Page 6 of Sinner
When Demitrious had shown up, waving a photo of Nix and Juri kissing in his face, like some prepubescent teen crying out I told you so.
“Why the kiss?” West asked.
“He needed something to get the Order to meet so last-minute,” Lake surmised. “That’s also why he sent it to Demitrious.”
“Everyone knows that bastard hates that you’ve chosen a no-name person as your future Royal Consort,” Yejun said.
“He was never going to get to choose for me.” No matter how strongly Demitrious had believed otherwise. Hell, the bastard had already begun making promises to others about a merger between Lake and their sons. Trying to sell him off like cattle. “As soon as I’m emperor, he’s done for.”
“Yeah,” West drawled, “we’re going to have to consider doing that a lot sooner. Now that he knows we’ve got all this dirt on him, and that we’re willing to spill it, he won’t let us off the hook that easily.”
“He’s right,” Yejun agreed. “There’s no point in playing house with him anymore; that ship has sailed.”
They were only doing it because they needed his backing to ensure he didn’t try to turn the Order against them, but now…
“We don’t need him anymore.” Lake had broken the trust the Order had in Demitrious. Even if they’d only managed to turn two members against him, Demitrious had lost his foothold. “Hendrix is still on the run. With that video of him shooting West, he’s no longer in the line of succession. Juri is dead…That leaves me and Beck.”
“Beck won’t try for it,” West said. “He doesn’t want it.”
“We can’t be sure of anything anymore. Take a look at Nix’s experiences as of late.”
“Anyone can turn on anyone,” he agreed, “but not us.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because we’re not just anyone.”
“Beck isn’t exactly one of us,” Yejun stated. “I mean, sure, we all grew up together, and he’s closer to us than anyone else. But he’s still an outsider at the end of the day. We would have made him our fourth if that were anything other than true.”
They would have. They would have made a group of four, and Nix would have been read in as their fifth instead. Relationships like that weren’t strictly romantic on Tulniri. Becoming a group was about power and protection, and they were closer to a pack than anything. But Lake had always been wary around his cousin, no matter how many times Beck had sworn to him he wasn’t after the crown. His dad, Hendrix, had wanted it, and that had painted Beck guilty by association in Lake’s mind.
West and Yejun had always been closer to him than Lake had ever been. While he’d warmed up to him some, Lake still had no intention of changing that.
“From here on out,” he decided, “we trust no one but each other. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Yejun turned to West pointedly.
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll keep my distance for the time being.” West tipped his head back and stared up at the ceiling, clearly distracted. “What do you think Briant is telling him?”
Lake didn’t know, but he hoped it would be useful.
Not just in helping them discover who was behind all of this, but also for Nix.
Nix couldn’t afford to dwell on his feelings over Juri for long. At the end of the day, he’d already made his choice.
Being one of them came with responsibilities that couldn’t be shirked, no matter the circumstances.
Chapter 3:
Nix sat curled up on the window seat, his left cheek pressed against the chilled glass as he focused on breathing.
In and out.
In and out.
He’d thought he’d finally pieced it together, that he’d started building something here, something like a life. Was it normal? No, but how many things were in this day and age? Nix didn’t need normal anyway.
But he did need stability.
