by EE Silver
Judging by the slightly shocked and overwhelmed look on Quintus’s face through most of brunch, King was pretty sure his cousin hadn’t warned his mate, either. But despite Katarina’s earlier teasing, brunch was actually a lot of fun. King didn’t remember the last time he’d been to a large family gathering, much less felt so happy and relaxed in one. He finally felt like he was part of things, instead of the troublesome outcast with alpha-based trust issues, and it was all thanks to Jonah.
After brunch, they made the trip to the health center followed by a detour through the park, walking slowly with Anya in her stroller as they enjoyed the warmth of the day. King sighed happily and slipped his hand in Jonah’s back pocket as Jonah pushed the stroller. My family.
“Jonah?” The woman’s voice was unfamiliar to King, but judging by the way Jonah went still as stone under his hand, his mate knew her.
King turned slowly, noting the woman’s dark skin and thick black curly hair. There was something familiar about her, maybe in the slope of her nose, but King was sure he’d never seen her before. He stepped between her and his family, gathering clouds overhead just in case she meant them trouble.
“Maya?” Jonah asked, sounding like he was about to be sick, and King bristled at the anxiety this stranger had brought on their perfect moment.
“Can we help you?” Jonah asked, drawing himself up to his full height, which annoyingly was still shorter than this Maya person.
“I’m here for my family,” she said, brushing King off. “I made a mistake, Jonah. I’ve been looking for you and Anya for months. I was wrong to let you two go. Come home with me and we can try again. We can be a family like we were supposed to be.”
“You were pretty clear on what you wanted when you broke up with me,” Jonah said, now sounding angry. “Not to mention when you signed over your parental rights to me. You have no business here, bothering us. And how the fuck did you even find Vale Valley?”
“I was frightened of what it meant to be a mom, but I’m not now,” she said, and then looked at King at last. “Is this my replacement? Is he why you aren’t happy to see me?”
King wasn’t a trusting person by nature, no matter how much his heart wanted to believe in Jonah and what they had together. He supposed it was possible that Maya and Jonah had been together when Jonah had gotten custody of Anya, but it was too much of a stretch. All the little comments from the past couple of days, along with the way strangers always commented on how much Anya resembled her daddy coalesced around this woman with Anya’s skin and Anya’s nose, and for a moment, King was sure he was going to throw up.
“Jonah,” he said, sure his bond bite was burning with the anger building in his chest. “Jonah, if you have a good explanation, now would be the perfect time to offer it. Unless this woman actually is Anya’s birth mother, who you very clearly told me was dead.”
Jonah stayed silent. King turned to face him, searching his mate’s eyes for a reason to deny the obvious. Jonah had proven he was better than all those alphas who saw King as nothing more than an object to own. He’d proven himself worthy of King’s trust, hadn’t he?
“Baby,” Jonah said, sounding heartbroken at being caught out. “King, I’m so sorry. I was trying to find a way to tell you. I swear it.”
Maya snorted, her laugh turning into an all-out guffaw far too deep for her delicate body. King turned just as her feminine body melted away into a tall, blond man with a familiar face and green eyes King had always thought of the same shade as envy.
“I’m sorry,” Loki chuckled. “I know this is a serious moment, but you should see your faces!”
“You?!” Jonah sputtered. “What are you…why would you do this?”
“Pro tip, boy: be careful who can overhear your conversations,” Loki said, looking insufferably smug. “You never know when they might be your mate’s uncle.”
King’s vision went red just as lightening split the sky above them. With a wordless cry, he launched himself at Loki, fists flying. He hurt, and he needed to make someone hurt with him. Loki was the perfect target; he was the one who had shown up to ruin things. He was the one who had forced Jonah to break King’s heart.
But Loki was far older than King, with more than two millennia behind him to develop his Imperium, and infinitely calmer. He teleported out of King’s path, leaving his right cross without a target to connect with. King stumbled and nearly hit the dirt before Jonah caught him.
