Page 28 of Ashborne Phoenix

Rightfully Mine

~ GRACE ~

I didn’t understand everything that passed between Voski and his mother—though I had to hide shock when she referred to him as Vane. He’d warned me about his real name, and what I would hear from the others when he was revealed. But something strange twisted in my belly when I heard his mother call him by it.

I felt the flinch in him every time she curled her tongue around that name. I sent rushes of love and reassurance through the bond when something in him curdled.

Voski had chosen this moment to confront his mother because Breckon was in a meeting with the king. But we wanted to retain the element of surprise. This couldn’t last hours. I had to return before Breckon knew I’d been taken. We had further schemes to perform.

The whispered, fervent conversation went quickly. Voski showed no outward emotion beyond petty delight at surprising his mother, and smug satisfaction toward my devotion. Thank God for the bond. I don’t think I could have maintained this subterfuge without it.

From the outside, he appeared as cold and calculating as any noble I’d ever met. He was utterly believable in the role of arrogant, prodigal son returned to take hold of what he believed had been stolen from him.

Had I only been able to measure him by word and tone, I would have been deceived entirely.

But within… I wanted to weep for him.

He loathed himself whenever he spoke of me with disdain.

Anger roared to inferno when his mother cast judging eyes toward me.

And the one time she touched me—only a brush of her knuckles against my cheek—he waged battle within himself. He covered for the surge of possessive, defensive rage by raking a hand through his hair. I couldn’t help thinking she’d only touched me to test him. But he gallantly didn’t respond with anything but disdain. And contemptuous warning.

“You will not get your claws into her, Mother. She is firmly in my grasp.”

“Now,” his mother said pointedly, though her eyes never left my face.

“Excuse me?”

She took a moment to respond, then tilted her head, examining me as she spoke. “Admittedly, you’ve done an admirable job, Vane. And I am, of course, thrilled to see you walking into your true destiny. But let’s not pretend you came to me out of any softhearted charity.” Then she craned her head back to look up at Voski, who stood over her, scowling. “We both know you needed me to get her back.”

“I preferred to use you to find her without fanfare,” he seethed. “Don’t let yourself believe I couldn’t have uncovered her without you.”

She gave a pretty, one-shouldered shrug that put me in mind of a cat, but she didn’t argue with him. She turned to me then, and I was glad that Voski had told me to keep all my attention on him, because there was something in her eyes I didn’t want to meet.

“She’s beautiful. You’ll make lovely children together.”

“We already have,” he sighed.

His mother’s eyes narrowed. “Before the vow.”

“It makes no difference—”

“Of course it does, Vane. Have you forgotten? The child will yet need to be protected if you want it to survive. It was conceived before her blood ignited.”

There was the barest whisper of a frown on his face, there and gone in a blink—had she seen it? But Voski shrugged in a movement so reminiscent of hers just moments before, it stole my breath.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Of course you will,” she murmured, turning back to me like a merchant examining a horse. “I look forward to watching you both grow—and helping you reach your true potential, of course.”

“Then return the Dominus mark,” he said bluntly. “That, after all, is my deepest potential.”

She went still, before tilting her chin up to eye him with the kind of measuring look I’d received from my tutors when they were amused by my naïve self-assurance.

“Ah. Just like that, we reach the heart of your intentions in coming to me,” she murmured. “And evidence of your youth.”

“Spare me the parenting, Mother. I earned the mark—my youth was evidenced in how easily you stole it from me.”