Chapter 8
The deep crack of a throat being cleared startled Lunara awake. She blinked to focus, rubbing the crease in her cheek and trying to remember where she was. Her back ached something fierce, popping as she straightened and—
It was the sight of Thaddeus’s shite-eating grin that snapped her back to reality. Nyri’s wasn’t much better.
Stars and arses, you bleeding eejit.
She caught a flash of white, spiraling horns out of the corner of her eye. Just enough to wish the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
Lunara hadn’t beheld the moving likenesses of the Imperial Family since she was a child in Starkeep, when the Sons were hardly more than children themselves. As an adult, she didn’t bother with the public squares of the Evesong’s cursed capital.
Nachthelliae didn’t honor the other Realm Rulers the same way they did the Imperials, but she’d seen other depictions of them throughout her life.
She’d just been caught sleeping on the Demon King’s dining table by the male himself.
Since the flagstones chose to be unhelpful, leaving her at the mercy of her own awkwardness, Lunara decided to pretend she was invisible.
Hold still. If you don’t move or make eye contact, maybe they’ll forget all about seeing you like this.
“This is Lunara,” Thaddeus said, his voice dripping with mischief.
So much for that. Menace.
Wait… Introductions. To royalty.
Shite. Stand up, you bumbling ninny!
Lunara scrambled to free herself, wincing when the chair legs screamed across the floor, her hook clattering down and rolling away. A wave of her hand brought it back to her pocket, but she was tempted to snap the traitorous thing in half later.
She smoothed a hand over her hair, clutched her skirts, and bobbed a swift curtsy. Pretending there was nothing odd about her, she somehow found her voice.
“Um, hello?”
Oh, good one. Really making waves out in the big, wide world.
The biggest among them stepped forward and clasped one of her hands—a male without horns who bore a striking, nauseating resemblance to both Thaddeus and Caius, which meant there was only one person he could be.
Of course. Why embarrass yourself in front of one very important person when you could do it for two!
“Hello, fair Lunara. I’m Magnus.” He bent and placed a feather-light kiss on her knuckles, his golden eyes sparkling. “Our Thad has been extolling your many virtues for days.”
Magnus aht Bordoroth, Blessed of Thodelebor, Ambassador Apparent and Third Imperial Son of Alwyn and Fionerys—the only Son with hair that shade of blond and obviously a Wolflord with those tattoos and piercings.
He stepped away, utterly charming and chuckling as though he knew it.
Blessed moons.
“I’m sure he exaggerated, as he is sometimes wont to do.” She managed to keep her voice from shaking, though it was a near thing.
“You’ve met Nyri and Hedda,” he said, gesturing to both. “The hairier, uglier version of Hedda brooding in the back is her twin, Faldir. How the Sisters could get it so right with one, and so damned wrong with the other is outside my understanding.”
Faldir really was the male version of his sister.
A head taller, though, and rugged where she was gorgeous.
Lunara tried not to stare at the twisting scar running down one side of his handsome face, puckering the corner of his lips, but all she could think was that his healer had done a piss-poor job of it.
“Kindly fuck off, Your Highness,” Faldir rumbled, turning to Lunara and offering a nod. “A pleasure, my lady.”
“She doesn’t like being called that,” Nyri hissed, elbowing Faldir in the ribs. “She prefers Lunara because she’s not special.”
“Nyriadne!” Hedda scolded. “Mind yourself.”
“No one of note—her words!” Nyri threw both her hands up. “For saving Bal, I would have called her Supreme Majesty of the Cosmos if she wanted, but she said to call her Lunara.”
“It’s true,” Lunara said, a smile tugging at her. “On all counts.”
Gathering her courage, she turned towards the Demon King and froze, heat creeping up her cheeks.
The fact that he was shirtless, flaunting the broad expanse of his chest, would’ve had just about anyone blushing.
It was the other male she hadn’t realized was there who snatched her senses away, though.
Again.
When did it get so warm in here?
The Demon was huge, only slightly shorter than the Imperial Wolflord Magnus, and just as muscular.
Black horns rose from long auburn waves, sweeping out and back, and curving into wicked, out-turned points.
His full, wide lips were slightly parted within a neat beard, and she could just see the straight edge of his teeth with a hint of fangs.
Her extremely brief interaction with him had not been warped by time or imagination, and seeing him again only solidified her first impression.
He was, without a doubt, the single most breathtaking male she’d ever laid eyes on.
