Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
This woman! How she infuriated me! How can she be so accepting?
I kept my expression neutral. “I, too, will be grateful for whatever time we have.”
“But?” She raised a brown brow.
“But I do not accept.”
“Ansin…” She narrowed her suspicious brown eyes. “What are you planning to do?”
I’d sworn to never lie to her again, so I opted for a partial truth. “I am going to play a little hardball.”
“And that entails?”
“Forcing my people to submit. I am the rightful king, and the future of the Bastuli is in my hands. I will marry who I choose.”
Jeni’s face turned paler than a hill of snow.
“What?” I said.
“Ansin, what if this all leads to my vision?”
Ridiculous. “How would challenging my tribe lead to Draco founding a new Ten Club?” Or Jeni being by his side, for that matter.
“If you lose and can’t marry me, you’re not the kind of man to let it go.”
True. “And?”
“And how far will you go? How about them? Would they try to do something to our baby?” She pressed her hand over her round stomach. “Because, if yes, I won’t go through that again, Ansin. I won’t. I’d rather beg forgiveness from the Seers than face losing one more baby.”
So, she would snap.
My blood pressure hit the floor. Maybe Jeni was right. Maybe we were on a course to make her vision come true. My tribe was stubborn and powerful. If we turned on each other, we could end up like the Seers. Poisoned. “Then I will let things be.”
“You mean it?”
I kissed her lips. “Yes.” Maybe? God dammit. I’d just lied to her again. I was going to burn in hell. But if I didn’t find a way to resolve this issue, I’d be there anyway. For eternity. Jeni was the only thing that gave my life meaning in over two thousand years. “I will arrange for a normal, modern, non-Bastuli wedding, and it will be magnificent.”
“Ansin, no.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want a ceremony filled with friends I’ve barely seen in the past two years, who can’t comprehend what I’ve been through or know who I really am. I just want my dad there. And you, of course. That’s it.”
I nodded in compliance. “Then I will make it happen.” After I put my tribe’s feet to the fire.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand. It was likely my tailor. I’d already ordered a suit for the ceremony, planning to have it all done quickly. When you wanted to spend forever with someone, it couldn’t come fast enough.
“Yes?”
“Is this Ansin Bastuli?” said a female voice over heavy static.
“Who wants to know?”
“This is Mia.”
“Eh-eh… My apologies, but who are you again?”
“Mia Minos, the ex-Seer who holds your future in her hands, you stupid fuck! So before you utter one word from your mouth, shut it.” The line crackled. “If your fucking wife-to-be comes anywhere near King, me, or our family again, I will come down on the Bastuli so hard that they’ll be wishing they’d never died. Got me?”
“I-I-I am unsure.” I’d never received a call like this. Was she really calling me from beyond the grave?
“Then let me spell it out. I am the first Seer to ever break off from her tribe, but it didn’t leave me powerless. It made me independent. And I’ve spent the last two-plus decades figuring out my end of the stick because there’s no way in hell I’ll be spending eternity at the mercy of the Seers like I did while I was alive.”
I wasn’t one to take anything at face value, but something about this woman’s tone made me take her seriously. That, and there was a hell of a lot of static on the line. She was definitely calling long distance.
“And what can I do for you?” I asked.
“You just worry about marrying Jeni properly. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“But—”
“The Bastuli will be there, Ansin, offering baskets of olives, grapes, and thyme. You just do your part.”
She ended the call.
“Who was that, and why is your face all red?” Jeni asked.
I set the phone down. “I think it was King’s wife.”
Jeni blinked. “Excuse me?”
I nodded, unable to form a sentence. How the fuck did she call me? My only answer was that Mia Minos had ended up more powerful than us all.
This can’t be good.
EPILOGUE
Jeni
Ansin carried me into the private villa on the island of St. Thomas, with a view of the powdery white sand and turquoise ocean. We had the entire place to ourselves, including the pool, library, and orchard. It was the one location without history for either of us. He’d never been here. Neither had I. And King never owned any property on the island. It was the perfect place to start fresh.
Ansin set me down on the bed and kissed me hard. Now that he’d let me in, through that tough shell, I couldn’t get enough. Yes, we still had a long way to go in terms of forgetting the pains of our pasts, but we were in a good place.