King Tomb (Forever Evermore) (12 page)

So I had grabbed everything I didn’t recognize from the spelled, voice-protected PO Box, dumped it in the pillowcase I had grabbed to haul anything I found, and now I was in the middle of the golden abyss, waiting to reappear in the front room of my tent.

And, like normal, I first noticed the scents as we started to appear. Everything smelled normal, making me feel better; the scents of those that were supposed to be there were. Sounds of their breathing — no one was speaking — hit me next. Then I blinked from the brightness of the Mage sparks as we appeared inside the room. I rubbed my eyes with my free hand, then my gaze darted around the room until I saw King Zeller sitting where he had been before, holding Isa’s sleeping form, his pinkie finger held tightly inside Isa’s gripping fist.

He scowled. “It took you almost a half-hour.” Yep, his cheeks were flushed to match all of his pissed off aggression; he wasn’t bothering to hide his emotions.

I shrugged, enjoying — actually
enjoying
— his discomfort. “Quit your whining.” I lifted the bag, still holding onto Antonio’s hand. “Or I won’t show you what I found.”

His gaze darted to our joined hands, his Vampire growling grumpily, but his mouth stayed beautifully shut.

My lips lifted, muttering, “There’s a good Vampire King. At least you know when you’re beat.”

Angered by my taunting, his Vampire hissed.

Antonio pulled his hand from mine, shaking his head at me and sighing. “Try to be nice, Lil.” He waved a hand at King Zeller. “I know I raised you to have better manners than this.”

I snorted. “When?”

Antonio blinked. Stayed mute. Blinked again. “Well, I should have.” His head cocked at King Zeller. “So work with me and pretend as if I did.”

Elder Merrick chuckled quietly, staring at Antonio. “The similarities between you two are limitless.”

Antonio’s head teetered back and forth. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“You’ve been mute this entire time,” King Zeller rumbled at them, glaring. “Please, don’t stop now.”

Sighing, I moved to the couch, but stopped abruptly when Bindi brushed past the tent flap, rushing so much that she stumbled as she stopped. She waved a piece of paper at me…and started gurgling. Again I sighed, and I moved back to her, grabbing the sheet of paper from her.

Read the printout.

Stared.

Read it again, then nodded to her. “Thank you, Bindi. That’ll be all.”

After she left, I walked to the couch. Sat down steadily. And handed over the piece of paper to King Zeller as I dumped the items of the pillowcase onto the coffee table.

He read it, then he calmly murmured, “Well, now we know for certain.”

Yes.

We now did.

King Zeller was, indeed, Isa’s father.

And I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, knowing for certain I’d had sex with him…and I couldn’t remember a damn thing about it. “At least you don’t remember anything about it, either.” I fumbled with an envelope, my hands shaking a bit. “I mean, how awkward would it be if one of us did and the other didn’t, right?”

“Right,” he stated softly, laying the piece of paper down on the table — which his dad covertly pulled away to review — and rested a gentle hand on top of mine while I rummaged to get the package open. I jerked at the contact, blinking rapidly, not about to look at him. Fuck me if tears weren’t threatening to spill over, relief and anger mixing together at finally knowing for certain who was Isa’s father — even if I did not like the guy. He gently squeezed my hand before lifting the package from my grip and easily opening it, hardly hindered by Isa lying in his arms. Staying silent, he handed me the open package.

I coughed, hiding my sniffle, which I had to do or risk having snot running down my face, and peered into the package past the tears in my eyes. I blinked blurrily and pulled out a VHS tape. There was nothing else inside, the label on the tape reading:
Lil’s King Hall Graduation.
I peered at Antonio because it was his handwriting.

“You taped my graduation?” Hell, I couldn’t remember large chunks of it.

“Yes.” A short answer.

My lips thinned, and I quickly wiped away an errant tear that verged on falling, and grabbed the next package. And opened it a bit easier. It was another VHS tape. Nothing else, except for the label that stated:
Lil’s first Awakening with Pearl, Jack, and Ezra
.

I stilled, staring at the names, and flipped the wording toward King Zeller so he could read it, even as I turned my attention back to Antonio since again the handwriting was his. I gauged him, blinking away the tears that didn’t seem to want to stop stinging my eyes. “You knew.” My hand trembled as I set the tape down, hearing King Zeller grunt after reading it. “You knew in advance this was going to happen. Knew you wouldn’t be able to speak.” I cleared my throat hard when he still didn’t express anything, my voice gruff and full of emotion. “You’re not such a bastard.”

