CHAPTER 17

ALEKS

I told the children that Leukas was their father sometime the next morning after I spent the night mentally and emotionally preparing myself for the meeting that would decide my fate while I unpacked food from boxes and packed it into its designated containers, washed the fruits and vegetables before repacking the food and baking to my heart's content while fixing and repacking the pantry that was filled to brim with …everything. Lanthe had also taken the liberty to send me some clothes and some shoes, which I was grateful for since I had no idea what one wore to a royal council. She had also texted to tell me that she'd come for me at twelve pm. I woke up and busied myself making a big breakfast for the kids while mentally going over what I would say to them. If they were some other kids, I wouldn't worry so much because I'm sure all I'd have to do was dumb it down a bit and just say it but my kids where kids with IQs that rivalled my own. They'd need explanations about everything. Elena might be able to just go with whatever was happening in her life, but Adrian really needed to know what was going on in his life at all time. He would never be comfortable without that.

In the morning, along with my dress, a number of smartly dressed women who I had seen around the 'Royal House' had arrived with what seemed like hundreds of bags filled with clothes for the kids. Apparently their father had had their measurements taken some time yesterday and the clothes he'd ordered for them where ready and they had been told to deliver them from me. How they had managed to make eight suitcases of clothes in a matter of hours was beyond me, but I wasn't too surprised. I was the woman who was living in their eight-room guesthouse after all. I had fitted their respective clothes in their respective closets, marveling at the gorgeous style, amazing quality and the familiar labels of Gucci, Prada and Versace. Their father had chosen the best clothes for his children and I couldn't help but feel very happy at that. At least he wasn't holding anything I did against the kids, not as far as I could see.

After packing the kids' clothes into the closet and laying out some for after their baths, I decided to have them wear whatever Leukas bought from now on as an acknowledgement of his role in their life, woke Adrian up with a kiss and told him to get ready for breakfast while I went to help Elena, who I was certain would get distracted by all the new things inside her new room, if I didn't interfere. I had given her a kiss as well but since she needed more time to wake up than Adrian, we had cuddled in her bed while she told me everything about her day, about how much fun Leukas is, how she had an aunt who was her age and looked exactly like her who she liked so…so much, about how nice everyone is, about how much she loved the big house from yesterday and this one as well, and about how beautiful the city is. It was quite clear that Leukas had made quite an impact on her and she would be thrilled when she found out he was her father. A part of me was so jealous of my daughter looking up to anyone else, especially someone as perfect as Leukas. I knew that I would never compare as a parent. He was richer, smarter, and he had so much he could offer them. He could offer them a perfect life, a big loving family, the best education money could ever buy and security. I on the other hand was hiding a horrible past from them, had a lot of blood on my hands, had put their lives at risk long before they were born and couldn't even afford to give them the education that fit them. Despite the doubts that were creeping through my mind, my heart knew the truth. My heart knew that my kids were not very material kids. They were devoted to me. They loved me as much as I loved them and no amount of clothes and money could change that. I just had to remind myself of those facts as much as I could.

After helping Elena with her bath and showing her the outfit I'd chosen for her so she could dress up on her own, I went to the kitchen to finish up breakfast. I laid out the waffles, the pancakes, the muffins, the fried eggs, the freshly squeezed orange juice and the bacon, on the table. While it might have been a simple spread for people like Leukas and his family, it would be quite a treat for the kids. We could never afford to have so many breakfast options, but I was a very good cook so I made the best of the little we had and we always ate healthy and just enough to fill us up. I sipped some coffee to calm my nerves while I waited for the kids and they appeared five minutes later. I couldn't get over how much fancy clothes suited my gorgeous Hyades kids. It was clear that the clothes they were wearing were their destiny. Elena looked absolutely beautiful wearing dusty-pink 'Red Bat' jeans, a pink, Gucci hoody and black Gucci high-tops was my daughter. Adrian's outfit was similar except all the pinks in Elena's outfit where dark-blue in his. For so long they had worn tights, jeans, and tops from dollar stores and they could have had all these luxuries and comfortable clothes. I had stolen their life from them. Just like my own father had stolen mine. I willed away the lump in my throat and opened my arms towards them and they stepped into my embrace, Elena more enthusiastically than Adrian. The familiarity of their reactions calmed me down a little.

"I missed you guys so much yesterday." I told them, kissing their foreheads and directing them towards the black, comfortable, tall chairs. I noticed Adrian's thoughtful frown and smiled despite my nerves as I ruffled his carefully tamed hair. I knew he was suddenly feeling bad for leaving me alone and would endeavor to stay by my side at all costs.

