"What am I going to do?"
"My love, I do not know. Even Belen says you must find a way out of this."
"What am I supposed to do about Shadow and Grey House? Right now, I want to slap Glendes and Raffian through a wall and before, I liked them. How did things turn out so badly?"
"I don't think they meant to harm you. Not as they did, and they certainly had no knowledge of this. They should have done more investigation, however, before taking Melida as quickly as they did. I feel Marid was to blame for that—he made it appear as if there were more offers for his daughter than there were. He knew, somehow, that Shadow was without an heir and unlikely to get one with his current mate."
"So everything is f**ked up, now. I don't know what to do about Shadow and me," I sighed.
"You must decide whether you love him or not. Then decide whether that love is sufficient to weather this. And if you decide to stay with Shadow, you must find a way to deal with his father and grandfather."
"That sounds like so much fun."
* * *
"Thank the skies," Norian muttered when I appeared inside his office after folding away from Kifirin.
"Tell me why you sounded hopeful when I told you I'd know your parents if I met them, Norian," I sat on one of the chairs placed before his desk. Norian looked shocked at my words and didn't speak for a while, settling for watching me instead.
"Because I don't know who they are," he muttered angrily. "I was taken away from them—stolen and thrown into a cage, because my kind aren't supposed to make poison until they turn nine. I was four, Lissa Beth, and somebody wanted to add a lion snake shapeshifter to his menagerie. They had to capture a child, because the adults were too dangerous. The starship I was hauled away on was boarded by Alliance Security. I was too young to tell them where I was from, and with very little information available, they couldn't return me to my parents." He shook his head.
"Understandably, those of my kind remain hidden. My disappearance may have been reported locally on the planet of my birth, but there was no reason to believe I might be transported away—children can be stolen anywhere, but the expense of shipping them offworld is usually too much to consider. Unless the child is very special, that is, and my parents would probably not reveal that information. Child abductions are generally not handled by the ASD."
"Norian, this sounds like a tragedy in the making," I sighed.
"It was—on the first full moon, the Alliance officers discovered what I was and I know they discussed killing me. They did not, so I was raised in a laboratory, almost. There were a few I cared for as I grew up, but not many. They were frightened of me, breah-mul. Frightened of what I became. It affected their treatment of me. Yes, I realize it is unusual for me to be working for them now, but one of the Charter Members approached me after I was old enough to apply for ASD officer training, and suggested it might be a good fit. That is why I am here, now. And hopeful, now, too, that you may run across my parents one day. We live a long life, Lissa Beth. I am one hundred sixteen and I expect to live for centuries unless I am killed."
"Are you afraid of me?" I asked.
"Lissa Beth, I am only afraid that you will reject me and turn me out of your palace."
"What about that temper of yours, Nori? Will you be angry enough to sink those fangs of yours into me someday?"
Norian rose from his chair, walked around his desk and sank to a knee beside my chair. "Lissa Beth, you hurt me to even suggest that. Yes, I anger quickly—I think it is part of what I am. I have never killed anyone except criminals. They died swiftly, breah-mul. Much like those you kill." He lifted one of my hands and kissed it, setting it on the arm of my chair before turning before my eyes, his clothing dropping away from his snake form. I sat there as he tilted forward until his head lay on my shoulder, and when I didn't object, he slid slowly around the back of my neck, his head coming to rest on my breast on the opposite side. I reached up and stroked his head gently—his scales were smooth and cool under my hand. He closed his eyes under my touch—it must have been so hard for him as a child, knowing that none of those who raised him would touch him like this.
"Norian, we have work to do," I sighed. "And I haven't eaten, yet. Dinner sort of got ruined for me."
"So I have to get dressed again?" Norian was back to humanoid, and he cursed softly under his breath while he reached for his clothes.
"You can come with me as lion snake," I offered. "I just don't know how the kitchen staff might feel about that when we show up to raid the fridge."
"Will you feed me? I didn't get much to eat earlier either—I was too busy listening to the debate. What does Saa Thalarr mean?"
"You heard that?" Norian still hadn't made any effort to put clothes on and he wasn't trying to hide anything from me. I'll be honest; my eyes kept straying to certain parts of his anatomy. Finally, I slapped a hand over my eyes. "Norian, either get dressed or turn. I can't keep myself from staring and that's not polite."
Norian laughed, lifted my hand away from my eyes, gave me a quick kiss and turned to his twelve-foot alter ego. His head came up to my waist as he slithered along the marble hall toward the kitchens. If any of my guards thought to question, they kept the words behind their teeth.
Norian ate an entire roasted chicken as a snake. Yeah, just worked his flexible lower jaw somehow and swallowed the whole carcass. "Are you trying to freak me out?" I asked as I ate a drumstick I'd wrestled away from him at the last minute. "If you are, remember you're talking to the woman who can and does drink blood for meals." I watched in fascination as the lump that was the chicken slid its way down his torso. If a snake could smile, I think Norian would have been smiling, right then.
Norian went to his office while I went to mine after we ate and I was signing papers and muttering to myself when Rigo found me. "Tiessa, this was supposed to be our day," he grumbled as he settled on the side of my desk.
"Funny how that got f**ked up, isn't it?" I grumped and straightened a pile of signed papers. Grant and Heathe would have to sort through them in the morning and make sure they went to the proper places. Rigo didn't say anything; he began removing clothing instead. His first, and then mine. He pulled me onto the floor after that and settled me on his lap, facing him. If I hadn't thought to shield and soundproof my study before things became noisy, just about anybody, with or without vampire hearing, would have known what was going on.