Don’t even go there. Are you out of your mind? Think!
If everyone else was who they were, then the male who’d stopped her from smacking into the floor…
Bleeding stars and arses.
Brandir aht Bordoroth, Blessed of Straelon, High Ambassador and Fourth Imperial Son of Alwyn and Fionerys—all grown up, and nothing like the gangly youth from the last Imperial portrait she’d seen.
Of course you had to go and latch on to that one. Off limits doesn’t even begin—
Someone coughed. The gravelly sound wrenched her back to reality and out of her gawking, and Lunara recoiled as the spell broke.
She should say something, anything, but it was sinking in that they’d just found her drooling on the tabletop, oblivious, and every manner she’d ever learned fell right out of her head.
Sweet, merciful, Sisters. Just hurl yourself away and into the Veil already.
Why bother, when death by embarrassment was already a real possibility?
“Welcome, Lunara, to the Montrealm,” the Demon King said, pressing a hand to his chest with a nod. “Forgive me for being so direct, but Nyri didn’t reveal much. How fares Baldrir?”
Only then did she notice the dark circles under his eyes, the red rimming them. It softened the worst of her self-centered misgivings. They probably didn’t give a shite where she took her naps when all their focus was on their family member.
A lesson she might have been able to learn and internalize long ago if she wasn’t so damned terrified of being found out all the time.
“Physically, he is healed, Your Majesty. I can’t speak to the state of his mind, but his body is whole.”
The king swiped a hand down his face, looking away. “You were able to return his horns?” he whispered. “His tongue?
“I was, Your Majesty.” Maybe the hardest thing she’d ever successfully managed, too. “There were enough particles of both left behind that I was able to rebuild upon them. Hopefully the shape is—”
“They were perfect!” Nyri interjected. “I’d never have known anything happened to him, I swear.”
Lunara bit back a smile, incapable of stifling the swell of pride at hearing her work had been done well.
The Demon King raised an indulgent brow at Nyri before turning back to her. “When might my cousin be able to talk to us?”
“Hard to say when, Your Majesty. The sleep won’t wear off until he is ready for it to do so.
But again, I don’t know what you’ll find once that happens.
The road to mental recovery may be difficult regardless of my efforts, and it’s too soon to tell whether it will hinder his ability to communicate. ”
“Can you shed any light on what happened? Something that might tell us where or who to be looking at, or what he experienced.”
She bit the inside of her lip. A tricky question to answer, given the more personal nature of Baldrir’s wounds.
“Some things are not mine to share, Your Majesty, and I would not violate him by doing so—even for a king. Forgive me. What I will say is that nothing stood out as being unique to any one place, but my experience with such things is admittedly limited. Either way, he’ll need care and attention more than retribution on his behalf. ”
Rather forward of you, considering who you’re talking to.
True. The cold sweat breaking out told her as much. Still, her words were no less relevant.
The king looked at her for a long moment, his green stare penetrating.
She fought the urge to squirm under that sharp scrutiny until he finally bent with an elegant flourish.
“You have my most sincere gratitude for all you have done, Lunara. The hospitality of the Demons is yours for as long as you wish it.”
How in the shite did you get a king to bow down to you?
Excellent question. One she’d probably perseverate over for several weeks. Didn’t help that she was barely standing, the whole night like a fevered delirium.
Stop staring and ask for a bed, then.
Right.
“Your Majesty, might it be possible—”
A door clanged somewhere and stole his attention as Nyri squealed, “Snacks! Complete with strawberries, even though they’re disgusting.”
“—for someone to show me to a bedchamber.” The rest of her words were swallowed by everyone’s laughter, the tension broken as they took their places at the table.
“Come, Lunara,” the king said, straightening the chair she’d been in before. “You must be famished, and I would be remiss if I did not at least see you well fed. Unless you are too tired?”
Sitting down with royalty instead of sleeping for three days was possibly the last thing in all the world that she wanted to do.
Who are you to say no to a king?
No one. Lunara was absolutely no one.
“It would be my pleasure.”
Some lies were necessary, after all.
“… and there’s Thad, sprinting naked through the Chieftains’ garden, Cook chasing after him with the biggest kitchen knife you’ve ever seen,” Magnus bellowed.
“Completely unnecessary.” Thaddeus crossed his arms. “I only wanted a bite! But everything looked so good and I couldn’t carry all of it. Using my robe seemed as good idea as any.”
“Aye, until Calista walked in and started screaming the Keep down!”