Queen of Death

Hunter

I walk further into the room making a beeline for Solana. No matter how many times I hear the truth of that day, no matter how many years have passed since, it guts me anew every time.

She must sense how much I need to hold her right now because she stands just before I reach her and readily fits herself into my arms, allowing me to draw comfort from her warmth and her scent.

We lose sight of our surroundings. She pushes up onto her tiptoes and comforts me with a tender kiss.

Someone clears their throat gently reminding us that we're not the only ones in the room. Ace's expression is neutral, but Griffin and Cole are the embodiment of dumbstruck.

A full ten tense seconds tick away before Griffin stands and reaches his hand out across the table. "I hope you don't expect a kiss from me. A handshake will have to suffice," Griffin forces a weak smile.

Everyone laughs except Cole and we settle back into our seats. "Cole —," I'm eager to begin explaining but he raises a hand gesturing for me to swallow the rest of my sentence.

"I'm sorry, I'm going to need a minute to process. Griffin and Sol may be quick to forgive but I've been angry at you for four years only to find out that the truth is both better and far worse than what I've thought all this time."

"That's fair," I nod solemnly.

He scoffs a laugh, and sits back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. "None of this is fucking fair."

Cole looks down at the table, out the window to his left, anywhere but at me and Sol.

"I want to punch you in the fucking throat so badly right now. You left all of us. Me, your pack, my sister," he looks at Sol with glassy eyes and we all watch as his Adam's apple bobs over a thick swallow. "You knew what they did and what she lost, what you both lost, and you still fucking left."

"Don't worry, Sol got enough hits in for the both of you." I smile weakly.

Cole looks at me like he's been struck. "That's all you heard?"

"Cole I'm fucking sorry. I had just found out the love of my life was brutally attacked and that the life I had always envisioned for us was hemorrhaging. And there was nothing I could do to fix it. I couldn't wind back the clock, I couldn't bring back our pup's little heartbeat. I saw red. Ripped them to shreds."

"They got off far too easy," Ace mutters under his breath.

"Then reality hit me. I had just killed any proof of what really happened. I killed extended members of the royal family seemingly without cause. Tate found me, offered me an out and I took it. I couldn't think straight. My heart was bleeding out in Ember's office, the people responsible would never suffer enough, I didn't think anyone would see them for the monsters they were.

"I was afraid. I let that fear tell me that running was the right thing, that she'd be better off. I let it tell me I wasn't worthy. But I have never stopped loving her, Cole. I have never stopped feeling guilty. And if I had to do it all over again, I'd make sure to torture them for a long fucking time before I gave them death.

"Then one day the guys brought Solana home, kicking and screaming —"

"I was not!" She protests, swiftly punching me in the arm eliciting a chuckle from Ace.

"She tortured me for weeks, but we hashed it all out. I'll never leave her side again." I kiss her more passionately this time, sliding my tongue across the seam of her silky lips.

Cole stands so abruptly that his chair tips over backwards. He stalks around the table and pulls Solana out of her chair so she's standing in front of him.

Ace and I are out of our seats just as fast, our lips curling into snarls signaling to anyone around us that no one will harm her ever again, we'd sooner go to war for her.

His two hands are on either shoulder and he's bent forward so they're eye to eye. "You could have come to me. You can come to me. I'm so sorry you went through that, and to have done it alone. Solana, I can't tell you how sorry I am." He crushes her in a bear hug.

Ace and I share a look of relief that this is going as well as it is. Cole reaches out a hand to me, keeping the other tightly around his sister. "I'm not saying I'm ready to forgive you and go back to normal, but I can understand why you thought you had to do what you did."

"I can live with that," I release a shaky breath and shake his hand.

Solana gravitates towards me and Ace again and Cole allows it. He walks back around the table over to Griffin and promptly punches him square in the nose. The bones break with a sickening crunch and blood pours down his front.

"Ah! What the fuck was that for?" His nose is already healed before the end of his sentence.

Cole punches him again, re-snapping the bones and draining more blood. "That's for keeping this shit a secret for the last four years."

"Enough, Cole. He was only doing as I asked. He's a loyal friend." Solana defends Griffin from any more of her brother's fists.

Cole stands there with his hands at his hips, steaming with rage. He's so angry he hardly knows what to do with himself. Ace gestures for us to wait him out and let him steam for a minute before continuing.

Slowly he does just that. His anger, like sand in the ocean, settles back down to the bottom. We need to wade gently lest we kick up the sand again.

He drags a hand down his face and rubs his chin. "We need to tell mom. If Elena really is behind this we need to be careful with what information we share and with whom."

"We couldn't agree more," Solana says. "Which is why we need you to help soften the blow when we bring Hunter to the Grove. Mom will be less likely to kill on sight with you and Griffin behind us."

— — —

Solana

Telling my brother the truth wasn't a walk in the park but it proved to be easier than I had expected. I'm hoping the inverse doesn't apply to my parents where it'll be more difficult than I expect.

We discussed with Cole and Griffin for a while on how and where to meet with our parents. There are several non-negotiables that need to be followed. The most crucial of them being that neither Dex nor Elena can find out that we are meeting with my parents. Not even a whisper in the wind can reach their ears or else we'll be compromised.

Pulling my parents out of the Grove for an emergency meeting would raise many eyebrows, and it would expose the secret locations of their safehouses. Showing up in the Grove for a meeting would be just as suspicious.

