Page 79 of Beauty At Stake
“Okay, thank you. We'll be there in a second.”
“Okay.” She practically ran away.
Star chuckled as he looked back at me. “Back to reality.”
He started for the door, but I grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Star, you know that if you need me, I'll help you in any way that I can.”
Star smiled. “Yes, I know, Seren. But first, I'll try to do this on my own. Let's prove Anu wrong.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I admit it. I wanted to lie again. Just tell my husbands that I had stood up to Anu and made him release us. I had done that. It was the truth. But it wasn't the whole truth, so help me God. No, the truth involved God being an asshole, no help from him at all. A bigger asshole than I'd made him out to be. And they needed to know about that.
So, after we enjoyed a communal lunch with our mixed team, I took Killian into a bedroom and we scried Raza and Tiernan with our phones. I told the three of them together. Their irritation matched their relief. No one was pleased with Anu. Or me, for that matter. But they understood. Even more importantly, they forgave me. Anu, not so much. He wasn't their god, after all. They had no reason to forgive him.
After I finished my talk with them, I scried Daxon and Sever. Dax was on a plane. He had gone from L.A. to San Francisco where he had used the rath at Gentry Tech to go to Twilight. From there, he took a rath to Unseelie, which let him out near the old Unseelie Castle. There, he took a rath to Xian, China. At last, he got on a plane for Thailand. It sounds like a lot but it saved him about fifteen hours of flight time.
The question was—why was Dax on his way to Bangkok? But first, I told them about Star. And me. And Anu.
“Thank you for ending this, Seren,” Daxon said. “Frankly, it was getting old.”
“It's indeed a relief,” Sever said. “And I'm not at all surprised to discover that Anu was manipulating you. I don't hold you responsible, Seren. This is him. It's always him.”
Killian snorted. “Dude, you need to deal with your daddy issues.”
Sever rolled his eyes.
“You're not worried about what Anu said?” I asked them.
“About destiny?” Dax shrugged. “What will be, will be. But you've done all you can to make this right with us, and that's what counts. You stood up to a god for us.” He stroked a finger over the crystal. “I love you.”
“I love you too. You know I'd face Death himself for you.”
“I believe Ihavefaced death for you.” He winked.
“Who hasn't?” Killian drawled. “Oh, that would be Sever.”
“Would you like to face death again?” Sever asked in the same drawl.
“Good come back, dude.”
Daxon snorted. “Now, I suppose you want to know what I'm doing on a plane.”
“Yup.”
“Prince Sakda has failed in his duties. I won't go into the details, but a lot has come forth via witnesses, evidence, and Sakda's own testimony. He may be corrupt. I'm not sure yet. Ineed to assign a new prince and investigate Sakda further. He's being held in custody in his old residence.”
“In who's custody?” Kill asked. “How did you get him to give himself up?”
“I didn't contact Sakda immediately.” Daxon grinned. “I know better than to give the accused a chance to gather his forces and get his story straight.”
“I didn't realize he was accused of anything,” I said.
“The sale of stolen Fey body parts is a huge deal, Seren. It's an obvious sign of failed rulership. I had to investigate things before I spoke to the Prince. So, I scried those just beneath him. And each of them had suspicions of Sakda's corruption.”
