Pride
Catla
Three Weeks after the Midnight Masque in Night’s Fall…
The Sky’s Edge king’s UtiliSport hovered over Mom and Dad’s landing bay at the back of their house on the toney Horn Island, off the coast of the city of Nocturn in Night’s Fall.
I sat in the back among a three-male security detail I did not (yet) need, waiting for the bay doors to open.
They did.
We descended.
I heard the whoosh of landing, the craft powered down and my door whistled open.
Not looking at any of the males in the craft, I put one sleek black patent leather spike-heeled pump to the steel floor of the bay, tucked my slim black patent leather envelope clutch against my ribs and alighted.
I immediately saw Johnson, my parents’ human butler, standing just inside the door to the bay.
He was frowning disapprovingly at me.
This was an expression I was used to from Johnson due to the fact he’d been running my mother and father’s household since I had memories, and I had been doing as I pleased since I emerged squalling from my mother’s womb, two weeks late.
Yes, late was a thing for me. Doing things on my time was a thing for me. And doing things that annoyed the hell out of my father (not always intentionally, but full honesty, sometimes it was intentionally) was further a thing for me.
What could I say?
I was half demon.
This expression on Johnson’s face was because I was late for the upcoming family meeting.
Twenty minutes late.
This time intentionally.
And it wasn’t to be a bitch or anything.
It was to make a point.
Johnson (and no doubt my parents) knew it.
I wanted to have this meeting like I wanted to have someone dress me in pink.
Demons didn’t do pink, as a matter of course.
I didn’t do pink, as a matter of principle.
We could just say, I had baby pics where Mom had put me in pink and frills, and even when I was incapable of speech, ambulation or feeding myself, I had a sour look on my face due to my distaste of my clothing.
And this had nothing to do with the fact that pink seriously clashed with my coppery hair (well, not nothing, but that was only a minor factor).
“Your parents are in your father’s study,” Johnson intoned.
Of course they were.
Dad couldn’t pull his whole Master of the House thing if we weren’t in his study.
The door to the elevator that led up to the house slid open at my approach, and I headed through it.
Johnson entered with me.
Luckily, King Tanyn’s males stayed behind.
And the doors slid closed.
“Will you be joining us for dinner?” Johnson asked.
Absolutely not, I answered in my head.
Oh yes.
I was nursing a serious grudge against my father and would continue to do so if this situation didn’t correct itself the way I needed it to, maybe forever.
“I have plans,” I said.
“Of course,” Johnson murmured.
Did I detect a hint of understanding in the butler’s tone?
He revered my dad. He adored my mom. And even though I tried him on a variety of occasions through the years, I knew he felt the same for me (when I wasn’t vexing him…or Dad).
And he was human, so he didn’t understand the situation I was in.
Even so, I did detect that hint.
The doors slid open.
Johnson hung back and I strode into the house I’d grown up in.
Mom had done a full décor overhaul two years ago. Gone was the modern, streamlined design she’d crafted just over a decade ago when I left home and went to uni, and she’d needed something to turn her mind to because “my baby is all grown up and heading out into the world on her own.”
She’d struggled with that, Mom did. It hurt to watch.
I’d always been super okay being an only child. Until then.
But by that time, I was raring to get out there and make my mark.
Now, in its place was an even more modern, streamlined design made up entirely of whites and creams, this included the floors and walls.
As such, the cavernous first floor that was all open plan held a variety of seating areas with armless couches and chairs and hovering tables and drone lamps.
Dad teased Mom incessantly about how he couldn’t relax and watch a screen with somewhere to rest his head.
Mom then teased Dad back about how he always had a headrest, and she had close proximity to play with his hair.
Yes, this meant his headrest was her lap.
Yes, this was cute.
Yes, since they were my parents, it was also gross.
And yes, in that moment, it served to further infuriate me because Dad got to fall in love.
Dad got to pick the being he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
I did not.
Hence my very recently arranged marriage to King Tanyn of Sky’s Edge, which segued into me carrying a grudge that might last forever, and obviously further led to me being late to this meeting, which was to discuss my arranged marriage to King Tanyn.
I was seeing someone.
Did that matter to Dad?
No.
