nearby, watching both Falchani spar. Drew stood next to Aurelius, who wasn't doing very well.
"He's trying to punish himself, isn't he?" Drew said.
"Yes. But not all of us have such a convenient outlet."
"How close was it?" Drew asked. He wanted to gauge how upset Aurelius was.
"A few inches, if that. If the Larentii hadn't come, she'd be gone."
"I heard Kifirin showed up, too."
"He almost drove her to it. Nefrigar stepped between them. The rest of us just stood there, too stunned to move, I think. We're having a meeting later tonight. Everybody mated to Reah will come, except Nefrigar, I think. We still don't know where he took her."
"Would you mind if some of the rest of us come? We know Reah, too."
"I don’t mind, but if the others reject outsiders," Aurelius shrugged.
"Then we'll either plead our case or leave," Drew agreed. "I don't believe it was only her mates who were blinded for the past twenty-five years. If we thought about Reah, it's as if the thoughts slipped away and we forgot again. When Kifirin removed the mute, it felt as though we'd been asleep all that time."
"I think that is an apt way to put it," Aurelius agreed. "Farzi and Nenzi turned and went hunting, earlier. I'm not sure anything they came across lived over the encounter. Lendill went off with Norian to question more prisoners. I wouldn't want to be those prisoners, right now."
"Lissa says that those controllers even convinced that young Surnathan's mother to shoot one of those things into his neck and then ordered him to kill all those workers at the electronics plant."
"And then to kill himself," Aurelius nodded. "Dantel Schuul was twisted, as was his daughter. Lendill told me that father and daughter were lovers, likely since she was ten."
"Twisted and sick," Drew sighed.
* * *
"What if she doesn't come out of this?" Tory sat on the corner of a low table and stared at Gavril.
"If anyone can do this, it will be the Larentii," Ry said. "Look what they did for you, bro."
"But I just had some anger issues and holes in my memory," Tory pointed out.
"We're here," Lok and Aurelius walked into Lissa's library, where the meeting was to be held. Farzi and Nenzi were among the stacks, gabbling about the books on the shelves.
"Present," Lendill appeared with Norian close behind.
"Erland is managing the palace on Karathia for me," Corolan appeared beside Ry. "If there's an emergency, he'll send mindspeech." Ry knew why Cory had come. He loved Reah still and they'd all gotten the full brunt of the released mute around Reah. Corolan had cursed long and loudly over it.
"We may have extras coming," Aurelius announced, getting everyone's attention.
"What extras?" Gavril looked about, worried that someone unbidden and unwelcome might appear. Farzi and Nenzi had come out of the stacks and settled on a sofa nearby.
"You know, extras," Drake said as he and Drew appeared, closely followed by Lissa, Gavin, Thurlow, Aryn, Winkler, Rigo, Tony, Roff, Connegar and Reemagar. Norian was already there, so only a few of Lissa's mates were missing—most notably, Kifirin and Gardevik. Gavril sighed deeply and nodded with relief at their absence.
"Before we start on anything else, Ildevar has ordered that half the funds confiscated from the pirates go to Reah. And that's turning out to be quite a lot," Norian said. "We've tapped into hidden accounts where the credits were dumped; Dantel Schuul had Matiss Meldrim acting as bookkeeper for Nedrizif and his Greater Demons. Meldrim was quite adept at hiding funds, but thanks to Rigo and Aryn, we got all the information from him before he was, ah, digested."
"Darletta was Dantel's front for a lot of other things, too," Tory said. "He owned Stellar Winds and Starshine through her. Of course, Daddy's little girl got everything she wanted."
"Including Daddy, or so I heard," Drew remarked dryly.
"I was never forced to watch the two of them together," Tory shuddered, his dark eyes filled with remembered pain and confusion. "And she lost interest in me over the last five years or so. She couldn't wait to get rid of me at the end."
"Likely because you wouldn't cooperate all the time," Lissa said. "She didn't count on the fact that you weren't human or mortal."
"Because she never knew," Tory agreed.
"But what are we going to do about Reah, if she comes out of this? Or even if she doesn't? She's still pregnant and it could take a while," Aurelius observed. All of them agreed that there'd been