Chapter 33

Aiden
He tossed yet another file across the room. There were so many fucking Soma’s in the world, from a La Soma in Beijing, to a Lynsey Soma in American. He growled. This was impossible. He had already made 8,244 inquiries. Of that, 2,982 were shifters. Wolves. Sheep. Bats. Bears. Panthers. Tigers. There was even a Goddess damned whale. That would make Kalani happy, but no, he was not the right race to have fathered them. He stomped over to the fireplace and let Mikhail push forward to ignite it. He leaned down to stare into it as it started to rage into life.
He didn’t know what to do with his time lately. He had thought that Sasha would have been by his side this whole week, but she had been so distant. She spent her time away from the castle visiting the other women she had sent to be breeders. She was very skilled at disappearing as Gregory had found out the first day he was assigned as her guard. He had found her three hours after she dumped him in the castle courtyard at Taylor and Michael’s house 18 miles away. He growled and punched the stone surrounding the fireplace.
What was going on with her? He missed her. He wanted to be with her, but she was ignoring his presence every chance she got. He expected to have to work hard to regain her trust and prove to her that he loved her, but he didn’t think he was starting from an entirely different planet halfway across the Milky Way. The rechoosing ceremony was tomorrow. He needed to get her to agree to be his queen, so he could mate her and keep her with him. He knew Malcolm had attacked her, but without her corroboration on the events that happened, there was nothing he could do until Malcolm woke up and he could use his aura to get confirmation on what he already knew happened. She was his mate. Their future queen. His everything. Why in the hell was she fighting him so hard?
‘Hey, Aid. Are you busy?’
‘No. What’s up, Greg?’
‘I just spoke with Annie. She had some very interesting things to say.’
‘Spit it out, will you?,’ he growled, his impatience coming through.
‘Kalani said one of the other girls, Angenette, said that their father’s last name was not Soma. That it was Sterling.’
Mikhail growled. ‘L. Sterling?,’ he asked Gregory.
‘Yes. That’s what Angenette said.’
‘Did she say anything else about their father?’
‘Just that he wanted to come get them in a few months and that’s why Sasha was sent here to her death.’
This time Aiden growled. ‘She is not dying here!’
‘We know that, but they don’t.’
‘They do now. Is there anything else she said?’
Gregory sighed through the link. ‘One other thing.’
‘I swear to the Goddess if you don’t just say it, I will beat your ass.’
‘She said not to let Sasha push you away. She said to use the mate bond. She won’t be able to resist you.’
‘Goodnight, Gregory.’
‘Goodnight, Aid.’
Aiden went back to his desk and tossed every note he had on the thousands of Soma’s left to investigate into the trash can. He settled back into his chair and opened his desktop. He opened the program created by shifters that gave him access to every person’s identity from every corner of the world, even those isolated places that people were forbidden to go to. He waited impatiently for it to load as he tapped his fingers on the desk. Ping. A solid black screen with a single white bar in the middle appeared.
‘Search Name.’
‘L. Sterling.’
He sat back in his chair to wait. His computer started to ding as L. Sterling after L. Sterling was loaded into a list on his screen. After an hour it stopped finding them and another screen popped up.
‘58,222 L. Sterlings. Do you wish to filter this list?’
‘Yes.’
Another menu popped up with different options.
‘Gender.’
‘Male.’
The list was recalculated immediately. 33,789. The filter menu popped back up again.
‘Age range.’
‘>30.’
The number went down to 27,004, before the filter menu appeared again.
‘Species.’
‘Shifter.’
12,081. Now he was getting somewhere.
‘Children.’
‘Yes.’
6,000. He breathed out.
‘Race.’
‘White.’
3,466. How else could he narrow this down? That was still a lot of people to go through. He opened the list again and scrolled the options. He grinned when he saw one.
‘Income.’
‘Well off to Wealthy.’
He had to have money to keep Tursum happy, right? He hated this. He just wanted to know what in the hell his woman was. He wanted to teach her about herself. He wanted her to stand by his side. Why wouldn’t she allow that? Didn’t she want that with him, too? His computer dinged again drawing his attention. 137. Bingo. That was a much more doable list. He got up to check his printer. He added another ream into the tray, before sliding back eagerly into his chair. He clicked the option to view full profiles of every one of the names. He scanned the first. Name, picture, weight, location and the most important thing, shifter species. He pulled up the print menu. Black and white. Pages. All.