Historically there has always been one place that they frequently travel to outside of the Grove, a place where I have close connections of my own. Caligo.

While my brother and Griffin went off with the guys to catch up and strategize, I texted my mother.

"Nightshade requests an audience."

Just as I had predicted, she texted back, "Caligo. 10pm tonight."

She'll bring my dads and Xander, no doubt. As their beta, Runidar might come. Ideally I'd also have Ember and Mia, Hunter's mom, to support us. It might be too much, too soon to have his parents there, but if it were my son then I'd want to be there the night he was redeemed. I notify my mom to bring those four people with her tonight, and although she doesn't respond, I know she'll honor my request.

With the meeting set, the guys shoot the shit for a while longer before the group of us break off to go prepare for tonight's meeting at the club. The mood in the apartment is thick with nerves, the seriousness and importance of this meeting weighs heavily on all of us. Not least of all on Hunter.

I'm slipping into my heels when Ace comes down from upstairs, rolling up his cuffs twice exposing his tanned and muscular forearms. Gods, even the most innocent parts of his body do things to me.

"It's time. Ready?" His alpha tone is as calm as an ocean just before the storm.

"As we're ever going to be. Cole is already there with Griffin. He said that my parents and everyone arrived about 10 minutes ago." I smooth my hands down the front of my dark purple dress, pulling at the hem which ends high on my thigh.

Ace looks around the room and one by one each of the guys gather close so Ace can teleport us to Caligo.

When the void lifts we're in a dark corner off the side of the bar opposite the stairs that lead up to my parents' private lounge.

"Stay here, grab a drink. I'll mindlink you when you should come upstairs." Ace instructs Hunter.

"I can't get past the guards without putting them out and that's not exactly the impression I want to make when I come back from exile."

"Show them your arm. My mother's sigil should get you past them."

"If you say so, Sunflower," Hunter beams at me before framing my face in his hands and kissing me. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I admit and steal another kiss. Warmth floods mine and Ace's mate bond, bubbling through my body like champagne. I don't have time to analyze Ace's very positive reaction to me and Hunter so I brush it off for now and lead the other four guys through the club and up the stairs to the lounge.

Everyone stands to greet us as we walk through the shadows and fleeting lights to my parents. "Ace, always a pleasure," my dads both shake hands with Ace and then move on to do the same to Tate, Eli, and Dean in no particular order.

Mom and I don't bother with pleasantries. She turns on her heel and we all take our cue to follow her to the dark room. It's a meeting room of sorts built in the far corner of the VIP lounge. The walls and doors on the outside are painted black so you'd never really even know it was a room if you weren't looking for it. The walls are also 8 inches thick, soundproof and magic proof.

There's no teleporting in or out, there are no surprise attacks using gifts, only natural brute strength, and secrets exposed within the confines of these four walls stay secret.

Everyone files into the room and gets comfortable. And by comfortable I mean we all stand in our respective groups in a poorly formed circle around the furniture, too anxious for this conversation to sit down.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this apprehensive, Sol," Xander says with sympathetic concern. "You know you're safe with us."

"I do, but it's not my safety I'm concerned about." This comment gets their attention. My parents look between one another and their friends. "I need to tell you something, and I need you to not say or do anything until I'm finished. Can you do that?"

"No promises," my dads growl, shooting menacing glares at the guys like they're suspects.

"Swear it, Dads. It's important," Cole snaps to my defense.

"No one will move a muscle, Queen's orders. Now tell us what you need to tell us," my mom shuts everyone down. I didn't think she'd throw her weight around like that so easily but it's appreciated.

Just like I told Cole, I come clean to mine and Hunter's parents. I tell them about Elena's sons luring me to that meeting, about how they made me believe it was Hunter's idea, about the pup we lost and how Griffin and Ember saved my life only for me to wake up in the ashes of a burned and broken dream.

I explained how I swore them both to secrecy. It was embarrassing enough as it was to have fallen victim to their plots, but to have to admit it to everyone would only breathe life into a nightmare I desperately wanted to wake up from.

Mia's eyes filled with tears as I told them how I couldn't stand to have been part of why Hunter was gone and to be blamed by seemingly the entire grove for various half-truths and more untruths and speculation around that day.

So, blinded by a red mist of rage and heartbreak, I left. For so many reasons I left. Because I felt sordid and hated, because I didn't want that day to define me anymore, but mostly because somewhere out there a man I loved was carrying my still beating and bleeding heart in his pocket and I wanted it back.

Ember's and Mia's cheeks are streaked with tears, Griffin and Cole are sitting down with their heads hung, and my fathers are standing stock still as ordered by the queen, flames billowing off their backs and a large angry vein bulging in their foreheads.

"I found him. Beating, bleeding heart and all." I reveal the final truth and hear a pained gasp escape Mia's trembling lips. "I found him and I found the truth. That everything I thought I knew was a lie and that he was hurting just as badly. He had nothing to do with the setup, and as soon as he heard what happened to me he didn't hesitate to avenge me. So with that in mind, I'm asking you to forgive him."

Mia breaks down sobbing, Runidar kneels down in front of her to comfort her. My dads' fires are still burning but not as erratically as before.

"Sirs, Queen Magnolia," Ace addresses my parents, "may I introduce you to the fifth member of Death."

Ace turns slightly towards the door as Hunter walks into the meeting and back into our lives for good.