Queen of Death

Chapter 9

Solana

Several things happen all at once. The temperature in the room skyrockets past lethal and keeps on climbing. Luckily, everyone in this room can tolerate it or mitigate it like in Eli's case. Which is exactly what he's now working overtime to do. He's practically standing in his own personal blizzard and it's barely able to offset the furnace that is my mother's fury. While Eli focuses on not being a casualty, Dean concentrates on tempering my parents' moods, and by association their thermostats.

"Give us a moment. Xander," my dad Rohanor nods to Xander to join them as they guide my mother out of the room and onto the balcony just out of our view.

"You have her spirit, you know." Ace teases my thigh with featherlight touches of his fingertips, like he's been itching this entire time to be able to touch me and he's seizing the opportunity to do so.

"So I've been told," I say flatly, searching his eyes like they hold the answer to the multi-million dollar question 'when will this be over?'

Dean's hand takes up residence on my other thigh now, giving me a reassuring squeeze. Or, at least that's how his hand on me started – as an innocent gesture. The longer my parents and Xander take out on the balcony, the pinker Dean's cheeks stain with a blush. His grip on my thigh tightens and now it's my turn to check on him.

"You okay?" I ask him, lacing our fingers together.

"Mhmm," he struggles to manage words. He shifts in his seat, showing off an impressive bulge in his pants. "I'm sorry, Sunshine. Your parents' emotions are very..."

"Disturbing?" I laugh and he returns a small one in kind. Even I can admit that what is normal to my family is truly deranged to others.

"That's one way to describe it, I guess. I was going to say they're very...palpable." He looks at me with an expression I've never seen on him before. I know what hunger and desire look like on him, I've seen him hungry for me. But, this? This is deeper. Like a deep seeded longing. His throat bobs over a hard swallow as he tries to regain composure.

Now it's me having disturbing thoughts. Thoughts about how those same gray eyes darkened like a storm when he watched me and Tate after my sister's party, or how if we hadn't been tied up how easy it would have been to fall headlong into the eyes of the hurricanes he regarded me with.

Squirming in my seat, I suppress the whimper building within me longing for a repeat of that night. When my parents walk in, my mom sporting two fresh bites on her neck that are still bleeding a little, Dean all but leaps off the couch and bolts out of my mom's office in the direction of our room.

Ace and Tate exchange knowing glances at one another and do their best to bite back their smirks. I sigh inwardly. This is so not the time for my parents to be themselves.

Any feelings of desire are promptly extinguished when I realize that because of his gift, Dean must have felt every second of what my parents felt while they were outside. I'm left wondering if he looked at me like that because of biology or if he genuinely wants more of that night.

"Who is betraying us?" My mother takes Dean's place next to me on the couch while my dads and Xander stand like three angry mountains behind Tate.

Tate looks to Ace for confirmation before sharing their theory, and once Ace nods his approval Tate lays it all out for them.

"Alec."

My parents look between each other skeptically before my father Varian speaks. "That's an incredibly heavy accusation to make against one of our family's oldest friends."

"I know it's not what you want to hear, but he has plenty of motive." Tate pushes on.

"Ace has just as much motive to make his brother out to be a traitor, does he not?" My mom volleys back at Tate before swinging her eyes to silently ask Ace the same question.