "but the only way to know for sure is to ask him. Something we can't do without revealing our hand. We need to be wary."

"What if he's working for the faction?" Shar said.

"No," Serath replied. "It doesn't fit. The faction wants Cameron dead, but Lionel has done nothing but protect her. He hid her from the council."

"And killed her mother," Shar muttered. Then louder… " And he hid her from the alpha. From her father."

"For all we know, he could genuinely think that Ivor is evil," Levi said. "We don't know what their relationship is like or how it ended. Lionel also put Cameron on the elite team path, something the faction wouldn't have done if they wanted the elite team destabilized."

"And we have to consider Romi," Curi said. "The faction took Romi and turned him. I can't imagine Lionel would have wanted that."

And that was the most compelling piece of evidence. There was no doubt in my mind that Lionel loved Romi. There was no way he would have allowed his son to be abused and turned into a graynite. "I think we can safely conclude that, despite his crimes, Lionel is not with the faction."

They all murmured in agreement.

"Then maybe we need to consider bringing him into the circle of trust," Shar said reluctantly. "Finding out exactly what he did to your mother."

"No. Not yet. Not until we're certain that he can be trusted."

"And how will we know?"

I shrugged. "We just…will."

"The person we should be looking at is Ulrickson," Serath said.

Levi went as still as stone. "Excuse me?"

Serath sat up straighter, his eyes bright. "You heard me."

Levi's hands curled into fists. "My father is not a traitor."

"Ulrickson murdered his own brother and his sister-in-law, then abandoned his nephew." Serath stood slowly, and Levi mirrored the action. "I believe he did it for status and power, because one moment he was an admin grunt, and the next he was on the council."

Levi's jaw ticked. "You have no proof of that."

"No. I don't. If I did, then I'd have claimed justice for my family by now. Instead, I've spent my life wondering what kind of male would sacrifice his blood for power."

Levi's eye twitched, and when he spoke, it wasn't to refute Serath's claims about his father being a murderer or power hungry; he simply said, "He wouldn't put me in harm's way. He's not with the faction." But he didn't sound too sure now.

I stepped in. "Ulrickson is the last person we'll be trusting either way, and Levi's on board with that. The rest we should shelve for now."

Serath pressed his lips together and nodded.

My ears picked up the sound of bootfalls drawing near. "Good because I think we're about to be hit by a fresh wave of information."

The door opened, and Ivor stood on the threshold, hands tucked into his pant pockets, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Good evening. Are you ready for story time?"