Page 130 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

Cyrus

Can you talk?

Three dots appeared. Vanished. Reappeared.

Then my phone rang—an old photo of me and my mother lighting up the screen. A relic from before everything had gone to shit.

Her voice came breathy, unfamiliar only because it had been too long since it sounded like that. “Cyrus, darling, what’s going on?”

I blinked, leaning back to double-check the caller ID.

Yup. Still her.

So what the hell was she high on? “Ma?”

“Yeah, baby. What’s up?”

My heart sank. She sounded like the old her. The version of my mother from before Charles. Before I fucked up so badly, we’d never recovered.

The her that fucking gave a damn if I lived or died.

“I, um…” I swallowed down the nostalgia tightening my throat. “I gathered some intel. I’d like to run it by you. I’m in the office. Could you spare fifteen?” A light laugh crackled through the line. I winced, then asked, “Are you with Dad?”

“And the Guard, baby.”

Ew. Damn me. “Gross, Mom. TMI.”

“Get your head out of the gutter, Cy.”

“Born and raised there, so technically not my fault.”

She laughed—actually laughed—before saying, “I can be there in fifteen.”

“Good. Bring Dad.”

“Are you okay, son?”

“Yeah.”

Lies. I was anything but okay. I was chasing a ghost. One with brutal aim, if the ruined tendon in my leg had anything to say about it.

My asshole cousin had somehow advanced in rank. I was only his superior by blood—and the Oracle’s word.

And my brother’s screams were still stuck in my skull on a cruel, endless loop.

“Fine,” I added quietly.

“We’ll be there soon.”

“Soon” turned out to be closer to thirty minutes than fifteen, but punctuality had never been a Stuart family strength. I’d hated it since I learned to read a clock.

My mother entered the room with a softness I hadn’t seen in years, a gentle smile lifting her cheeks as she stepped inside with Dad close behind—and Orion trailing them like a loyal hound. Evidently, my appetite for multiple partners came from her, though I couldn’t exactly relate to my father’s…generosity.

Guilt twisted in my gut. She looked happy. Relaxed.

And I was about to ruin that.

Cyrus Stuart: ruining bliss for twenty-two years and counting.