Loki tsked from behind them, and King whirled to face him even as Jonah snatched the stroller closer to them. “Really, nephew,” he said. “I’d have thought your beloved blood sucker cousin would have taught you better form than that. Or at least your mother would have taught you better manners. The least you could do is offer a thank you!”
“A thank you?” King bellowed. “Why would I be grateful to you?”
“Why, for forcing the conversation about your mate’s dishonesty, of course.” Loki gave an elegant shrug of his big shoulders. “I’m attempting to learn the ways of the mortals to better set myself up for this new life in the mud and muck with the rest of you, and my research all says that mortals firmly believe that you shouldn’t start a serious relationship on a lie. Therefore: you are welcome. I had a bitch of a time finding the mother so I could copy her, you know. Quite the effort for my beloved local family.”
King growled, shrugging off Jonah’s hands. “Damn it, Loki, that doesn’t even make any sense! Normal people don’t impersonate their nephew’s mate’s ex and call it a favor.”
“Wait—” Jonah butted in. “Loki? As in Loki?”
Loki preened. “Naturally. I’m sure our boy has told you all about his impressive pedigree, which is no doubt why you’ve been so closed-lipped about you daughter’s own. It’s natural to have a bit of an inferiority complex in the face of so much greatness. Not that I’d know from experience, of course.”
“Jesus Christ, Loki,” King spat, vibrating with his rage.
“Wrong family, kiddo,” Loki said with an airy laugh. Then he heaved a great sigh, as if incredibly put-out. “The pair of you are so ungrateful. I shouldn’t have bothered.”
“You’re right about that, at least,” Jonah growled. “Look, I don’t care what you’re the god of, you need to get the fuck out of here before I let King kick your ass back to whatever realm you came from.”
Loki snorted. “For a liar, you’re pretty damn cute, mortal.” He waved his hand. “Whatever. I’m off. If either of you find your manners, I’ll be in town. My other nephew seems to think I can’t be trusted among the general human populace until I’ve grasped this thing he calls ‘being normal.’ Whatever that is.”
And with that, he vanished. Fucking typical. King took a deep breath, trying to at least act like he still had some semblance of his temper in check, but the rolling storm clouds overhead made it pretty damn clear he was anything but calm.
“Baby?” Jonah tried. He at least had the awareness to let go of King, but it fell far short of coming close to what King needed right then.
“Don’t.” King whirled on him. “Don’t you dare call me that right now, you lying alpha sack of shit,” he snarled. “I trusted you, told you things I hadn’t spoken of in decades, and the whole time – the whole fucking time – you were lying to me?”
“I’m—”
“And you had to know I wouldn’t care that she was yours,” King rolled on, unwilling to hear more empty bullshit from the man he was now saddled with. “No one here would have cared, not with all the different kinds of families filling the town. But instead you made up a stupid lie and stuck with it for weeks.”
Jonah reached out. “I know. King, I—”
King jerked away before Jonah could touch him. “You could have come clean at any time,” he said, horrified when his voice broke. “But instead, my uncle got to break the news as part of one of his asshole games right when I thought—” Right when I thought it could be real. There was no way King was saying that, not now. Jonah didn’
t deserve to know how thoroughly King had fallen for his bullshit. “Gods. I thought you were better than all those alphas who take and take because they think it’s what they’re owed. But you’re worse, aren’t you? Because at least they’re upfront about it, while I don’t even rate honesty with you. You mated with me knowing you’d lied to me from the beginning, when I’d told you how important trust was to me.”
The clouds opened up over them, dumping sharp and cold rain drops on them. Anya whimpered even as Jonah flipped the cover over her to protect from the worst of the storm. Somehow, that instinctive, gentle action was exactly what was needed to twist the knife of betrayal that much deeper. King backed away, a step at a time. “I can’t look at you right now,” he said. “and I sure as shit don’t want to hear whatever neat lie you’re going to feed me next.”
