Chapter 159: The Great Thunderfang Eyebrow Massacre

The room went silent.

Alpha Thunderfang’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth and stayed there. Maverick closed his eyes with the resignation of a man who had watched his sister load this cannon all evening and had just heard it fire.

"Bastard," Nova corrected, because if this was happening, it was happening accurately. "And we have no proof. So let’s all just take a second here and slow things down."

"Slow things down," Maria repeated. "Things just got interesting. We are not slowing things down. A nova is the term for when a star flares with a sudden, extreme brightness, outshining everything around it. Fitting. Nova Starborne. Have you considered that? "

Nova stared at her.

"I have not."

Maria stood, Lightning Nectar still in hand like she was presenting something to the class. "It gets thicker. Alpha Lucian Starborne. Any guesses what Lucian means?"

Unfortunately, the class was still buffering outside of Nova.

"Let me guess, something star related," Nova answered flatly.

"You would be correct, Nova. We have a smart one in here. In the old tongue, Lucian is defined as the origin point of light within a star. Any guesses on who else he named after star phenomena?"

Nova dragged a hand down her face. "’Named’ gives it away, Maria."

"Correct. All his children." Maria spread her arms. "Kai Starborne? Kai is short for Kairos. In the old tongue, that means north star. Celeste means the apex star or the brightest in its constellation."

Nova rubbed her temple with her non-injured hand. "Maria, how long have you been sitting on that?"

"For that part? Almost two goddamn days, Nova."

Maverick was the first to recover. He gave a single nod, accepting that his sister was slightly insane but still correct. "Yeah, not going to lie. She has you on the first name bit, Nova."

Nova took a long sip of her Lightning Nectar.

Tavian recovered next, squinting at Nova. Then he started laughing. Not a chuckle. A full, head-back, hand-on-chest laugh that went on long enough for Maria to start laughing with him. Two evil laughs.

"The High Luna was worried about one princess," Tavian wheezed. "So she framed another one. Celeste threatened to lash a princess. Alpha Starborne enslaved his own princess. Her name is Nova." He wiped his eyes. "This family. This FAMILY. THIS FAMILY is crazy. I love it."

"Bastard princess," Maria corrected. "Her Moonseal is Starborne."

Alpha Thunderfang choked on his whiskey. It was the first time Nova had seen Alpha Thunderfang choke on anything. The man who controlled lightning, who turned soldiers to ash, who communicated in grunts and single syllables, had been taken out by a sentence from Maria Emberclaw. Nova was adding it to the list of impossible things that had happened today.

"Maria," Maverick warned.

The warning was cosmetic. The warning existed so that Maverick could tell himself he tried.

Maria continued on, unbothered. "Your necklace? The one found with you as an infant? That symbol is the symbol of the Celestial Blue Moon, Nova."

"It is?" Nova asked, genuinely baffled and slightly alarmed by Maria’s detective skills.

She pulled it out to look at it. It was such a small pendant and Maria had only seen it for half a second earlier. How the hell Maria recognized it was beyond Nova.

"No. I have no idea, on that one, actually," Maria replied. "I just wanted to see if you would pull it out to check and you did. But if it was, how interesting would that be?"

"Maria, I need you to know that when my shoulder heals, I will be throwing a pillow at you for everything that just came out of your mouth."

"Picture this: Alpha Starborne hears the elders match his bastard daughter with the bastard Thunderfang, while his favorite daughter is paired with the Alpha of Thunderfang. Two brothers. Two sisters. And he was the only one who could appreciate the irony. No one else knows."

Tavian slow clapped. "That’s how you drop a bomb. Well done, honey."

???

ONE HOUR LATER

"—so Landon, Derek, and I snuck into the restricted armory because Derek wanted to see the old ceremonial weapons," Tavian began, swirling his whiskey.

"Correction, Tavian and Derek wanted to see them," Alpha Thunderfang cut in.

Nova was smiling. She was learning more about Derek from a fireside chat than she had with him conscious.

"Derek wanted to see them," Tavian confirmed. "And Landon definitely did not pick the lock."

Alpha Thunderfang did not deny it.

"So we get in," Tavian continued. "Beautiful room. Weapons on every wall. Naturally, Derek immediately grabs the most extravagant sword that’s been mounted for generations. The second he does, the entire armory starts screaming."

"The loudest possible alarm in Thunderfang. Louder than what we had in the yard," Alpha Thunderfang added.

"Yes. Every goddamn guard in the Keep heard it. The High Luna heard it. Derek is holding the sword, the alarm is going, and Landon, our fearless future Alpha, offers the tactical brilliance of ’put it back.’"

"It did not help," Alpha Thunderfang said.

"No. Derek puts it back. The alarm doesn’t stop. Because that’s not how alarm wards work. So what does Derek Thunderfang do? He says ’fuck it’ and picks it back up. Which set off a SECOND alarm because apparently that’s a thing. So we had TWO alarms layered on top of each other."

Maria leaned forward, Lightning Nectar at her lips, frozen. "And?"

"I solved the problem," Alpha Thunderfang answered, raising one hand.

Tavian turned to the room like a prosecutor addressing a jury. "Landon’s fix, and I cannot stress enough that this man is currently your Alpha, was to walk up and yank the alarm ward off the wall with his bare hands. Because why the hell not."

Maverick raised his glass to Alpha Thunderfang. "Respect."

Alpha Thunderfang raised his in return. "It worked."

"The ward exploded, Landon," Tavian said in a tone that suggested this had been an ongoing debate over many years.

"The alarms stopped."

"Electricity went everywhere. Which was fine for the two lightning boys. My eyebrows were gone for a month."

"I thought you looked better without them."

"Are you hearing this man? Neither of them apologized."

"I gave you a healing salve."

"You gave me cooking oil, Landon. Derek switched the labels. I rubbed cooking oil on my forehead for a week."

"Oh yeah. I forgot about that. All Derek."

"That was not all Derek. You laughed."

"I did."

"For three days."

"It was funny."