He got up and walked over to the fireplace while everything printed. Mikhail brought his wing out and set it on the blazing fire, smothering it almost instantly. He moved to the window to stare out at the sky. For the first time in days, he finally had made some progress and he was happy with it. He just hoped that the girl wasn’t lying. He gathered the papers off of the tray, before locking them in the bottom drawer of his desk. He straightened up and stretched his tense muscles. He rolled his shoulders.
‘What now?,’ Mikhail asked.
Aiden smiled. ‘Now, we listen to the smartest person we know.’
‘Whose that?’
‘Kalani,’ Aiden replied as he hurried out of his room towards his bedroom.
Mikhail’s excitement grew exponentially. ‘Faster, human.’
Aiden chuckled as he took the stairs three at a time. ‘Don’t rush me.’
He reached for Gregory’s link. ‘Clear everything off of my schedule tomorrow, except for the rechoosing ceremony.’
‘Yes, sir. Do I even want to know what you have planned?’
‘I am going to spend the day with our future queen and I am not going to take no for an answer.’
He didn’t respond for a moment. Aiden was about to cut the link when he chuckled.
‘Annie says, go get her tiger and told me to tell you she only bites a little.’
He stopped outside of his door. ‘Tell my little sister that I owe her one.’
‘She said that she’ll take venison for lunch tomorrow.’
‘Done.’
Aiden laughed and cut the link. He crept into his room and to the bathroom. He twisted the doorknob. Locked. He leaned his forehead against the wood.
‘Break it down,’ Mikhail ordered.
‘Simmer down. I got this, buddy.’
Mikhail growled at him. He hated being called buddy. That’s why Aiden did it. He went back into the main room to the small tool kit he kept in his closet. He pulled a phillips screwdriver out. He went back to the door and completely removed the doorknob. He held it in his hands and Mikhail let out a small stream of fire, incinerating the fragile piece of metal that had been keeping him away from her. He silently pushed the door open and moved to the side of her bed. He stood over her, watching her chest rise and fall rhythmically with her breathing.
Her left hand was under the pillow and her right was under her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and he leaned down to breathe in her scent. She always smelled of the sweetest peaches, even when she was aroused. It just got more intense, like they had been toasted over an open fire. He brushed the tendril of red hair that had fallen across her face off. Mikhail ushered him forward and Aiden pushed him back, wanting a few more minutes to just study her without her fighting him. Goddess, she was perfect. He ran his fingers gently through her hair.
“Who are you, Sasha?,” he murmured. “What are you?”
‘Ours,’ Mikhail answered.
Aiden’s smile grew bigger. ‘That she is.’
He pulled the blankets back, revealing her sheer nightgown. He swallowed hard, before sliding one arm under her knees and the other under her head. He lifted her up to carry her back to his bed in the other room. She stirred when he stepped into the bathroom.
“Aiden?,” she asked groggily.
He kissed her forehead. “Yes, my queen.”
She wrapped her arm around his neck. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my bed, where you belong.”
She nuzzled into his chest. “Good. I’ve missed you.”
He set her down on the bed and climbed in next to her after he kicked his shoes off. She scooted over to him until she was pressed against his side with his arm holding her close. He kissed her lips.
“I’ve missed you, too, baby.”
“Hey, Aiden?”
“Yes, Sasha?”
Silence. He sighed and pulled the blankets up over them. He would not wake her up. They would talk in the morning. It was enough that she was here in his arms. This was everything to him.
“I love you, Aiden.”
Okay, he had been totally wrong. Hearing her say that to him was everything. He kissed her forehead.
“I love you, too, Sasha.”
She took his hand. “Good, because I don’t want to be queen if my king doesn’t love me back.”
Mikhail let out a shot of fire in triumph. It lapped at her skin and she smiled, sleepily.
“I love you, too, Mikhail.”
Seconds later she was asleep, snoring softly on his chest. Aiden snuggled down into the blankets with her, fully content knowing that tomorrow was going to be the start of their forever.