Blood Double (God Wars #1)(17)

"What about the time you spent in the dungeon afterward? Do you remember that?"

"I remember pain." I refused to look at Kevis as I answered. Whether pity or indifference showed in his face, I had no desire to see either.

"Why won't you look at me?" he asked softly.

"Because I don't want to see your reaction," I replied honestly.

"You've spent your entire life seeing everybody's unvarnished reaction to everything, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"That must make things difficult for you. People often lie to spare other's feelings. Or choose their words carefully to hide their true feelings. You see past that, don't you?"

"Every time," I agreed, keeping my eyes down.

"Have you ever met anyone you couldn't read?"

"I've met three recently," I said.

"Who are they?"

"Sheriff Trevor, Kooper Griff and Stellan Starr. Stellan, though, I can read his brothers. They share a past. Some of it isn't pretty. I figure Stellan's past is the same."

"You're saying that even though you can't read Stellan, as you put it, you still know about him through his brothers?"

"Yes." I raised my head and blinked at Kevis.

"A talent like this must make it difficult to have friends," he pointed out.

"I don't have any friends." Kevis wanted to sigh at my answer. I lowered my eyes again to keep from reading any further. He shifted the comp-vid on his knee and considered his next question.

"Tell me about Gavin. When he turned you."

"He asked if I wanted to be vampire. I said no."

"You said no?" Kevis seemed surprised by my answer.

"I said no twice. He did it anyway. I have no idea why."

"Did he teach you? Vampire sires are obligated to teach their children."

"He handed me a comp-vid. He explained nothing. I only saw him three times before I was sent to Council meetings."

"Do you know why that is?"

"He was angry. At me. At someone else, because he felt obligated to turn me. The one called Flavio said he should have allowed another vampire named Casimir to turn me. Gavin said Casimir would only coddle me, and that wouldn't do." I wanted to weep at that memory—they'd discussed me as if I hadn't been in the room.

"Have you ever been coddled?"

"Not once in fifty-nine years. No."

"What are your earliest memories?"

"I said I wouldn't discuss that."

"Yes. You did say that."

I had to give him an A for effort, though. He was doing his best to bring those things out; it just wasn't working. We spent another hour, dancing around the topic of my past and only discussing what had happened since I'd been dropped off at the Queen's palace on Le-Ath Veronis.

"I have to go, but I'll be here again in two days." He was a bit frustrated at my lack of cooperation, but managed a smile anyway. He had other patients waiting at an exclusive clinic and couldn't stay to sort out my difficulties at the moment. People paid a great deal of money for therapy sessions with Dr. Kevis Halivar.

"Thank you for taking the time for me," I sighed. I wasn't sure any of his hard work might pay off in the end, either. There were reasons to keep my past in the past. I wasn't the only one threatened when I'd been abducted.





Chapter 5


"I have to bend time a little to get you to the Council meeting yesterday," Adam said as I was dressed in what the Queen might wear and my hair put up by a smiling servant after lunch. NorthStar had several people who worked there and this one, named Dria, was a kind (and damaged) soul. I knew Adam, Merrill and Kiarra had hired her, knowing she needed a comfortable home with little stress. She'd had plenty of difficulty in her life and required peace. She'd found it at NorthStar.

"That's perfect," I nodded at Dria as she took her hands away from my hair. The Queen's coronet sat on my head and my hair was styled nicely around it. It was a shame I'd look like the Queen the moment a Larentii arrived to change my features.

A Larentii came, but this one wasn't Connegar or Reemagar. Pheligar, Kiarra's mate, had come. "It aggravates me a great deal to do this," he muttered as he knelt beside my dressing bench.

"It aggravates me, too," I said as he placed long, blue fingers on my face.

"You will always be the same here." He placed a hand over my heart. I wanted to weep at his statement. Weeping was a luxury I couldn't allow myself. Nodding instead, I rose from the bench and accepted Adam's offered arm. We disappeared in a blink.

*

"High One," Pheligar nodded respectfully to Ferrigar, Head of the Larentii Council.

"Your visit is unexpected but welcome," Ferrigar said. Ferrigar was the oldest living Larentii, but still looked as young as he had when he'd gained his adulthood nearly three million years before. "What brings you to me?" Ferrigar asked.

"When did you last see your son, High One?"

"Kalenegar? It has been fifty thousand turns or more. Many young Larentii do not know he exists, he has been absent so long."

"I think you should try to contact him, High One."