not here in the middle of this mess,” he replied with a grimace.
“This place is … Jesus, Remy. There’s so much I’m trying to wrap my head around. It’s like this weird mix of a dream and a nightmare.” I tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear.
“But you’re safe?” he pressed.
I laughed softly. “Yeah. I’m safe.”
“I asked your mom about your … about Nikolai,” he corrected. “She said it was a whirlwind thing. Happened in the span of a few hours, and they didn’t really get to know each other.”
“Did she tell you that they were bonded?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. She said she broke their bond, but didn’t elaborate much. And she knew he was from a Russian pack, but that was about it.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “Apparently it’s not just a Russian pack. Narodnaya is the first pack. Like, ever. This is where shifters started.”
His eyes flared widely. “Say what now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s … Did Elias ever tell you about the first pack? Or how wolves were created? About Namina?”
Remy snorted, smirking. “Elias didn’t, but I’ve heard the story. We all have. It’s a fairy tale.”
“Except … it isn’t.”
His brows rose. “Skye, shifters are a genetic anomaly. It’s a mutated gene or some shit.”
“I thought the same thing,” I murmured, glancing down at where the silver bracelet had once been on my wrist. “But I’ve seen things here, Rem. Things that don't make sense.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“If I told you magic was real, would you believe me?” I held my breath, waiting for him to laugh.
He didn’t.
“Skye, I’ll always believe you,” he said honestly. There was zero judgement in his gaze as he watched me.
Sometimes I wondered what I had ever done to deserve this man and his complete and total faith in me.
“There’s a group of people here,” I said. “Romani? They can do things that don’t make sense.”
“Like?”
I glanced at my fireplace that was still crackling and roaring. It hadn’t died a bit since Lulu had left me hours earlier.
“When I was taken, at first, could you feel my wolf?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.
He frowned, his expression turning thunderous for a beat. “No,” he ground out. “It was like you were just gone.”
“Dimitri put this bracelet on me,” I explained. “It suppressed my wolf. I couldn’t feel her or our bond either. It was all just … gone.”
“That’s weird,” he allowed, still looking pissed off. Somehow I thought he was more pissed off about Dimitri touching me than he was about my wolf being magically whammied.
“No, the weird part was the bracelet didn’t have a clasp or any kind of locking mechanism. It was like I had been born with it around my wrist. And that’s where it stayed until Lulu took it off.”
“Lulu?”
“She’s Romani. I don’t think she’s a big fan of Dimitri either.”
“Get in line,” he grumbled.
“Dimitri’s not that bad,” I said, thinking of our conversation in the hall and how he admitted to covering for me with Nikolai.
“He took you,” Remy spat out vehemently. “He took you to another fucking country, Skye. And now you’re telling me he decided to give you jewelry, too?”
Oh, my God.
“Are you … jealous?” My jaw dropped.
A muscle in his jaw throbbed as he clenched his teeth. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. But I don’t like it, babe.”
“He’s my brother,” I pointed out. “Sort of.”
“Yeah, back up to the part where your dad is married, but his wife is openly having an affair?”
I shrugged. “I don’t get it either. Dinner was strange. Natasha, his wife, was openly with another guy, and from what I gathered, it’s not the first time. And Nikolai is totally okay with it.”
“But he’s the Alpha and she’s his mate?”
“Actually? He only calls her his wife.”
“Definitely weird,” he agreed.
I nodded, ducking my head as I yawned.
“It’s night where you are, right?” he asked me quietly.
“Yeah. It’s been a weird day. I’m wondering what this place looks like in the day because in the dark? Wow.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hang on.” I flipped the phone camera so he could see my room. I slowly panned the phone around the room so he could see how absurdly gigantic and ostentatious this place was.
“Damn,” he murmured when I turned the camera back. “It’s like a palace.”
I hesitated, thinking back to when Dimitri and Alexei called me princess. How Nikolai called me his heir.
“What?”
“There’s something else I didn’t tell you,” I admitted.
“Okay.” He didn’t look