Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
“So maybe some of the children of the courtesans could change too, if tested.”
She nodded. “Perhaps. But the king brought Alrek with him into battle, and Alrek did not change, so our initial conclusion stands.”
“Yeah. It does seem like Livia’s blood and yours had a special something that worked with Magnus’s and Messina’s to produce the wolf.”
We were both quiet, sitting there at a table in the hypogeum.
“Cassius would have remained the wolf, and Varic would have had it as well. That would have bonded them even more, don’t you think?” I asked gently.
“Yes, it would have.”
I took her hands in mine. “I’m so sorry you lost Cassius.”
“So am I,” she whispered, and I hugged her as she started to cry.
Now, on the phone with Varic, I was tempted to tell him what we learned. At the same time, it was likely he knew. He would have investigated it himself, but perhaps the story was an important piece of how he and his father related. Messina told him the mythology just as it had been related to him. There was a kinship in that, a shared history, and it was even greater as all other vampyrs believed that the power moved from father to son.
It had to be easier for Messina as well because now, from a purely physical standpoint, if father and son were set against one another in combat, the son would emerge victorious. That had happened years before Varic met me. Even though Messina still reigned, it was understood that Varic was the stronger vampyr. The same had happened to Messina and his father, Magnus, years before. The transformation into the wolf smoothed the way to passing the baton to the new defender of the realm. But whereas Magnus had died in battle, there weren’t campaigns to fight in anymore. Now Messina would have to step aside for his son, and I had to wonder when that would be. Not that Varic wanted to be king. He was more than happy to have his father continue to rule, but there were more and more rumblings across the globe that the time for a king born during the Roman Empire was past.
Though Messina had changed with the times, his thoughts on too many things were antiquated. Worse still, he never left the palace. Varic traveled everywhere. He’d seen every continent, crisscrossed the earth several times, spoke almost seventy languages, and most importantly, visited and listened and spent time with his people. He was beloved and had leaders in place everywhere who felt the same as he did about justice, equality, fairness, and inclusion. The days of the old guard were coming to an end, and some, like Decimus, wanted the old ways to continue. But the bulk of the Noreia was moving forward, not back.
“Jason?”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I was thinking about you and your power.”
“Then you agree. We will be allowed into Ophir.”
“I do.”
“Good. Now stop worrying and focus on your wedding. We will get everything sorted, I promise you.”
And finally, I believed it.
FOUR
The king sent a messenger to let me know that, first, I would not be going to Greenland, and second, that he wanted me in his chambers at my leisure, which basically meant as soon as possible.
“That can’t be good,” I told Zev as I was eating the breakfast Dae-Jung made me. What had started out as something new for Dae-Jung—he’d been a courtesan, not a cook—had become over the last year something he both enjoyed and excelled at. Watching him chop vegetables was one of my favorite things to do. I would have cut my fingers off, but he wielded the knife so deftly, and that, combined with the blur of speed, was really something. The others didn’t understand my fascination, but none of them had ever eaten a carrot or zucchini in their life, so I wasn’t surprised.
“Eat your fruit,” Dae-Jung reminded me from the kitchen.
Zev watched me pierce a papaya with my fork and made a face.
“It’s yummy,” I teased him, holding it out. “If the iceni in Ophir can eat, so can you.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he grumbled, clearly disgusted watching me eat.
Twenty minutes later, I was walking with him for my audience with the king.
“Sabira told me she hunted mammoths.”
He grunted. “That’s quite likely, she’s that old.”
“So since she and Isabella are sisters, then Isabella did too?”
“I don’t know. Those could be tall tales. Once you delve into the history and see when mammoths died out, how long there were pharaohs in Egypt, and when Emperor Hadrian’s wall went up, she could be telling you the truth or she could be messing with you.”
“Well, Isabella said she did help drive the Romans out of her homeland back in the day. Maybe that wall was built because of Celts like her and Sabira.”