Page 78 of Petals for Vicious Secrets

“It's not gentleman-like to kill a pretty woman at first sight,” he shrugged.

Lenna laughed out loud. “Since when are you anything remotely close to a gentleman? Do gentlemen flirt with their sisters? Fucking gross.”

“I'm not flirting, and she's not my sister. There are no females in my bloodline other than my mother.”

“Because your sadistic father exterminated them all. But she’s right. I have… proved it,” Ciaran said, as if he didn’t want to explain that his proving meant tasting her blood. “Hers is pure Core panom blood.”

Lenna walked towards Sasha, giving her a tight hug and grinning as she said, “What a lovely time for a nice brief family reunion. And to think we would have missed this if I hadn’t dragged Jake here because I need to know what we’re doing about the whole Raoul situation.”

Nina’s silver hair peaked through the archway. “Do you know my brother?”

Lenna’s golden eyes widened as she brought a hand to her wide-opened mouth.

50

Lenna

“No fucking way,” Lenna repeated, wide eyed and unable to replace her jaw in its usual non-dropped position.

This woman was a replica of Raoul. Same snow-white hair, same light blue eyes, same pale skin, same devastating beauty. After months of wanting to see him, to find him and take him somewhere safe, the sight of this woman seemed to ease some of the tightness in Lenna’s chest, even if she wasn’t him.

“You must be one of the Brachyan sisters,” Raoul’s sister said, looking at her red hair. “Raoul was always talking about you when we lived in the North House,” she smiled, and her smile was the sweetest thing Lenna had seen in a long while.

As if her own sister had felt somehow summoned, Lenna felt a tickle on her forearm and read Ayla’s silver ink:

The ink vanished from her skin as quick as Lenna dismissed her sister’s words, the memory of her lost heirloom and her current powerlessness. Enough was going on in this place already to be worrying about her own sister, too.

“Did you just appear out of nowhere? How the Cardinals’ fuck did I not know you existed?” Lenna frowned. Swearing in front of her sweet smile made her almost feel bad. Almost.

“Your mother always kept me busy with laundry and kitchen duties at the North House.”

Of course, her mother did. Lenna knew perfectly well how her mother exploited much more the female servants than the male servants, just because they seemed to cope with multitasking and not having any spare second for themselves.

“As for just appearing out of nowhere… It’s a long story, but that’s a pretty accurate description.”

“What’s your name?”

“Nina,” Raoul’s sister smiled. “If you were going to say something about my brother’s situation, please go ahead.”

Lenna turned to Ciaran and Indianna and asked, “How are we getting him out?”

“We have a plan,” Ciaran said, and turned to look at Jake, “We need to have a brief trip to the Cardinals Temple as soon as possible. If you want to make yourself useful, ensure your father stays the fuck away from there when it’s time.”

Jake cocked his eyebrow as he said, “One thing is not agreeing with my father’s methods and his general assholeness. Another very different is helping in rebellious or unlawful activities behind his back.”

“Don’t you keep saying that you like to push limits and boundaries? Prove it, then,” Lenna spat.

“It would be my pleasure.” The word pleasure with the now dark gray tone of his eyes did funny things to the rhythm of her heart, and the shiver down her spine seemed to agree.

Lenna’s lips tightened in a thin line. She faced the dark-haired woman with two long braids, Hope, and said, “Nobody has lost anything in that Temple unless they need a conversion. I’m guessing you will have your Fifth Ceremony there as Ciaran is convinced you have pure Core blood. All I will say is, enjoy the powers while your father lets you, or before he finds out. Because he took mine away.”

Ciaran tensed, and his voice was low and somber as he asked, “Is that what he did?”

“Yep. After I called him a piece of shit with powers and refused to apologize for telling him to fuck off,” Lenna smiled sarcastically, and she could have sworn something like respect emanated from Hope, but Ciaran only stared at her golden eyes gravely.

“So, what do you have now? Mark wise?”

“A whole sweet nothing,” she said. “Other than my very useful ink and very pretty floaty golden sparks. Basically, what I had before my Fifth.”

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