"…but, I also had fun looking around the place. It's really pretty here and we will have a lot more time to spend together later on. It'll be like the holiday we always planned on taking." I said cheerfully as I dished up for them. Adrian relaxed a bit and bit into his food while Elena fidgeted excitedly on her chair.

"Yes! It's like…the best holiday ever. The big palace house, Wow…. It's so…. magical. And Harpah told me her dad is an actual king! I've never seen real life royalty. She's a real life princess who looks like me! It's like Princess Switch. She promised me that we can swap places whenever we want to." I chuckled at her excited spiel. It figures her brain had found a reasonable explanation as to why a princess looked exactly like her. Over time, Elena had stopped hoping to ever meet her father, so it must have been far from her mind to ever suspect that their father would ever drop into her life so suddenly. Unlike Adrian, it wasn't Elena's default to solve things. She was great at Math, that too high school level math, but only when she got herself into her genius-thinking mindset. Otherwise, she chose to spend most times thinking like a normal kid. It amazed me and everyone she met how she was able to do that.

"Eat up so we can talk." I told both of them as I took my own seat and dished up a single pancake and some eggs for myself. Breakfast was as lively as always with Elena going on about everything, especially Harpah, while Adrian and I laughed and hummed accordingly. The closer we got to the end of our meal, the more nervous I became.

The kids helped me clear up the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher. We loaded to leftover food into the fridge and cleaned up the kitchen as a unit, just like we had done all their lives. It hurt me that there would soon be a new normal between all of us. After cleaning up, I led the children to the sitting room and sat them down.

"There's something I have to tell you guys." I said, nervously wringing my hands. Just then, a doorbell I didn't recognize sounded, and for a while I was confused until I realized it was for our new house. I went to the door and opened it to find the devastatingly handsome albatross who tormented my dreams and my waking day, equally. Hell he was tall. His hair was loose and it was more lustrous than I remembered, long golden curls falling in a most bedazzling curtain around his head. His eyes looked an eerie pale blue under the illuminating sun that seemed to shine solely for him. His face was unblemished as always but seemed a little less pale while his lips where a little bit redder, like the apple that was Snow white's downfall, they would be mine. His nose had been bare when I'd last memorized his whole face but it had a diamond stud then. His eyebrow and his earrings had the same kind of rings and I had never wanted to get my tongue on anything as much as I wanted to get it on them. How he could look so lovely and so dangerous was beyond me and hazardous for my womanhood.

I swallowed hard when my eyes went through his tight, white, muscle top that showed off his broad shoulders, strong arms and illuminated an impressive eight pack, black skinny jeans that encased strong, muscular thighs, and black Nike low-tops. My eyes, greedy for all of him, tracked down his hands, strong looking soft hands with long, elegant fingers and expensive rings on all but three fingers. His right, pale wrist was encased in a simple, braided leather band and a gold watch on the left wrist. Who knew I had a thing for watches? When I finally managed to tear my eyes off of perfection that shouldn't have existed beyond anime, a small whimper escaped my suddenly parched throat when I saw the heat blazing through his gorgeous eyes and scorching me down to my soul.

Before I could say something, anything at all, to the man who had claimed my heart as his, Leukas let out a pained or maybe frustrated growl that seemed to echo throughout my body, leaving goosebumps all the way to my toes, pulled me outside the house and against the wall so that his rock hard body and his mouth-watering scents were all I could see, smell, hear, and feel. My breath stuttered and I felt like I was having a heart attack with the way my heart was beating when he tangled his fingers into my hair, gripped it tightly, almost to the point of pain, and used it to pull me up to my tip-toes so that our mouths were level and I could smell the mint in his breath before he completely ravished my mouth like he would die if he didn't. Like he needed the kiss like I did.

I clung to his narrow waist desperately as the world around me disappeared and all that mattered was giving my mouth to Leukas, kissing him back desperately and trying to convey to him that every shred of my body and soul still belonged to him. I was in heaven in his skilled mouth. His tongue was so skilled and smooth as it tangled up in mine and fucked it so thoroughly the arousal in my core was almost blistering in its heat. I moaned in his mouth and held on to him as he bit my tender lips before soothing them with his tongue, he caressed my entire mouth with his intense kiss and he ruined me over and over again. It was like having an out of body experience.

"Mother …are you actually kissing a male person? I thought you were gay." Adrian's voice wrenched us apart and I stepped away from Leukas, cheeks red and my entire body flushing under Adrian's blank stare.

"Why would you think I am gay?" I sputtered as soon as I had gotten myself together. Any arousal I'd felt had disappeared the moment I saw Adrian. I wasn't taking any chances by looking at Leukas but I could see him from the corner of my eye, trying to get himself back to his usual perfect image, and I couldn't help but feel happy that I had some kind of effect, any effect at all, on him. I looked back at my son who had cock-blocked me and shocked me to the core. I didn't have anything against gay people at all, but I was certainly curious as to why my son would think I was.

