was helping organize her papers. I found my birth certificate, their divorce papers. She warned me to stay away from him, but my curiosity won out. After she died. I contacted him. He knew nothing about me, but when I sent him copies of the paperwork, he asked me to come. I did. I’m still not sure if it was the smartest or stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but there is something different, almost mesmerizing about . . .”
His voice trailed off. What was there to say about the man? Aldo was fascinating in the same manner as a cobra. Sebastian glanced at Cheval and realized he had his full attention. “Anyway, when I first saw Lily at the reception . . .” He shrugged. “She’s beautiful. Charismatic. I’ve never felt a connection like I felt with her. I was trying to influence her to look my way.”
Cheval chuckled. “Did it work?”
Sebastian laughed outright. “Hell, no. She said I was much too pushy.”
“That sounds just like Lily.”
“I’d never really communicated telepathically before. My father can push at my mind, and occasionally I understand what he wants, but we don’t actually speak. Not the way Lily and I can. To say she grabbed my attention is an understatement. She was working her way through the crowd, talking to people greeting her, and at the same time, we were tossing telepathic comments back and forth.”
He remembered how she’d looked, like royalty acknowledging her subjects, and his heart sped up. “We made eye contact, and suddenly a sharp pain spiked through my head. Lily collapsed. Just went down like someone had coldcocked her. I was aware of a sense of evil, of darkness, but there was a subtle familiarity. I pushed it all away and ran to Lily.”
He chuckled. “She was awake but pretending to be unconscious because she was embarrassed. She asked me—telepathically, again—to get her away from everyone, so I carried her to a private office. She recovered quickly, we went back to the reception, and all was well.”
He glanced at Lily’s father. Cheval stood motionless, listening carefully to everything Sebastian was saying, but watching him in the way of a predator studying his prey.
What did he see? Facial expressions or something more? Did he see auras the way Sebastian did? Was he searching Sebastian’s thoughts, looking for words he wasn’t speaking aloud? He’d often thought his father could read his mind, and he already knew Cheval was capable. So be it. He had no intention of lying. The man could turn his brain inside out for all he cared. All he’d find was just how very much Sebastian already cared for his daughter.
“After the reception, Lily said she was going to run on Mount Tam. I asked if I could go with her, and she said she’d be running as a wolf. I’m not Chanku, but I can shift by magical means. She was okay with that. But something happened that’s never happened to me before. Shortly after we shifted, I lost almost half an hour. I have no real explanation, but Lily says I chased her as if I intended to mount her.”
He shook his head, still ashamed of what had happened. “I vaguely recall a sense of evil, as if something foul had entered my mind, similar to what happened at the reception, but it’s not clear enough for me to be sure. Whatever it was, I can only assume I was mentally compromised until we were attacked by two huge wolves. Lily was able to get through to me then, thank goodness, because they were bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. They were smart, obviously working together, but Lily wasn’t sure if they were Chanku. She and I fought them off.”
He shot a quick glance at Cheval. “Your daughter is amazing. She doesn’t give an inch in a fight, and together, we were able to overpower them. One left with a broken right front leg. The other one had a broken left hind leg, and a slashed nose.”
“There’s more to this. Something Lily doesn’t know, right?” Cheval’s focus was laser sharp, aimed directly at Sebastian.
“Yes, sir. Early this morning, my father made a couple of comments that let me know he was aware of what had happened last night. When I admitted to losing myself in the wolf, he seemed disappointed I’d not raped Lily. He was rather crude about it.”
Anger surged, fresh and hot with the memory. He realized he was clenching his hands into such