“It’s not like that,” Jonah tried.
“I don’t give a fuck.” Lightning split the sky, followed by a rumble of thunder that made Anya scream in terror. “Get away from me. I’ll let you know when I’m coming to get my shit.”
There was no way he’d be moving in now. King might be mated to a liar, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to live with one. All he could think of was how he wanted to be anywhere but right there, looking at the bastard who had broken his heart.
Suddenly, King wasn’t in the park anymore. Instead, he was standing on Katarina’s front steps, soaked to the bone and shivering in the sunlight. He leaned against the door, completely wiped, both emotionally and magically. He’d never teleported before, and since he was a good ten years before he was supposed to come into his Imperium, he’d never have thought it possible. Then again, extreme emotions did tend to cause unexpected reactions to developing abilities.
The door opened, and he stumbled across the threshold and into his cousin’s arms. Katarina crooned, a wordless noise of comfort that seemed universal among mothers, and King could only burrow further into her embrace.
“Oh, Kingston,” she sighed, leading him back to his old room, where she’d lain out towels, dry clothes, and a steaming mug of tea. “I so wanted to tell you.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have listened,” he said, trying to swallow back the sobs clogging his throat.
Katarina helped him change, then guided King to his bed and curled around him protectively. “Let it out, little cousin,” she said. “Your tears are safe with me.”
So King did. Outside, the storm rolled in, following him from the park. Rain lashed against the window as he cried, and King wondered if either storm would ever pass.
Chapter Sixteen
Jonah
The first few days, Jonah gave King all the space he could. Partly because Jonah didn’t know what to say that could even come close to making everything all right again, and also because he knew King—if he crowded his mate now, Jonah would likely only wind up with a black eye for his efforts if he was lucky. Plus, he wasn’t all that keen on further pissing off a demigod who could summon storms.
So Jonah waited, even though every moment away from King made his bones ache. He kept up the work on the daycare, though even that had slowed to a crawl with him down a pair of hands and distracted by all the ways every inch of the house reminded him of what he might very well have lost for good thanks to his stupidity. And he knew he had no one else to blame but himself – a fact that both of his dads had very helpfully pointed out when he’d told them what had happened.
But he made sure to leave all of King’s belongings where they were. Because otherwise would mean that maybe this wasn’t fixable, and that Jonah had lost his mate when they’d barely even gotten started. He had to believe that when King calmed down, he’d at least want to talk, to give Jonah a chance to win him back.
After a week of silence, though, Jonah had to admit that it wasn’t going to be nearly that simple.
It didn’t help that it seemed like he saw King’s uncle every time he left the house. On supply runs to the hardware store, at the grocery store, even one night picking up take-out from the restaurant at the inn on the other side of the lake; Loki was always there on the edges, smirking at him. It set Jonah’s teeth on edge, and he truly understood where King’s violent impulses came from if this was what he’d grown up with. But considering he was dealing with a full-fledged god from legends, Jonah kept to himself and did what he could to ignore the asshole. It was smarter than provoking an immortal, and Jonah figured he was about due to start making good life choices. King would probably think it funny – if Jonah ever got the chance to tell him about it.
On the morning Jonah woke up alone for the fourteenth day in a row, he couldn’t face another day of going through the motions. So he fed and changed Anya, put her pack and play in his room, and crawled back into bed. It was self-indulgent, but the looming realization that he wasn’t going to get a second chance was just too much. Even Maya abandoning him with their daughter and a stack of signed paperwork hadn’t hurt this badly. Jonah’s stomach churned and every cell in his body called for him to go to the sheriff’s house to collect his mate, but fear held him in place.
Anya, however, had no desire to wallow. By late morning, she was fussy and wouldn’t stop crying, no matter how much Jonah cuddled her and played her favorite songs. He picked her up, pacing the length of his bedroom again and again as he patted her back and crooned nonsense. Anya hiccupped and whimpered, but refused to settle. Thinking maybe a change of scenery would help, Jonah got dressed and took her outside to walk the deck back and forth.
