The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) by Marina Finlayson Read Free Book Online Page A

lives, untouched by all this shifter madness.
    I took a deep breath. “Honey, what did Dad tell you about why you had to go to boarding school all of a sudden?”
    He sniffed. “I told you, he said you’d died.”
    “I know, but why couldn’t you stay with him? Most people don’t move into boarding school when their mums die. Did he say?”
    His bottom lip started to tremble. He looked down at his bowl, unwilling to meet my eyes, and played with a drop of milk on the table, smooshing it around with the tip of his finger. “He said he was too busy working to look after me, and that Uncle Ben was going to keep an eye on me. He said I should tell everyone my name was Lachie Stevens, so no one would say Uncle Ben wasn’t allowed to visit.”
    A single tear rolled down the soft curve of his cheek. Poor little guy. My heart broke all over again. He must have felt so abandoned, when his own father didn’t have time for him, and even his identity was stripped away. But Jason couldn’t have left his surname unchanged for fear other dragons would find him.
    I reached across the table and took his clenched fist in my hands, cradling it between them, smoothing his small fingers straight. Dave clattered around, putting away cups and plates and cooking implements with enough noise to give us at least the illusion of privacy, carefully not looking our way. Nice guy, Dave. Cooked like a pro, too.
    “And now you know that was a lie. I wasn’t dead—but I thought you were. Dad used magic to stage an accident and convince everyone that you were dead. Me, Gran, Auntie Simone, your teachers, all your friends at school—we all believed it. And Dad changed your name and hid you away so no one would know it was a trick.”
    Except Ben, of course. I didn’t look at him, not wanting to see the guilt on his face. He’d been coerced into being part of Jason’s scheme with typical dragon ruthlessness. No need to burden Lachie with the details. Let him harbour whatever illusions about his father he still could.
    “Why did he do that?” His brown eyes swam with unshed tears.
    “He was trying to look after you. He’d done some bad things, to some powerful people, and he was afraid they might pay him back by hurting you.”
    In an interesting twist of fate, one of them was me. Me, Leandra, that is. In fact it was more of a pre-emptive strike on Jason’s part. He’d been planning to change sides, so arranged Lachie’s “death” before he betrayed her.
    It seemed likely he was more worried about Valeria, though. If all had gone to plan, Leandra would have been dead as soon as he left her, so who was he hiding Lachie from? Ever-pragmatic, he’d decided Valeria had the best chance of winning the proving, so he’d switched sides—but he didn’t trust her, and wanted to make sure she couldn’t use Lachie as a hold over him if it didn’t work out.
    Maybe one day I’d ask him, if he ever showed his face again. Right before I killed him for all the pain he’d caused us. For months of loss and grieving. For Lachie’s lonely nights in his boarding school bed.
    For making me have this conversation with our son.
    “Some of those people are still mad at Dad. And now they’re mad at me too, for killing Valeria. We need to keep you safe. That’s why Garth and Steve and Dave and all these other guys are living with us now. We wouldn’t all fit in our little house in Rembrandt Street, would we?”
    Garth snorted, and got up to take his bowl to the sink. He’d seen how small that house was.
    “Couldn’t they be like guards, and go sleep somewhere else?”
    “No, honey.”
    “Well, what about when the bad guys stop being mad? Can we go home then?”
    He turned pleading brown eyes up to me and I sighed. It nearly killed me to dash his hopes. “You know, everything’s a bit messed up now. I’m a dragon and you’re a ghost. What do you think people will do if we go back and tell them you’re not dead after all?”
    He sniffed and