Page 113 of A Sun Scorched Bloom

"One step out of place, Mother, and this meeting will be over," Gray said, his shadows going slack, but not releasing her. Lea searched the bond and was surprised when she didn’t feel worry or fear. It didn’t appear that Gray believed his mother presented actual danger. Instead, Lea was assaulted with mistrust unlike anything Lea had ever felt before. It was mixed with resentment and anger, but a bright thread was woven in as well. It was longing—a tentative belief that maybe his mother was finally doing the right thing.

"Thank you," Genevieve said, wiping her nose with a handkerchief that Erik fished from his pocket. "I’ve gotten ahead of myself, I think."

"Why don’t we sit?" Gray placed a steadying hand on Lea’s lower back and led them to the couch.

"What are you doing here, Mother?" Gray’s eyes were guarded, and Lea felt a gush of hope rippling against her heart. He wanted so badly to believe that she was on their side. That she was here to help. Lea hoped, for Gray's sake, that she was right about her own gut feeling.

"I want to help you," she said earnestly, leaning forward in her chair as if she wished she could jump out of it and embrace her son. "I know you don’t trust me," she said, wringing her hands.

"Why should I?" Gray asked, lifting his chin. "You shouldn’t. But I’ll take a truth serum. Or swear it on the gods. It’s a complicated story. But if nothing else, I am your mother. Please, let me try to earn your trust."

Gray, my sword. Thomas taught me how to use it today. It detects lies.Lea said, wrapping her fingers around the hilt but keeping the weapon sheathed.

Her mate raised his eyebrows, but didn’t question her.Tell me if she's dishonest,he said before staring at his mother like he was weighing the sincerity of her demeanor. "I suggest you start at the beginning." He leaned back against the couch, pulling Lea almost onto his lap.

Genevieve audibly swallowed. "Well, I guess it started before you were born. I still don’t understand it, but I need you to try to keep an open mind."

"I don’t think anything could surprise me at this point," Gray responded. "Go on."

Genevieve relaxed, obviously relieved that her son was giving her a chance to explain. "I was there the night Queen Emmaline was killed. She was my very best friend." The queen’s voice cracked. "I knew she'd gone to the gardens to gather moonflowers for a sick child. One of her maids’ daughters had been suffering from a fever fordays, but a storm hit. The thunder—it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before." The queen paused, her expression haunted. "I went outside looking for her, expecting to drag her by her cloak back inside so she wasn’t struck by lightning. I had no clue she was already gone." Genevieve’s eyes glazed over as if reliving the moment.

"She was cut open on the ground… both her neck and her stomach. The castle healer had sliced the child from her womb. They tried to warn me, but I looked anyway. That image will never leave my memory."

"Adelaide," Lea whispered, and the Queen’s eyes snapped to hers.

"Yes," she breathed, staring at Lea as if she was a ghost.

"Go on, Mother," Gray urged, placing a hand on Lea’s knee.

"Your father had killed her," the queen continued. "I’m sure by now you know that he’s responsible for the Lonely Death." She looked at Lea, her eyebrows raised.

"She knows everything." Gray squeezed her hand, and Genevieve nodded.

"I knew he wanted power, of course, but at the time, I had no idea how far he would go to get it. Brennus was not a kind man, even then, but I didn’t think he was capable of murder. I was naïve. So foolish. He took Emmaline’s blood that night and—" Genevieve paused. "I didn’t know. I didn’t know that was the key to the spell. That damned bloody rag sat in a glass box on his desk for the longest time while he worked with that witch to get everythingjustright. I should have destroyed it. We wouldn’t be in this position if I’d known what it was."

"Father’s sins are not your burden." Gray looked away, as if the sight of his mother’s tears were too much for him. The black shadows around her wrists finally unraveled, relaxing in long tendrils on the ground.

Genevieve gave Gray the tired look of a weary mother, and Lea noticed how, beneath her beauty, she seemed to have aged in the weeks since Lea had left the castle.

"I worried about what he would do to me after Emmaline died. I was fairly strong in my own right, and my magic of the nightalmostrivaled his. That’s why he married me. He knew that by combining our bloodlines, our children would be powerful."

"I’ve always wondered how he took your magic without killing you, and why he didn’t take Callie’s the same way," Gray’s hand fisted, and Lea grabbed it, rubbing her thumb across the bunched muscles.

Pain lanced through her chest from the bond as Gray said his sister’s name, and Lea’s own sorrow echoed back to him, mourning the young girl she never got to meet.

"That’s the thing," Genevieve stood, her nervous energy leading her to pace. "Something happened that night. I ran toward Emmaline. I wanted to save her, and I raised my hands and called on my shadows and then, my magic wasgone." The queen met Lea’s eyes and held her stare.

"It looked like you were going to hurt my mother," Lea whispered, fiddling with the stones hanging around her neck, her fingers worrying the smooth jasper.

Genevieve froze. "Lookedlike? I knew it. You were there, weren’t you?"

Lea nodded, her mind moving too fast for her mouth to keep up.

"I was going to try to help her," Genevieve’s words were choked, "but my magic had disappeared. I never felt it again after that day, not until you walked into the dining hall. It sang out to me, and suddenly I could feel it again, calling from wherever you were."

That was it—the answer to what that sliver of darkness in her chest was that felt so foreign andwrong. "It’s not my magic at all, is it? It’s yours," Lea pressed her hand against her chest, that strange darkness twisting almost painfully now that Genevieve was standing before her, close enough to touch.

Genevieve knelt before her and squeezed her hands. "You saved my life that night, when you took my magic. There’s no doubt in my mind my husband would have killed me as soon as he was able and stolen every last drop of my power. You are the reason I am here. You’re the reason I amalive."

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