Page 7 of Petals for Deadly Power

Raoul wasn’t walking anymore. He was looking at the diverse emotions of the multitude of people staring at him. There were grins, half-tears, and reassuring smiles. There was empathy, excitement, affection, and joy.

“This is not a safehouse. This is a madhouse,” he chuckled, a single tear leaving the corner of his eye.

“Says the man who spent the last few months unconscious, muttering random, unintelligible stuff while mysteriously traveling across the world,” Lenna grinned. “You fit right in, R.”

Raoul tilted his head back with a roaring laugh. “You lot are nuts. I missed you too, L.”

4

Lenna

Satatthetableamongst them, Raoul couldn’t stop smiling, and Lenna couldn’t take her golden eyes away from him. She couldn’t remember the last time they had seen each other in such normal circumstances. As “normal” as being fugitives chased by the damned Roix was. But well, oh well, wasn’t that their new normal? No big drama.

“Do you remember when your father found us playing in the flowery bit by the servant rooms when you were around nine?” Raoul said.

Lenna snorted. “He got so pissed when he couldn’t find us for five hours.”

“Five hours?! Where did you hide, in the gardens?” Ayla asked.

Lenna shook her head, cocking an eyebrow. “We sneaked into his chambers while he was out desperately looking for us around the house.”

“Shut. Up.” Ayla’s eyes widened, her mouth twitching as if she was considering hiding a smile.

“We put on tons of his North Ruler’s clothes and jewels and pretended to be him until we got bored and went back outside,” Lenna continued, enjoying seeing the smile that definitely won Ayla’s inner battle.

“We left behind a disgraceful mess for him,” Raoul added.

“Sorry, not sorry, asshole.” Lenna felt a tinge of proudness at her younger self not standing and conforming with societal barriers. Being a member of the North House and only being allowed to have relationships with other panoms and the members of the Elite had never stopped her from talking to anyone she wanted to. Especially when most Elite beings won their bullshit status by paying disgraceful amounts of money to the Houses. Sums of money that could feed entire homeless families for a century, if not more.

Elite members who won their privileged status by having certain unique skills, intelligence, or abilities were rare. Hence why Sasha, Brendon, and Indianna were one of a kind, each excelling at their own fields. Sasha had an amazing scientific mind. Brendon was unique at intercepting and hacking the systems, analyzing and manipulating information, and Indianna was one of the best non-magical healers in Thyria.

The proud feeling of her younger self for pissing off her father came accompanied by the constant anger any thoughts or memories about her family came with.

One would think that her panom parents would have sent her one damned ink to ask if she was still alive and breathing. They hadn’t. Not that they had cared when she was tortured by the Organ Mandor right in front of their fucking faces, or that they did anything to avoid it.

Lenna had little doubt that their parents were communicating with her twin sister, Ayla. For succession of the North House purposes and all that crap. Lenna didn’t miss being the heir of the North House. Not that she’d had any say in the decision when the Organ Mandor passed her heirloom of the Northern Petal to Ayla.

All because Lenna had refused to apologize to him and swear absolute royalty. No, Lenna hadn’t very much not done that. Instead, she called the Organ Mandor a piece of shit with powers.

Her parents surely had felt nothing but relief when Lenna told them it was their dutiful daughter who would become the North Ruler. Instead of the daughter that rebelled against the stupid political system since she had memory.

The only good thing about having parents who didn’t give a shit about her was that Lenna had learned the lesson years ago. Now, it didn’t hurt nearly as much. Plus, who cared if her official family didn’t love her well when she had a real family surrounding her? The officiality could go to the Fifth hell for all Lenna cared.

Her real family was an unusual group of people. If that didn’t make life more interesting and entertaining, she didn’t know what would.A bunch of badass bitches and extremely good-looking men,Sasha said the other day. A pretty accurate description.

The black-haired man next to her stroked her bare arm, invisible sparkles immediately trailing up her nerves. Lenna was going to demand explanations for the snake-looking-whatever creature Jake had summoned earlier, but despite her annoyance, there was no denying he was the most unlawfully handsome at the table, and very likely from all of Thyria. He was also the one who had earned more than her physical affection by not giving up on her and somehow seeing past the multiple self-imposed barriers that had protected her for over twenty-five years.

“Have you been sleeping better lately, Raoul?” Ayla asked.

He blinked. “Some nights I don’t sweat or scream. I guess that’s a good sign?”

“You haven’t had a really bad night for a few days now,” Nina added. “Since the second black streak appeared in your hair.”

Which, like the first time it happened, hadn’t gone away, painting his pure white permanently.

“That attack wasn’t fun,” he whispered, his unfocused eyes on the table, as if the memories were back in his mind.

“Attack?” Hope asked, narrowing her almost-dark eyes.

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