Page 68 of Walking in Darkness

“Because you’re trying awfully hard not to show any emotion. When people do that, it’s usually because they’re feeling a certain type of feeling.”

Connie snorted at Kit’s word choice. That summed it up perfectly.

A small smile crossed Hudson’s face. He walked over and sat back down on the couch next to Kit. “I apologize. My mother can be rather insistent.”

That was a nice way of putting it. Connie had some other words to describe her personality besides insistent. “Queen Abigail—”

Kit’s head snapped around. “Wait. Queen? His mother is a queen?” Kit turned to glare at Hudson. “Your mother is also royalty? Don’t you think that’s something you should’ve led with?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it.” Hudson took Kit’s hand and kissed his knuckles. “But yes, my mother is Queen Abigail Redmond. Her two mates are Eleanor Sutherland and Cyrus Whitmore.”

“All three of them are red dragons?” Kit asked.

“Yes.”

Connie cleared his throat. “Are they coming for a visit?”

He sincerely hoped not. There was enough tension already without adding Hudson’s mother into the mix. Eleanor and Cyrus were pretty decent, but they were definitely submissive to Queen Abigail.

“Not at the present time. We have too much going on, not to mention the ongoing threat. A visit will occur, but not right now.”

Connie breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, they were only putting off the inevitable.

“I can’t wait to meet them. And Connie’s parents. He was telling me about them while you were on the phone. He said they’re in Michigan. Where are yours at?” Kit asked.

“Dallas, Texas.”

“I’ve been to Dallas a couple of times. I never knew there was a court there,” Kit said.

“And as a human, you shouldn’t have known,” Hudson pointed out. “By the way, how do you feel?”

Kit sighed heavily. “I’m stiff and kinda achy. Tired as well. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Well, it probably won’t if I can get comfortable.”

“Why don’t you take another hot bath? That seemed to have helped earlier,” Connie said.

“Or the three of us could use the hot tub,” Hudson suggested.

Kit perked up. “Know what? I like that idea. I’ll go grab my swimsuit and meet you out there. Sound good?”

“Perfect,” Hudson said.

Connie watched Kit leave. As soon as he was sure Kit was far enough away, he hugged Hudson.

“How bad was it?”

“Probably as bad as you think.” Hudson hugged Connie back and then stood. “She refuses to believe I share a soul bond with Kit, even though I explained to her there was no mistaking it. She had the nerve to argue with me about it.”

“She can argue all she wants, but it doesn’t change the fact of who he is.” Connie followed Hudson into their closet. Opening his chest of drawers, he searched until he found his swimsuit.

“Which I pointed out. Since it didn’t fit with her narrative, she ignored me.” Hudson rummaged in his chest of drawers until he found his too.

“So, she’s unhappy about him being a human.” Connie wasn’t surprised. He was well aware of Queen Abigail’s thoughts on humans.

It wasn’t that she disliked them, she just thought they were beneath dragons. But then again, in her opinion, everyone was beneath dragons, other paranormals included. Out of all the dragons, reds were far superior, according to her.

Other dragons would disagree with her, of course. As would other paranormals. The humans who knew about paranormals would also disagree.

But at least paranormals had special abilities or talents. Humans were just… human. They couldn’t fly, or change intosomething, or cast spells, or any of the other things paranormals could do.

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