King Tomb (Forever Evermore, #3)(23)

“When?”

His eyebrows furrowed even further. “Directly after the attacks began.”

“What do you remember of King Cave?”

Lazily, he drawled, “Now, that’s an odd question to ask.”

Too bad his tense body didn’t reflect his calm words.

I stared. “Oh, Jesus f*cking Christ.” A half-hysterical laugh escaped me as my attention snapped to Antonio. “Am I right?” I paused. “But how the f*ck is it possible?”

No answer. No expression whatsoever.

My attention turned to Elder Zeller because he was acting exactly the same. “Can you speak about this?” My gaze darted furtively between his dark orbs. “Am I right?”

No answer. No expression whatsoever.

My gaze turned to Elder Merrick and Elder Jacobs…who had the same blank expressions. “Oh. My. God.” My eyes were wide. Huge, in fact. I know they were as they swung back to King Zeller, another half-hysterical laugh bubbling as I stared, evaluating him. “I don’t even like you.”

Clear confusion was now displayed on his handsome face as he murmured, “The feeling’s mutual.” He leaned forward and whispered harshly, “What the f*ck is going on?”

I countered, leaning forward and keeping eye contact, and asked bluntly, even if barely above a whisper as I was automatically conscious of confidentiality, “Were you mind raped a little over a year ago? Origins at King Cave?” I pointed to my head with a shaky finger. “Blank, black spots going back for some time?”

He had gone predatory still, so much so, Isa began squirming in his arms. Ever so slowly, eyes glowing dimly, barely controlling himself, he hissed, “How the f*ck do you know that?”

Air shuddered out of me, and I clamped a hand over my mouth as I swung back against my chair, staring at him intently. Panting, I shut my eyes in dazed confusion. I could not understand how this was possible, not an ounce of clarity to guide me…except there was enough evidence to extinguish the one little fact we should have been spelled to never meet.

“Answer me!” he ground out, and my eyes flew open as he slammed a fist onto the table, Isa’s soft whimpers going quiet at his scarcely contained fury. “How the hell could you even guess that?” No, he was no longer a cold outer shell, as I was no longer one right now.

I pointed at Isa, my whole body trembling, voice a mere breath of sound. “King Zeller,” *, “take another, harder, look at Isa, and you’ll have your answer.” I was still shaking my head in denial, utterly confused. “You were already on your way to figuring out who her mother is…now try to look past the impossible to see who her father might be.”

Green eyes, still furious, darted between mine, but after a few moments of silence at our table, he glanced at his dad’s completely void face, glowering even further at him before he slowly and gently lifted Isa away from his body to stare her in the face. Again, his eyes flicked back and forth between me and Isa, now with a cautious expression. His head cocked, and he stared me in the eyes for a moment too long — no emotion showing — before gazing back to her without a word, even though I knew he had come to the correct conclusion of who was Isa’s biological mother. Time passed as he continued staring. He did not voice one guess as he analyzed the second part of the equation, considering the man who had created her — the Vampire I had illegally had sex with. His eyes flicked over Isa’s features in rapid succession, his black arched eyebrows pinched.

And still I waited for him to look past the impossible.

His scrutiny finally ended on Isa’s spring green eyes.

And stayed there as he froze.

As mine had done earlier, his hands gradually began to tremble.

Isa whimpered and peered back at me, her chin beginning to tremble. She was done playing this game.

I started to lift my arms to take her, but King Zeller’s Vampire growled quietly, and in a flash she was swiftly tucked back against his body. He rubbed her back softly, and she began to quiet, nuzzling into his warmth with an arm lifting around his neck and her bitty fingers gripping into his skin, their coloring exactly the same as King Zeller’s.

Not really wanting to, but making myself, I lowered my hands and peered up into King Zeller’s eyes. A furious and confused green gaze stared back at me as he continued to console Isa. Somehow he had known he had been mind raped over the love of a woman. Possibly he had clues, as I had my ring and a man’s t-shirt, but now he knew who the woman was.

Me.

And now, he knew he had a daughter.

Isa.

He exhaled grandly, his mien flipping like a switch to show nothing. “You were mind raped?”

Swiftly I altered my expression as he had, resting back against my chair. I even lifted my coffee and sipped from it with a steady hand, not about to let a damn thing show. “Yes.”

His gaze danced to our table’s mute occupants, his arms tightening on Isa. “You should have waited to have this conversation.” A blatant reprimand.

Cool rebuttal. “From their non-reactions, they already know.” My gaze flicked to Elder Zeller. “And your dad’s reaction to Isa makes more sense.” She was his granddaughter, and he had instantly fallen in love with her, like any good granddad.

“Possibly,” he murmured, eyes sticking on Elder Merrick and Elder Jacobs. “If they all knew, then we were sloppy as hell.”