Chapter 139

I was behind everything, arranging napkins, when the silence caught my attention and my heart sank as soon as my eyes found the proud figure of the leader of the entire species. He was an older man; I already knew that from photos, but in person he looked younger than his seventies. I would have given him no more than fifty-five. Ivan’s mother didn’t look her age either, even though she was ten years younger than her husband.

I watched as everyone respectfully greeted Illya and his wife before going to Mikhail and Natalya. I just stood there, waiting for it to be my turn. Ivan came looking for me, of course.

Illya was busy talking to Rex about who knows what, so first we went to the magnanimous presence of Ekaterina. Ivan spoke to her in Russian first, as the woman’s blue eyes stared into my face. She didn’t look me up and down, just at my face. She was beautiful, with very long blonde hair tied up in a thick braid that fell over her shoulder, her eyebrows thin and well