Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
“Will you finally let me know your name?” he said in a low, velvety voice.
Denne’s heart skipped a beat. “Names don’t mean anything.”
“No? Then share yours with me, if that’s true.”
“Dennesha.”
He closed his eyes as if savoring the sound. “What a beautiful name.” Then his lips parted, like maybe his chest was getting tight. “Dennesha.”
“Denne, for short. Like the restaurant.”
His lids slowly lifted and the glow in those eyes of his was so intense, she felt like taking off her parka. Before she spontaneously combusted.
“You know what I’m thinking about right now?” she heard her- self say.
When he shook his head, his stare drifted down and focused on her mouth.
“Oh, I think you do, Al.” She reached up to his face and brushed his lower lip with her thumb. “I think you know exactly what’s on my mind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
i Am didn’t like lies. Whether they were bald-faced or of the omission variety, spoken right to his face or something whispered behind his back, he really hated false shit. Especially if he was the one who was lying.
And particularly if it was to his daughter.
Okay yeah, sure, he and Catra did intend to talk to her about everything. But they’d been sitting on this mess for twenty-four hours, and he still didn’t know how to bring it all up.
As he sat at the modest table in the alcove of his and Catra’s simple, unadorned private quarters, he glanced across the shallow space at his mate. His beloved shellan was over on the comfy couch, staring blankly at whatever was in front of her. At the moment, it happened to be the TV that rarely got turned on, but earlier it had been the book in her lap.
The silence was getting to him, but he didn’t have anything to break it with that was worth the syllables.
Things had been like this since about four in the afternoon. No, that wasn’t right. It had been like this since Denne had come home late from the restaurant, and checked in as she always did at the end of the night. Their daughter had seemed off, but they’d both agreed they weren’t discussing anything until they had a better sense of the implications of it all.
Denne was going to have questions. They had to be prepared to give answers.
“I don’t know,” Catra murmured. “I might be reading the charts wrong.”
“I doubt it.”
This was the non-starter conversation they’d been having over and over, the same words exchanged, the silences in between growing longer and longer. The impotent chatter released some pressure, but the reality that nothing was getting any clearer and hours were passing into an inevitable was making them both nuts.
“It just doesn’t make sense.” Catra sat forward and stared at him squarely. “Our charts, yours and mine, have been the same our entire lives. And last night, you and I both looked at the mapping t’On did for her after she survived her transition. Last night’s shooting stars were correct for their timing and the directions they came from. And you saw me sketch the constellations as they appeared at nine nineteen, and I overlaid them on her transition’s chart. They were an exact match—you saw that.”
He nodded, even though they’d been through this before.
“The rest of the prediction is clear,” she concluded. “Denne is to mate t’On and the s’Hisbe will survive another thousand years. If not… everything ends.”
Again, iAm nodded because what could he say? All of that was true.
His mate shook her head. “So why aren’t you and I in her post-transition chart? No matter what she does?”
It was a rhetorical that he was not going to answer. Well, he could, but none of the replies were going to make either of them feel any better.
Catra got to her feet and paced around like she was trying to solve pi to seven thousand decimals.
One of the things iAm loved most about their private space was that it wasn’t some royally appointed, silk-and-satin showcase. When Catra had assumed the throne after her mother’s death, she’d demolished everything that horrible female had erected—except for the Constellation Room. During the rebuilding, his mate had known that the citizenry expected a certain level of grandiosity for their Queen and her Prince Consort, but she’d also recognized that times were changing. So she had given them a luxe royal seat, but it was behind a facade that faked out the humans.
And for their precious, private home, she’d kept it real, not regal. Here, there were velvety, deep-blue walls, and comfortable furniture, and handmade throw blankets that were gifts from Cormia and the Chosen. The kitchen was stocked with all the staples he needed to cook with for his Queen and their daughter, and the bedroom and bathroom they shared were cleaned by their good selves.
Their commitment to remain down-to-earth and grounded in regular life was something that bonded them. When you had thousands of people worshipping a version of yourself, when you were surrounded by genuflection and praise, it was hard to truly stay connected. To your mate. To your daughter. To the real concerns of the people you served.