Page 131 of Rise of the Queen

“Viktor kind of skipped that because Kostya revealed his gift early. I think it needed to happen when it did, especially for Ilya’s sake, so I’m not blaming Kostya for anything here. But Viktor skipped a very important part. I think he’s having to go through it now. It’s just harder for all of us to take, because to us, having his gift means everything should be grand already. He essentially did it backward from the rest of us,” I said.

“So once he deals with what happened tonight, he should be good?” Misha asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but that’s what I’m thinking,” I said.

“I still don’t quite understand why he had such issue with Stephen helping him,” Misha said, his normal happy personality suddenly turning darker.

“When you’ve been carrying around that much trauma and keeping it locked away, you almost start to identify with it. You become the trauma. You identify as the trauma. I think if Viktor could’ve realized that he isn’t his past when Kostya first got rid of all the grief he was carrying around, he wouldn’t have had to go through this. Instead, he’s having to peel back the layers of his trauma and go through them one by one,” Stephen said.

“Let’s hope that Kostya helps him again, then. He was better for a few days, but anything to do with your demons makes him pissy, which makes me pissy and I don’t even know why. I hate being pissy,” Misha said. It was obvious that he was completely frustrated.

Adrik laughed. “It’s not you who’s pissy, Misha. The same thing happens with us.” I watched as Misha tried to understand what Adrik had just said. Instead of saying anything more, heswitched his eyes to black, which switched mine and Ivan’s as well.

“Shut up,” Misha said, completely surprised.

“Your demons are the ones that are pissy?” Andrei asked.

“They’re pissy, they’re hurt because they feel like Viktor rejected them, and they’re also trying to help more. And Sephie’s was just as mad at me today as she was when I told her to never shut me out again. Yours are likely picking up on everything from ours, which is why you’re pissy but don’t know why,” Adrik said.

Misha thought for a moment, then looked up at us. “I just have one question. Does my demon also like pancakes?”

Adrik decided to go to Viktor’s apartment and talk to him while we all waited upstairs. Next to Ivan, Viktor was the closest to Adrik. We all knew Viktor did better with difficult situations away from everyone, so Adrik thought it might go better if it was just him. None of us could argue with that line of thinking, so we waited.

“If nothing else, maybe he’ll give him a few more days off. I think forcing him to slow down will help him deal. Apparently, I’m not the only thing he’s been avoiding,” I said as Adrik left the apartment.

“None of us understand why he’s been avoiding you, spider monkey,” Andrei said. “We’ve all noticed it for months now, but none of us understand it. Even knowing that you’re the one who’s helped us all figure everything out. It still doesn’t make sense.”

I caught myself thinking back to my earlier worry about keeping them from living their own lives.“You’re worried about something else besides Viktor, aren’t you, princess?”Ivan asked me. He could tell by my expression that the answer was yes. “Wanna talk about it now or later?”

“Later.”

He simply nodded his head and let the subject drop, helping to steer the conversation to other subjects. He looked at Andrei, asking, “Have you tried communicating with Boss the same way you do Sephie?”

Andrei looked shocked at the implication, which made everyone laugh. “I think Ivan means that since he and I can communicate so easily, it should also be fairly easy for you to do so as well,” I said.

“Oh. No, I haven’t tried. I haven’t even thought about it, if I’m being honest. But now that you say that out loud, I would think there should be a way, right? I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work with Stephen. It seems like there still has to be contact with him to get anything through,” Andrei said.

“How do you make it work with Misha?” I asked him.

“It’s kind of changed now. When we first started doing it, I could like project images into his head. He can ask me whatever or tell me whatever and I’ll get it easily, but I had to respond to him in images at first. Now it’s getting easier the more we do it. I can respond to him with words now and he gets it,” Andrei said.

As Andrei was explaining how he communicated with Misha, I tried to push a memory of us running at the house, just to see if he could see it. Misha’s grin stretched across his face as he saw it. Once I knew he’d seen it, I could hear him tell me “I miss it too”as a response. He quickly followed it with,“Try words too. I think Andrei unlocked it for me, so you should have an easier time.”

“I’ve been thinking that you should order Adrik to the house again. I think we all need it again already,”I said to Misha.

“I fully support this plan,”he said, grinning at me. The other three had figured out that he and I had just discovered we could communicate.

I looked at Andrei, then to Ivan. “It should work on you two, too. I mean, I would think so, since Ivan can talk to both me and Adrik. If Andrei’s like me, then it should work, right?” I asked.

I could see Andrei trying to push his thoughts to Ivan. Ivan’s sly grin spread slowly across his face as he heard Andrei in his head. Once they had a conversation, we all looked at Stephen. “Now we just have to figure out how to start with you and then you’ll be able to do it too.”

We were still experimenting with Stephen when Adrik came back to the penthouse. So far, we still needed to be able to touch Stephen for him to get the message, but he was able to do it with everyone and do so quickly. One touch and whatever information he needed was downloaded to him instantly. We were laughing because I’d come up with a really long explanation for some incredibly ridiculous thing, just to have as much material as possible. He touched my hand and got it all instantly like I’d said it to him out loud.

“Do I even want to know what you guys are doing?” Adrik asked as he walked back into the kitchen. He looked highly amused to see us all laughing.

“We’re trying to figure out how to communicate with Stephen. So far, we have to be touching him to get the information to him, but I just went on this really long rant over nothing and he got it instantly when he touched my hand,” I said, still laughing. “And we also figured out how to talk to Misha and Andrei. Ivan can do it now too, which means so can you.”

Adrik looked surprised but impressed. We quickly explained how to do it with both Andrei and then Misha. It worked right away for both of them. Even they were surprised it worked so quickly with Adrik. He tried our system with Stephen as well, getting immediate results.

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