I turned toward him, but he was looking out of the backseat window, his arms folded across his chest. Noah glanced at him from my other side while the two in the front seemed to be locked into an eternal silence.
“He even has a bastard with Yas?” I could feel my brows arching in surprise, though it would have made sense, considering the way Yas appeared to care for Weston. I just hadn’t expected it from Yas. Weston had said that she was one of the Klovoda’s most powerful Atmás… which meant that she was supposed to have a pair. She was also trying to lead the Klovoda. It didn’t show much common sense, if she had been seduced by Weston along with so many other women. It didn’t fit with the image I had of her.
“Not a bastard.” Cabe finally faced away from the window, his eyes downturned.
Unease stirred within me—barely enough to give me pause, but enough to dredge up another question about Yas that had been tugging at the back of my mind ever since Cabe’s almost-death.
What is Cabe to her?
“Holy crap,” I moaned, dropping my head into my hands. “I think my brain is going to explode. Yas is your real mother?”
Cabe chuckled, the sound completely devoid of humour. “Yas is my birth mother. Tabby is my real—” He cut himself off abruptly, and the silence inside the car grew heavy and solemn.
“Tabby was his real mother,” Noah finished for him.
Was.
The grief was hitting me from all sides—from four different bodies, plus my own—and it was almost too much to handle. I couldn’t think about Tabby yet. Her funeral would be in a week’s time, giving people enough notice to travel. Nobody had wanted to travel for Weston. I wouldn’t last another day if I had to face the death of a such a complicated person; I would have to face my own shallow grief over a person who I was equally fond and frightened of; I would have to face a far more complex grief over the mother of two people I considered a part of me; and I would have to face the loss of another woman, who I hadn’t even had the chance to meet. Yvonne’s death was even more surreal than Tabby’s or Weston’s. I remembered Silas telling me that he and Quillan visited Yvonne every thanksgiving, but that wouldn’t be happening now.
Their next trip to the Ukraine would be for her funeral.
It hurt… it hurt so much.
“Where are we going?” Cabe murmured, bringing my head out of my hands so that I could see the road through a haze of quiet tears.
“Home,” Quillan answered, proving that he hadn’t lost the ability to speak.
“Which home?” Cabe winced as he spoke the words, and I flinched right alongside him.
I was sure that none of them wanted to be at the mountain house in the wake of Tabby’s death, but I also assumed that they didn’t want to be anywhere near Le Chateau—the site of Weston’s death.
“Le Chateau,” Quillan stated, surprising me. “Jack requested it.”
“Jack requested that we all stay there?” I questioned. “Why?”
“I have a suspicion, but we won’t know for sure until we get there.”
I slumped back, allowing the silence to swallow us once again. It felt strange to not be afraid anymore, to be out in the open about who I was bonded to. I hadn’t defeated Danny, but I had managed to switch our positions. Now I had the power of the Klovoda behind me and he was exposed and vulnerable. Maybe he was running for his life the same way I had run for mine. The difference was: he couldn’t turn to the Klovoda for protection anymore because they knew everything, and they were on my side.
Well… most of them.
Probably.
With a frown, I extracted my phone from my pocket, pulling up Jayden’s contact and opening a new message.
You’ve done a lot to hurt me, but you don’t lie to me. You still tell me the truth.
I left the message at that and hit the button to send it. Cabe unfolded his arms, dropping one of them over my shoulder and drawing me into his side so that he could peer down at my phone. He didn’t say anything, but his movement drew Noah’s attention. He slid over and also read the message. When the reply came through, I didn’t bother trying to hide it from them.
What do you want to know?
I felt a small spark of triumph, but it quickly fizzled. He was inviting questions, but he could still refuse to answer if he didn’t like what I asked. Deciding to keep it simple, I sent him a single statement: I don’t know who to trust.
The reply was instant.
Trust is relative.
With a frown pulling at my lips, I tapped absently on the screen of my phone. Eventually, I spelled out a name, and sent it off as a question. Yas?
She has good intentions, Jayden replied.
That didn’t really tell me much, but it was something, so I tried another name.
Jack?
The reply was more informative this time, though still open to interpretation. He’ll be good for us all.
As I was thinking of how far I could push him for information, the phone vibrated, showing me another message.