Of course, things with Bash were very new. We were only seven weeks into it. I didn’t know if he was the one.
But I knew I liked him. He was interesting.
He was handsome. We shared the same interests.
I liked watching when I made him laugh. He was good in bed.
He had a decent pedigree (a prerequisite for Dad, not me).
He made good money (also a prerequisite for Dad, and not me—I could make my own money…
and did, not to mention, I was the sole heir of the Truelock fortune).
That said, Bash was no king.
Ugh.
I ascended the gleaming cream steps to the second floor, walked down the hall and heard the murmuring of voices coming from Dad’s study before I hit the open door.
When I did, I saw Dad sitting behind his desk, Mom sitting in one of the chairs in front of it…
And King Tanyn standing at the window behind Dad, but off to the side.
Ambush, gods damn it.
All of their attention shifted to me when I appeared in the doorframe.
Mostly (all right, totally), my attention was on Tanyn.
Honestly, why did the male have to be so farging gorgeous?
That healthy, thick dark hair. That lean, tall body. His strong jaw, straight nose, heavy brow.
Those electric blue eyes.
I didn’t want to, but all I could think of was the kiss he’d laid on me after the troll attack at the Midnight Masque.
This he did after I’d only just met him.
This he did before he told me to get rid of Bash and he’d be in touch.
His “in touch” meaning he was going to contact my father, not me, to negotiate for my hand, and he would do that without my knowledge, until Dad told me the arrangement had been made.
Thankful for that last thought, which meant I glowered at him before I looked at Dad.
“I thought this was a family meeting,” I noted.
“As the king will be wed into this family, it is,” he replied, and I saw the warning sign of the streak of red lightning flash first through one of my father’s dark eyes, then the other, before he said, “You’re inexcusably late.”
I strolled in. “I have a job, Dad.”
“And I requested this meeting three days ago, specifically after working hours so this very thing wouldn’t occur, and thus you couldn’t use that excuse.
You have an assistant. She put it on your calendar.
So you should have arranged your day so you could arrive at this meeting promptly,” Dad returned as I sat down in the chair next to Mom’s.
“Heya, honey,” Mom whispered.
I glanced at her. “Hey, Mom.”
Dad regained my attention when he kept lecturing me. “When you’re queen of an entire realm, you cannot ask important dignitaries to wait while you make certain your lip stain is just right.”
At these words, I heard Mom’s sharp intake of breath, and my back shot straight.
“And you didn’t curtsy to His Majesty when you entered this room,” Dad stated. “That’s an indefensible breach of protocol.”
“I’m in my childhood home,” I retorted.
“He’s king of a realm, Catla,” Dad clipped. “And don’t think with a lifetime of us putting up with your antics we don’t know you purposefully made all three of us wait twenty minutes for your arrival.”
“Well, first, I didn’t know Tanyn would be here,” I defended. “And second, you and Mom are at home. You work from this office frequently. You both have things you can do. It isn’t like—”
“Your inattentiveness to anyone’s needs but your own has got to stop,” Dad ground out, unfairly might I add.
Sure, I was late.
But he knew why I was, because I didn’t want this meeting at all because the oh-so-not insignificant fact I did not want to give up everything I knew and loved and marry King Tanyn.
I just met him three weeks ago, for one.
Therefore, I didn’t know him much at all, for another.
What I did know, I wasn’t fond of, for yet another.
He was unbearably arrogant, for starters (a reminder: him kissing me then telling me to scrape off my…situationship, like he had every right to do so, after we’d just met).
Onward from that, it seemed Tanyn Firefierce had zero emotions, which did not enamor me to spending a lifetime with him, since, in my arsenal, I had too many.
And I’d repeat, I was seeing someone.
But mostly, I was a fully functioning adult female. I had a very good job I excelled at. I had good friends who I adored who returned that. I lived a life I enjoyed. That life was a full life. I knew my own mind.
And I could pick my own damned husband.
Regrettably, Dad wasn’t done.
“This realm does not revolve around you, Catla Truelock.”
“Mammon,” Mom murmured warningly.
“No, Freya,” Dad bit. “I’ve had this conversation with my daughter too many times. This is the last.”
He delivered that to Mom.