Chapter 8 #3
“Oh, yes,” Masu answered readily. “She’s a spoiled brat who thinks she deserves whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. That’s why she’s so upset about the master’s refusal. And about your arrival.”
“My arrival?” Leda asked.
I wanted to put a stop to this discussion, but I knew it was no use. The two females would just continue it as soon as my back was turned. With a sigh, I followed them into the kitchen.
“Yes, your arrival as the master’s guest,” Masu repeated.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, I’m sure someone has told her that you’re sleeping in the master’s bedchamber,” my housekeeper continued. “Which implies certain things.”
“But we aren’t… I mean, it’s not like that!” Leda sputtered.
I tried to ignore the pinch of pain her words caused. She wasn’t a daemon. She didn’t feel the pull of instinct and fate the way I did.
“It doesn’t matter. It appears as though you are, and that has Lady Venna all in a lather.”
Masu emphasized Venna’s title with a heavy dose of disdain. Considering I’d heard Venna insist that my housekeeper address her as milady more than once, I wasn’t surprised by Masu’s tone.
Leda turned to me, her expression worried. “Is this going to cause you problems? Me, I mean?”
I shook my head and sat back down at the kitchen table.
Our breakfast dishes had been cleared, but Masu was already back at the stove, making sweetened porridge with apples and spices.
It was a dish usually made for children or the sick.
I understood her enough to know she was making comfort food for our human guest.
“Bokkan, seriously. If you have a relationship with this daemon, I don’t want to get in the way,” Leda continued.
I shook my head again and rubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t have a relationship with Venna. We are neighbors. That is all.”
“But she wants something from you, doesn’t she?” Leda asked.
“That doesn’t mean she will attain it.”
“Then why did she mention petitioning the king?”
Masu dropped her wood spoon into the pot of porridge and faced me, her hands on her hips. “She threatened to petition the king? For you?”
A sharp pain pierced my head behind my left eye and radiated up my scalp, all the way to the tip of my left horn. Gods, why could the females around me not just listen to me for once?
“She did,” Leda answered for me.
I rested my chin in my hand and propped my elbow on the table. Obviously, they didn’t need me for this conversation.
“Of all the ridiculous, spoiled, selfish, desperate, grasping things to do—” Masu cut herself off and fell silent. “Surely the king wouldn’t grant her petition. It’s been over a hundred years since the last time a daemoness petitioned the king, and even then, her claim was denied.”
I shrugged. “You know Venna.”
Masu’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s that mean?” Leda asked.
“It means that the wench will do whatever is necessary to get her way. She’ll push, lie, steal, and blackmail. Among other things.” My housekeeper studied Leda, then me. “Surely she would not challenge for you?”
My slouched posture disappeared as I straightened, my back going stiff. “She will not if she wishes to remain in my good graces.”
Masu lifted a brow at me. “You think that will stop her?”
No, I didn’t. Damnation. I had no idea what I could do. If Venna challenged for me, Leda would be forced to fight her. Our living arrangement made us appear to be lovers. It would be in Venna’s rights to challenge since she wanted to mate me.
“What does she mean, challenge for you?” Leda asked.
Before I could respond, Masu answered, “Since you’re living as though you’re the lady of the house, she could challenge you to a fight for your place here. If she wins, she would force you out and take your place in the master’s bed.”
Leda’s gazed bounced between the two of us. “She could do that?” she asked.
“Technically, yes,” I answered, shooting my housekeeper a perturbed look. One she ignored completely. “But as we are not lovers, the challenge would be useless anyway.”
Leda seemed to believe me, but Masu’s arch expression said it all. I was in denial and needed to extract my head from my ass immediately, or she would do it for me.
“Is she a better fighter than Talus?” Leda asked.
I shrugged. “She’s quicker than him, but I wouldn’t say better. She is quite cunning, though.”
“I see,” Leda murmured, nodding.
“Enough about that ridiculous female,” Masu stated, bringing two bowls of porridge over to the table. “Since my first attempt at breakfast was abandoned, you both will have to make do with spiced apple porridge.”
She set the bowls in front of us and smiled slightly when Leda’s eyes widened, and she said, “This smells amazing.” Then, she looked up at Masu. “I would have been happy to eat what you made earlier. You didn’t have to make something else for me.”
“Eat your food,” Masu replied, ignoring Leda’s words.
The human female sighed but did as she was told.
As I picked up my spoon and started eating, I tried not to worry about Venna and what she might do next. Though something told me Masu was right—the daemoness was willing to go to great lengths to get what she wanted.
Even harming the human female I was beginning to think of as mine.