Page 200 of House of Lilith

But I’m pretty sure this is not from Max. Still, I rip the note off and read, letting my apparently possessive boyfriend come hover over me.

“Congratulations on winning the Game for your Academy, Lady Romanov. I hear you have also indebted us all by helping to stop one madman from ruining many lives. Your generation is lucky to have you, and I cannot wait to see what you set your mind to once you graduate. Yours, General Alaric.”

My mind rushes to Ricky and I look up at Dahrian, who’s still staring at the note, and I ask, “Are you okay?”

He shakes his head. “I will be,” he says in a hushed voice. “Don’t worry about it, love. It’ll just take some time.” And he gives me a hug, saying, “In the meantime…”

And he snatches the note from me, reading out loud, “Cannot wait, he says.” He throws me a little squint. “I see how it is now. Just as soon as I get rid of a prince, a general comes a-knocking.”

“Don’t be gross,” I snap at him, but I’m smiling. “I’ve known him since I was, like, five.”

“No, but seriously, Nyx,” he insists. “Here’s the answer to what’s troubling you.”

Yes, General Alaric. He’s always loved me for some reason. I still purse my lips. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. We’ll see.”

“Either way,” he says, “I think you should spend some time in your tundra this summer.”

I give him a smile from ear to ear. “And I want you to come with me and I want to go meet your brothers.”

I glance over my shoulder at the clock above the mantelpiece. “But right now…”

And I turn to look at him again, finding him already nodding, nudging me to get going.

But once I’m dressed and ready, he moves to come with me.

“You know, you don’t need to go running around with me,” I tell him. “I need to go to my brother, HildeandVasilisa. We can just meet up once I’m done.”

“Nope,” he says with a breathy laugh. And he comes to give me a deep, passionate kiss.

When I pull away, he has his hand in my back pocket and he’s saying, “From now on, I’ll be following that ass everywhere. You may as well start calling me your shadow.”

And I don’t know if it’s possible for an ass to feel smug, but if it is… Mine sure as hell does.

*

I tell Dahrian to wait for me outside, feeling this should be a private moment between my brother and me. And I find him in the same Grimm Tower dungeon in which I found Ricky, all those months ago, all bloodied and looking terrified. It all makes me frown and turn so sad, but it also makes me happy with my decision to come alone.

“Hi, Nick,” I say, in a gentle, hesitant voice, as soon as I come to stand in front of him.

He’s sitting on the stone bench with the back of his head leaned against the stone wall and his arms resting limply in his lap, his hair disheveled and his eyes bloodshot.

“Come to tell me what a bloody moron I am?” he asks, but there’s no defiance or anger in his voice.

“Actually, no,” I say as I come a little closer and take a seat on the floor in front of him, making him frown a little.

For a moment, I stay silent, suddenly understanding what I wondered about months ago — how it all turned to shit between the two of us.

It evokes the memory of the reading of Father’s will. What a spectacle Mother made of it, I think with bitterness in my mouth. And how she pulled him close when the executor readmyname instead of his. And she whispered something in his ear, probably that it’s not fair, that it’s him who deserved it. And up until then, my brother’s eyes were simply my brother’s eyes filled with grief. But at that moment, something changed about the way he looked at me, and never went back to the way it used to be.

A sad smile tugging at my lips, I start in a voice barely above a whisper, “Did I ever tell you, Nick…”

He doesn’t react, but I don’t let it deter me. “Sometimes, when Father and I would take a walk, it’d be the morning after you’d put on one of your plays for us. Remember those?”

He pulls his head away from the wall and just looks at me with this pensive expression on his face.

“And you know what Father would say,” I insist on continuing, “every single time, with this warm laugh and a spark in his eyes?”

“What?” comes a whispered question.

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