After a silent moment, King Zeller stated briskly, “There’s still one package left.”

“Right,” I murmured, turning my attention to the thinnest package of all three. Lifting it slowly, I carefully pulled the tab off and peered inside. There was more here, even if the package was smaller. I pulled out the piece of paper first and placed it on the table. And damn if everyone in the room didn’t hover to read what it said. Breath escaped me as I scanned its contents, choking, “Jesus Christ, we actually got married.”

King Zeller just stared, jaw clenched tight, eyes flittering over our marriage certificate.

Elder Merrick pointed at the paper. “Queen Ruckler…what does it say your middle name—”

I snapped the paper over. “My middle name is not up for discussion.”

Elder Merrick started snorting, sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

My gaze darted to where he was hovering. “Seriously, not the time.”

He lifted his hands, backing away a few steps at my expression. “Okay.” He tilted his chin. “But someday I’m going to give you Shitz for it.”

My wolf growled at him, but King Zeller tapped the package still in my hand. “Is that it?”

“No.” I pulled out one of the photos inside next, studying it, evaluating every aspect of the picture, and a breathless exclamation escaped me. “Christ…” There were no other words. It was a close-up of our faces. We were both disguised with brown hair and glasses, and King Zeller had a short, trendy beard, but it was us, our cheeks pressed together, grinning like mad for the camera, with huge, cheesy,
happy
expressions on our faces.

“What is it?” King Zeller asked quickly, darting to the side, trying to see the photo, but he couldn’t move far enough because of Isa. “The back has something written on it, too, but your hands are in the way so I can’t read it.”

I quickly flipped the photo and shook my head, reading aloud, “Baby and Sweetheart. Just Married.” I shook my head, a bit wigged out. “It’s my handwriting.” I flipped the photo back over, but King Zeller snatched it out of my hands.

He froze, staring at it, evaluating it as I had while the four Elders peered over his shoulder, also staring at the picture, their expressions blatantly telling me they hadn’t seen it before. I watched King Zeller, his expression utterly blank, like the Elders’ expressions had been all night, as he stared silently at the photo. After a minute of evaluation, he flipped it, reading the back even though I already had. Slowly, his eyes lifted to the package, and he tilted his head toward it. “What else is there?”

I slipped my hand inside and pulled out the other photo. And choked, my cheeks instantly flushing. I was staring wide-eyed at a photo that was full-length of King Zeller and me, still in our disguises, but…King Zeller’s back was to the camera, his head tilted down, mouth at my neck, clearly biting me as one hand gripped my hair, the other unseen behind me, while I tilted my neck blatantly for him, a huge, shit-eating grin on my face for the camera…while I grabbed one of his ass cheeks with one of my hands and pointed with the other to his other ass cheek. I fumbled, turning the picture around and clearing my throat hard, and glanced up at King Zeller and the Elders waiting to see what I held. I knew my expression had all types of guilt written there. I read the writing — my handwriting — silently this time:
God’s finest work, my baby’s ass in leather
.

Eyes huge, choking on air, I fumbled to put the photo back inside the package, muttering, “You can look at this later—”

I made a noise of protest as King Zeller’s hand blurred and snatched the photo from my hand, stopping me. He blinked at the photo, peering down at it with that same blank expression, handling the situation much better than I was doing. My cheeks were fiery by now, tears long gone as embarrassment flooded me while watching the Elders peer down at the picture, their expressions not as blank as King Zeller’s. Elder Jacobs rolled his eyes and shook his head, glancing up at me.

My mouth flapped a few times, then I just let my head drop to stare at my lap when King Zeller flipped the photo to read the back. I was utterly defeated.

Quietly, he chuckled after reading the comment, the sound still raspy from disuse, but he didn’t comment when handing the photo back to me except to say, “Well, I guess we know which one of us was baby and which one of us was sweetheart.”

I grumbled something unintelligible as I stuffed the photo into the envelope, then I pulled out the last of the contents: a DVD with the label
King Zeller and Queen Ruckler Wedding
written on top. I placed it on the table and stared at it, knowing my cheeks were still flaming. Clearing my throat, I pointed at all of the videos. “Which one do we watch first?”

