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He tapped my chin. “Trust me, I’ll find you.”
Now would usually be the time when I would roll my eyes at him, but his seriousness made me compliant.
“I understand.”
He nodded. “Stay close.”
The guards opened the doors as we neared.
If they recognized me, they didn’t say.
“Weapons.” The guard nearest Adrian halted us, eyeing Adrian’s daggers. “You know the rules.”
The guard was a familiar-looking, burly man, though I’d never met him before. He stood an entire head taller than Adrian, scratching his bushy blond beard before motioning for Adrian to hand over the daggers.
Adrian grinned. “You’ll have to take them from me if you want them, Charles. But us wrestling back and forth would take too much time, and my king expects our prompt arrival. We wouldn’t want to make the king mad now, would we?”
The guard, Charles, tsked. “I suppose not.”
“Wonderful,” Adrian taunted, patting Charles’s shoulder as the guard faced his attention back on the woods behind us.
Adrian pushed me forward over the threshold.
“I’m surprised you don’t get punched in the face more often,” I whispered to him as we stepped inside a grand foyer of polished onyx floors and Gothic chandeliers. The candles black in lieu of the usual white.
Adrian shrugged, guiding me forward.
I could hear Leo’s voice through the next set of double doors. “They had your tech, Alvin. And my witness says there were some that walked on their hind legs, who demonstrated acts of intelligence we haven’t seen before.”
A man with a gentle tone began to respond to Leo, but was cut off by another male with a harsh voice. “Ah, yes . . . your witness whom you refuse to tell us the name of.”
“The name doesn’t matter. They are under my protection, and I trust their word,” Leo said firmly. “Accept this new information or don’t. These attacks are no longer random. I’ll be preparing my people for the next one, and you should, too.”
“And why should we trust anything you say?” the male with the harsh voice spoke again. “You’ve lied to us about your advantage with the portals and have most likely been opening them whenever you please. Who’s to say you aren’t responsible for these attacks?”
“Enough, Hector,” a new booming male voice said, quieting the harsh man. “Leo lost his bride to the Decodons, and I lost my only child.”
I felt lightheaded.
My father was in this room.
Leo had warned me, but hearing his voice made me feel unprepared.
Would he be happy to see me? Or would he wish I’d stayed dead?
“Thank you, Callum, but what Hector says is true. I have lied about my powers. My ability to open the portals should’ve been disclosed to the council long ago, and I apologize for my lack of transparency up until this point. But tonight, I would like that to change. I would like to come clean about another one of my transgressions.”
Adrian touched the hilt of a dagger, staring at me. “I’ve got you” was all he said before he opened the doors to the meeting room and all hell broke loose.
It took about ten minutes for the leaders of the universe to calm the fuck down.
You would’ve thought I was a Decodon, coming to carve out their hearts, by the council’s reaction to seeing me. But now that things had settled somewhat, they were all back in their throne-like chairs, situated on a raised dais. A large glass table, shaped like a horseshoe, the only thing separating me from them.
I stood between Leo and Adrian, under the scrutiny of the council, fighting the urge to bolt.
I assumed the members were seated in numerical order, judging by the unoccupied seat farthest to the left, as Leo stood by my side, just a hair in front of me, ready to shield me.
That would mean the redheaded man who appeared in his forties in seat number two was my father, Callum. The man I couldn’t bring myself to face directly, just yet.
