Chapter Twenty-Five
Cormal
Despite the interrupted night, the fact that everyone in the house had now seen him naked, and the surprise revelations that had left him reeling, Cormal slept surprisingly well when he and Kinan had gotten back to their room.
Perhaps his body had simply gone into recovery mode and decided that unconsciousness was the only possible way to deal with everything that was happening.
He woke feeling remarkably clear-headed, all things considered. Kinan was lying next to him, his eyes already open.
“Were you watching me sleep?” Cormal asked.
“Not if you find that creepy,” Kinan said quickly.
Cormal smiled reassuringly. “I don’t mind.”
Kinan had told him that he didn’t always sleep as much as… solid people, and Cormal wasn’t ever going to chide him for what he did to occupy himself when his life was so circumscribed.
“Did you sleep all right?” Kinan asked. “Yesterday was kind of a lot.”
Cormal huffed out a breath. “I slept much better than I expected.” He eyed the other man. “Must have been the company.”
Smiling shyly, Kinan said, “I’m glad to be with you, too. Seriously, though, how are you?”
Cormal considered this. “Really well, I think. Part of me honestly thought I wouldn’t come out of an encounter with Brannal unscathed. Both he and Perian have been kinder than I deserve.”
Kinan made a sound of protest, which made Cormal smile.
“I messed up badly,” he reminded Kinan.
“But nothing irreparable has happened,” he stubbornly pointed out. “They’re both all right, and they seem to be happy here, and you had reasons for what you were doing, even if some of those reasons were dumb.”
Cormal couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that’s true. Learning that Perian is actually half-carnalion and half-human isn’t entirely shocking.” He made a face. “All right, it’s really shocking on the one hand because I didn’t realize carnalions and humans could reproduce.”
He’d lumped all demons together in his mind and never so much as considered it.
“It still kind of boggles my mind, if I’m being honest. But it also makes a lot of sense, because there were lots of ways that he didn’t really behave like a carnalion. And it’s become abundantly clear even to me that we don’t have anything to fear from children of two worlds—nor them from me.”
Kinan smiled at him. “I’m glad.”
“And if there’s two of them,” Cormal couldn’t help but point out, “maybe they can both help you.”
Kinan swallowed visibly, and the look in his eyes made it clear that this had occurred to him, too, though it didn’t look like he’d been going to say it out loud.
But if Perian had been able to do this much, wouldn’t he and Trill be able to do twice as much? Might that not be exactly what they were looking for?
The Mages and the Mage Warriors had failed, but Cormal was absolutely willing to embrace this strange new reality where two people who happened to be half-demon might be able to help Kinan.
“Shall we get ready for the day?” Cormal asked.
They needed to fill Trill in. It had sounded yesterday like he knew a lot more about being a child of two worlds than Perian did, and Cormal would shamelessly take advantage of that for Kinan’s sake.
“Yes, let’s.”
Of course, Kinan didn’t actually have anything he needed to do to get ready, but while they’d been at the inns, he’d been happy to ogle while Cormal performed his morning ablutions and got dressed, which Cormal certainly wasn’t going to complain about.
If it happened to take a bit longer to leave the water closet and there were mutual orgasms involved, no one else needed to know.
Actually, with this group, they’d probably all guessed—and were doing the same in their rooms. None of them seemed to mind. Really, their biggest problem was that Molun would pester them for details. Not because of Kinan being intangible, but just because he was like that. Cormal rolled his eyes.
He and Kinan made their way downstairs and to the dining room. Perian looked up from the table, took them in at a glance, and smirked. He didn’t actually say anything, though, for which Cormal was grateful.
He appreciated the acceptance, but he’d never had his sex life on such public display before. It was a little disconcerting.
“Good morning,” Kinan murmured.
Brannal rose to his feet. “Your Highness.”
Kinan made a face and waved him down, saying earnestly, “Oh, please, don’t. I’d like to be just Kinan here.”
Not looking entirely convinced, Brannal nevertheless inclined his head and sat back down.
Cormal realized just how thrown Brannal must have been yesterday, because he hadn’t treated Kinan like royalty then.
