Page 133 of The Stone Initiation
My stomach quivered with hope, fear, and a concoction of emotions that I couldn’t define. “Serath, tell me. Tell me the fucking truth. Is Romi alive?”
He set me down, his jaw clenching. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Just answer me.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because he’s my brother!”
My words echoed up and down the empty street.
Serath stared at me in shock, as if seeing me for the first time. “You’re Romi’s sister? But…how?”
“Because Basque fucked my human mother and then made her sign a contract never to tell anyone. Because I wasn’t good enough. And no one knows. No one but the people I’ve told myself. But he did. Ignus knew somehow.”
He fucking knew, and now everything I’d come to know and believe was in question.
CHAPTER56
CAMERON
The room at the academy was twelve by eight with a small window, a desk, a chair, and an empty filing cabinet. I’d been locked inside it for over an hour with no explanations.
I didn’t know if Shar and the others were okay. I assumed so, because leaving the omegas behind wasn’t an option for the academy, but still, it would be nice to be told. Nice to be let out of this fucking room which might as well be a cell.
Ignus’s words swam round and round in my head. I needed to know if they were true. Was Romi alive or not?
The lock rattled and the door opened. Miss Travani entered. I hadn’t set eyes on her since our first meeting at the gates on my arrival, but she looked just as coiffed and pristine as she had at that meeting, her classic twenties bob gleamed in the shitty overhead light, which also happened to make her skin look sickly pale against her dark red lipstick.
“Miss Walker, so sorry for the wait,” she said.
I didn’t have time for pleasantries. “Why am I locked in here? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No. You didn’t. But after the attack, we needed to gather a little information on what happened.”
“I told the elites what happened.”
“Yes, that the grotesques and their master were after you.”
“They were and he was.”
“And we needed to understand why.”
I sat up straighter. “You have answers?”
“It isn’t for me to relay that information.”
I was so sick of this shit. “Just fucking tell me who he was and why he wanted me. No, forget that, just tell me, is my brother alive or not?”
She blinked sharply and her nostrils flared a little. “Please, Miss Walker, calm down. You’ll have your answers momentarily. But not from me.”
“Then who?”
“From your father.”
* * *
He was here?Basque was here? And she knew. Of course, she knew. I mean, I’d confessed to being Romi’s sister so…