King Zeller pointed to one. “The Awakening. Traditionally the first Awakening should have happened before graduation.”

I peered at him, making myself meet his gaze. “You went to King Hall?”

He nodded once, settling further onto the burgundy chair and resituating Isa so she lay on his chest, the white silk of his shirt stretching across his muscled chest. “Yes. I also graduated from there.”

My lips pinched, but I nodded, turning to Antonio. “Can you wrangle up a TV, VHS player, and DVD player for us?” He smirked and flicked his wrist. And suddenly, we had all I had asked for directly across from us. I stood, lifting the first tape from the table. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I put the tape in and got comfortable on the couch again, staring avidly at the screen, on which the video started up instantly. It was really hard to tell who was who with the hoods up on their ceremonial robes, except for me since I was so short — an obvious difference in height — but Antonio’s voice started a quiet commentary. The location was King Hall’s gymnasium, and apparently it was King Zeller — Ezra, as Antonio continued to call him — who was taking the lead in the first Awakening.

King Zeller muttered a curse, watching himself on the flat screen fumble through his first attempt, but every single person — except Antonio — jolted when I started to fall, my hood falling back to blatantly show it was me, my eyes closed, out cold. I stared wide-eyed at the screen as Ezra blurred, catching me before I hit the ground, his own hood falling back as he shouted my name and shook my face frantically with his free hand. And suddenly all hell broke loose inside the gymnasium as the two others — Jack and Pearl, Antonio had stated in his commentary — threw back their hoods as Ezra lifted me into his arms.

“Holy fuck,” Elder Merrick muttered, sounding awed as Pearl, the blonde, threw one of the Kings into the air inside a golden bubble, while Jack, the blue-haired Elemental, threw up a wall of water around two of the other Kings — one being my biological father. Ezra’s eyes started glowing fiercely as he floated backward, his Vampire taking over when King Kincaid jumped at him, trying to get me away from the King. Hand over my mouth, I shook my head, watching as King Kincaid shifted.

“You didn’t tell me this happened,” Elder Zeller practically shouted at Antonio, pointing at the screen. “Did my son get hurt?”

Isa stirred at his voice and all the noise on the screen, but King Zeller rubbed her back, his eyes evaluating everything on the screen, so I ignored Antonio ignoring Elder Zeller, and turned my attention back to the screen. And it appeared that just as King Kincaid was about to attack Ezra — and I honestly wasn’t sure who would have won, by the expression on Ezra’s fiercely beautiful face — I stirred in Ezra’s arms.

Everyone stared avidly at the screen as my onscreen self woke and lifted a hand to pull on the infuriated Vampire’s ear.

I blinked, hand still over my mouth, not really believing what I was seeing. I watched King Zeller’s onscreen self pull my head away from his chest, not ripping me to shreds like another Vampire might have done in that state of mind as he stared down at me, while I woke completely, apparently coming out of the dead faint I had been in. We all watched as Pearl and Jack stopped their offensive attack on the Kings, the blonde in a real tizzy as she marched over to me in tears, hugging me hard.

I pointed a finger, seeing true emotion, true love, on her face for me. “Who is Pearl?”

The Elders went mute again, and my eyes popped wide. “No, no.” I shook my head, eyes darting back and forth between the screen and them. “I’m not into girls. So there’s no way I did something sexual with her.” I jabbed my finger at the screen. “And the Elemental? Who are they, Jack and Pearl?”

Everyone went silent as the onscreen King Zeller started shouting at me, pissed off about me not eating or something like that. I blinked when he suddenly left the screen, leaving my onscreen self standing there with a huge wolf rubbing all over me, King Kincaid marking me. My eyes went back to the Elders, ordering them, “Tell me who they are!”

Again, not a word or expression was given, and I peered at King Zeller, bewildered. “Did we have a damn orgy or something?”

He held up a finger, still staring at the screen. “I wouldn’t put it past myself since that wouldn’t exactly be a new experience for me.” His eyes flicking to mine, he shrugged at my expression before returning his gaze to the screen. “But I somehow doubt you would be involved in an orgy if that picture made you uncomfortable.” His head cocked, he continued like admitting he had sex with multiple people at once was no big deal. “Traditionally, the Prodigies are supposed to meet at King Hall to study together for a year.” His finger flicked at the screen. “I’m betting the Mage is Queen Cooper and the Elemental is King Collins since that’s who they should have paired us with.”