"Well, firstly Ezekiel Matthews, the school Deputy Head Master, asked me if you were gay and if it was why you rejected him, which is simply ridiculous because he's incredibly plain, but before you tell me how rude that is just know that I did not say it to him, I just thought it. After that ridiculous conversation, I researched what it means to be gay since I wasn't quite familiar with it and well, I came to the same conclusion as Mr Matthews.Not because of him, obviously, but because of Lander. He's competent, he's wealthy, he's quite good looking and he's courteous and it is in my knowledge that those are things that women consider when choosing their mate. I figured that since you haven't married him, you're gay." My almost eight-year-old son explained while I looked at him and then his father, who had a look of stunned pride and amusement in his face, in surprise for a minute before I settled on glaring at the younger one of the Hyades.

"How about you not make calculations regarding my life or my sexuality, you're my kid Adrian!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands up into the air exasperatedly.

"In my defense, you technically do not have what most people would call a life, mom. I figured you wouldn't mind." He replied with a straight face. I struggled with the warmth threatening to overwhelm my face. I felt like my son had just advertised me as a loser in front of the boy I liked, like I was some sort of teenager.

"Adrian..." I whispered threateningly at him.

He blinked innocently. "Yes, mother?"

"Get inside the house right now!"

He didn't look too bothered by that. "Fine. Good morning Mister Leukas." He said, not waiting for a response before re-entering the house, leaving an awkward silence in his wake. A quick look towards Leukas confirmed what I'd already suspected. His eyes which had been filled with passion and want just moments ago where now filled with the coldness and distance I had only recently started to associate with him. I sighed and faced him.

"Leukas… I was just about to tell the children about you. About their relationship to you. And I think it would be best if I did it alone." I explained.

"And I'm just supposed to believe that you won't somehow make me out as the bad guy, turn this whole thing around so my absence from their life is my fault, just like you already claimed."

"I never blamed you for…"

"Could have fooled me!" his voice rose at the end before he took a deep breath and got himself under control. His voice was so controlled it almost bordered on robotic when he spoke again. "I apologize for my tone. That was uncalled for. And the kiss was a mistake. It will never happen again. As for the kids, I want to be there. I am going to be there every single second of their lives from now on and I need them to know that." Again, his words about the kiss were expected, but I was disappointed all the same.

Still, I softened my voice when I spoke to him. "I understand all that, and if you really don't trust me to talk to the kids that much, you can be present. But I need you to understand that it will be hard for Adrian to process it properly if you're there. He may suspect who you are to him, but it will still be hard for him to hear it get confirmed. If anyone should understand him Leukas. This will completely turn his world around and I will need to help him through it. He won't let you do that for him. Not just yet." His jaw clenched and he stared at me. I could hear his eyes speak. They said that it was my fault that Adrian wouldn't let his father in so easily. They said that I would carry the guilt till the day I died.

"Fine. But I still want to see them today, and we'll discuss the schedule for their custody for the duration of your visit here. I'll get my lawyer to draw more permanent ones that we'll sign as soon as we leave here."

I sighed in relief. "Thank you Luk, and I …"

"It's Leukas… and I'm not doing this for you Aleks. I'm doing this for my children. From here on now they have their father. And woe to anyone who tries to separate me and them ever again. I'll come and get them in an hour." He said and walked away towards the mansion without looking back. I didn't-couldn't- take my eyes off his retreating form until he was just a blip in the distance and I had no choice but to turn and head back inside my temporary sanctuary. I leaned against the door as soon as I closed it and the kiss ran through my mind in slow motion, and despite all the odds staked against me, a flare of hope lit up my body. I knew damn well that it shouldn't have thought.

I was a very attractive woman. I knew that about myself, I always had. I was the kind of woman who stopped traffic when I walked past the street. I had broken weddings without ever sleeping with anyone, and I had destroyed cartels with short skirts and long heels. Those were simple facts. And I knew damn well that very few men could resist me. Even men who hated me. I had killed men who were aroused despite the gun I'd held against their heads. I had seen men I tortured drool after me when I so much as touched their skins to maim them. I'd had especially psychotic men happily die in my eyes because of my beauty. Leukas kissing me while he hated me should have been nothing. It shouldn't have made my heart beat faster. It shouldn't have made me dream about a rosy future again. Yet id did. Because love was no laughing matter, and I was so whipped.

"Mother why are you swooning at the door." Adrian asked when he suddenly appeared in front of me, his eyes narrowed. I let out a bark of laughter despite myself. The Hyades men would be the death of me.