The Rebel Queen (Outlaw #1) - Lexi Blake Page 0,105

allow me to apologize.” We needed to get to the heart of the matter.

“I don’t need an apology. I’m not angry with you.” He bit off every word like he had to make sure he got them all out. “Why should I be? You didn’t make the choice to leave us. I knew that. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew you wouldn’t leave me willingly.”

He’d been so young, and there was no way he’d processed the loss as an adult would. “But I was still gone. You still woke up the next morning without a mother, and you had no idea where I was.”

He was silent again, and I was left listening to the chattering sound of my own teeth.

“I’m sorry about the cold. Lee should be here soon. Somehow he always knows when I’m in trouble.”

“It’s a twins thing. You and Lee were very connected when you were younger.” It was part of why it had hurt Rhys when Lee had started spending more and more time with Kelsey.

“I don’t think Papa and Uncle Declan had it,” Rhys said. “But I do remember being very close to Lee when we were young. It changed when Kelsey came on the scene.”

I had to wonder how much Rhys knew about Lee’s connection to the Nex Apparatus. “You know I named him after my guard, Lee Owens. He was Kelsey’s biological father.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Do you remember when Lee got sick and he sounded different? He was young. Maybe ten. There were several days when he acted very weird.”

“When he kept asking for a beer and telling me off for all the things I did?” Rhys sighed. “Yes. I remember and I remember that it was something weird and no one would tell us what was going on.”

We might have mishandled that situation, but at the time it seemed better to tell them Lee was sick. “Sweetie, Lee has old Lee’s soul. I know that sounds odd but a long time ago, I went to Faery and I was pregnant with you. Someone poisoned my drink and the result was I lost the pregnancy that should have resulted in you. Only you. You were what’s called a new soul.”

“Okay, now you sound like a crazy person.”

“Of course I do, but I’m also telling you the truth and you know it. You might not have seen an angel in a long time, but you know they exist and our family has had dealings with them. After I lost that first pregnancy, you were on the Heaven plane and you were given a choice. You could be born to someone else or you could wait for your brother.” Even thinking about that time made me tear up. “You chose to wait. I found out I was pregnant around the time Lee died. And then things got weirder.”

“Really?” Rhys asked. “You’re going to get weirder than knowing my soul before I was born?”

“Yes. I died the day we took over the Council.”

Rhys was silent for a moment as though this wasn’t something he wanted to think about. “You got shot, but Dad brought you back.”

“Technically, he did. The truth is more complicated. When I died I found myself on the Heaven plane and I was given a choice. I had done my job. I was finished and I could stay there or I could go back and have my babies. I saw you that day. I saw you, and Lee was there. He was teaching you how to play cards. Your connection to Lee started long before you were born. But he has a connection to Kelsey that you cannot understand.”

He was quiet for a moment. “So what you’re saying is Lee’s soul recognizes that Kelsey is his daughter. And they didn’t have a relationship when old Lee was alive. His soul has unfinished business with her.”

“I think we meet the same souls over and over again as we move through existence. Kelsey and Lee recognize each other. You are something different. You’ve just started your journey. We’re the first souls yours has ever encountered, and the one you trusted most in all the world left you.”

“You can’t know I trusted you most.”

He wasn’t remembering our circumstances. “Yes, I can because I was with you last week, Rhys. You were eleven and you had a bad day at school and you didn’t want to talk about it. So I watched some anime show with you and you leaned against me and after