Perian, who’d been having picnics with Kinan and his sister for months, didn’t look at all fazed to be having breakfast with him.
Cormal pulled out a chair for Kinan, and they both sat down.
Brannal poured Cormal tea, which made Perian’s eyes soften. It was strange how easy it was to see the affection now, when all Cormal had been able to see before was his growing suspicions that Perian had been using Brannal.
It was only a few minutes later that Molun, Arvus, and Trill arrived, all of them looking… very relaxed.
“Good morning,” Molun said cheerfully.
“Apparently,” Perian said with a laugh.
Molun leaned down and kissed Perian’s cheek.
“You’re not the only one who can make people recover extra fast,” Molun said gleefully. “Just saying.”
“Please stop saying,” Cormal said with a groan.
Molun just winked at him.
He sat down, more fluidly than Cormal was used to seeing, but he spotted the faint discomfort that chased across his face. Trill reached out and twined their fingers together.
“I’m fine,” Molun assured him.
“I have energy to spare,” Trill said simply.
Molun relaxed a little more.
“How did everyone sleep?” Brannal asked. “Dare I ask?”
There were a lot of smirks that went around the table.
“Very well, thank you,” Kinan said, though he looked embarrassed.
Brannal still looked a little amused as he asked, “Did everyone at least sleep at some point so that we can have a productive conversation today?”
They all nodded and went to work on their breakfast, keeping the flow of conversation inconsequential. Once everyone had eaten their fill, they moved back into the sitting room.
“All right,” Brannal said. He looked a little bit tense, and Cormal understood why when he continued to speak.
“To try to understand what happened to the Prince, I think we have to start seven years ago, when the castle was attacked by wraiths.” He made eye contact with Kinan, Cormal, and Molun, his own eyes dark and sad.
“I apologize for any bad memories this stirs up.”
Cormal interrupted. This was absolutely his burden, and there was no way he was making Brannal take it on.
“The important thing is helping Kinan.” The others nodded.
Of course, that didn’t mean this still wasn’t going to be an awful conversation.
And it started with him. “I, uh, have been keeping this a secret until yesterday, but I think for the sake of our joint understanding, you should know as well.” He looked at Molun and Arvus, drew a breath, and let it out slowly.
Then he made himself say, “My father was the one who let the wraiths in the castle.”
Molun goggled at him. “Your father? Summus?”
Cormal nodded, trying not to look as stiff as he felt, explaining what he’d told Brannal and Perian yesterday, how he’d caught a glimpse of them but had obeyed his father’s instructions not to say anything.
Molun looked stunned.
Brannal picked up the narrative, voice carefully clipped as he described the attack at Kinan’s birthday celebration.
“The wraiths were everywhere and had already killed multiple people by the time Molun and I arrived.”
Cormal could still hear the screaming if he closed his eyes. Could still see where his father had fallen to the floor, dead, when his shield buckled under too many wraiths.
Brannal’s jaw could have been carved from granite as he continued.
“Several wraiths went after the Princess, and the Prince dove in front of her while I threw up a shield to protect them. Molun and I used air to push everyone else into the corner with Cormal. Cormal put up a shield, I shielded the other entrances, and then Molun and I flooded the room until the wraiths were dead.”
By the end of this recitation, Trill and Arvus were holding onto Molun, Perian had actually crawled into Brannal’s lap, and the Prince was trying as hard as he could to touch Cormal, his hands hovered over Cormal’s thighs.
Trill cleared his throat. His eyes were huge. “Uh, what’s a shield? You clearly don’t mean a physical one.”
Each of the Mage Warriors demonstrated the shield they could produce: Arvus, then Cormal, then Molun, and finally Brannal. It was evident immediately how much more powerful Brannal was than the rest of them.
To Trill, Perian said, “He can control all of the elements.” He winked. “It’s super hot.”
The tension in the room lightened for a moment, though it didn’t last for long, as Brannal went on, his expression bleak.
“The Prince was dead, or so we thought, his body behind my shield with his sister. The Princess was unconscious. Summus and Secundus were dead, along with multiple other people.”
Brannal swallowed thickly.