“What do you need, sweet baby?” he asked her as she clung to him, crying like her little heart was just as broken as his. “I wish you could tell me.”
“She wants her daddy, I’d guess.”
King turned to find Rosemary Vale watching him. He hadn’t heard her pull up, but at this point he didn’t care. The screaming baby in his arms was far more important. “I’m right here,” he said.
“Not you,” Rosemary said, rolling her eyes as she approached and held out her arms. “Let me try.”
Desperate enough to try, he handed Anya over. “I’m her only father,” he said. “The only one she’s ever had.”
“That’s not precisely true, though, is it?” Rosemary said in a sing-song voice as she rocked Anya. The baby’s cries eased as she nuzzled the former mayor’s clothes, making a terrible mess of Rosemary’s strangely baggy t-shirt.
“Anya’s my biological daughter,” Jonah said, forcing the truth out. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about that already. I really am the only father she has.”
“Oh, I’ve known that for over a month. The perks of having a seer for a daughter-in-law. But I was talking about your mate,” Rosemary said as Anya fussed and burrowed closer. “And considering how your daughter is reacting to one of his shirts, at least one of you misses him.”
Her words landed like a slap, and Jonah reared back for a second “You have no idea what I do or don’t feel,” he said after a moment to catch his breath. “And I think you need to leave now. I know you’re local royalty, but I’d sooner shoot myself in the foot than stand by and let you imply that I’m not every bit as miserable as Anya is without King.”
Rosemary smiled at him and nodded her head once. “That’s much better,” she said, bouncing Anya gently in her arms. “I just wanted to be sure you actually did care for my nephew. He deserves to be with someone who thinks the world of him, not someone who will put his pride ahead of things like honesty.”
“It wasn’t about that,” Jonah tried weakly. “I wanted to be able to tell Anya when she was old enough to understand, not have it be a matter of public record long before. My pride had nothing to do with it.”
“Wasn’t it, though?” Rosemary cocked one perfect eyebrow at him. “What point did it serve to keep up the lie with King once you two started your relationship? Hell, after an hour with him you had to know he was trustworthy enough to share the truth. But you let him believe the lie for weeks.”
“I…” Jonah swallowed
roughly. With Rosemary’s too-knowing eyes fixed on his face, he couldn’t force any more excuses. “I was scared he’d leave,” he finally admitted. “Looks like I was right to worry.”
Rosemary hummed. “Fated souls have a way of finding their way together,” she said, and shifted Anya in her arms. “She’s asleep, but if I were you, I’d see about getting her daddy back as soon as possible. If only so you can get your peace and quiet back again.”
“King doesn’t want to see me,” Jonah said, the words like broken glass in his throat. “He’s made that pretty clear. And I dare you to attempt forcing that man to do anything he doesn’t want.”
“Gods save me from idiot men,” Rosemary muttered as Jonah settled Anya against his chest. “As miserable as King’s been without you the past two weeks, I absolutely promise you he wants very little more than to see you.” She held up a hand to stop any argument Jonah might have offered. “That, and he’s inside the house right now, trying to sneak his stuff out while I have you distracted.”
Jonah didn’t even bother saying goodbye or thanks to Rosemary. Dashing inside, he was faintly aware of her laughing at him, but he didn’t care. He found King coming up the hall from the back bedroom, a bulging gym bag hanging off his shoulder, and skidded to halt a few feet away.
For a while they just stared at each other, Jonah frozen from the effort to keep from pulling King into his arms. Then King shook his head, breaking the moment.
“Let me by,” he said through clenched teeth. “I just came for my things, not to hear more of your lies.”
“I didn’t—” Jonah started to say he hadn’t meant to hurt King in the first place, but caught himself. He might not have meant to do it, but he had and that was all that mattered. “I promise not to give you any excuses. I was wrong, and I’ve had a lot of time to realize there’s no good reason for what I did.”