Chapter 7
Headache. Dry mouth. So thirsty.
I groaned and rolled over.
In a bed. At least it wasn’t a stone slab.
“Get up. He’ll come looking for you soon.”
Athira? I cracked open an eyelid but couldn’t bring myself to ask the question What happened? There were only so many times a gal could black out before she got tired of the debrief.
I bolted upright. “Adeuto.”
“Shush, you fool,” Athira hissed, pulsing her magic after to check for company.
We were in my chamber. But I’d been in the desert.
I gave up. “What happened?”
That was the last time I’d ask that question.
“Adeuto and Owu heard screaming. When they reached you, you were unconscious. The animal was standing over you. Blue dust surrounded you.”
Succinct. If I could choose between regaining consciousness around Gratia or Athira, I’d choose Athira. I kneaded my forehead, trying to process what she’d said.
Neti fucked me up.
The gem had crumbled to powder.
Now I felt awful.
And—
Awfully like myself.
I stood in a rush that nearly made me pass out again. “Not happening,” I whispered, breathing thinly until the urge passed.
I felt like myself.
I felt… I could feel my reason for being here. I felt my fire and drive and self-respect. My eyes closed, and my exhale shook with relief.
Neti had done something to me, and now that she’d healed whatever was wrong in me, I could see the extent of how messed up I’d behaved since waking after the joining.
So much of that hadn’t been me. From healing Carmine when I wanted to kill him, to humiliating Darthy, to inviting Carmine to do all kinds of things to my body.
I’d existed in a savage, unhinged cloud that had blocked my wants from my actions. Now I’d burst back above the surface, and a powerful wind had cleared the skies.
“What happened?” snapped Athira.
“I’m glad someone else is asking.”
She snarled, “You’re lucky I came to check on the boys when I did. Do you have any idea how close Carmine came to locating you? He returned from Earth minutes before I got you here. Minutes.”
A sobering thought. “Thank you. You’re right. That was a near miss.”
Minutes. I might have had myself back, but my son could be dead.
“You can’t take that risk again.” She whirled away.
She’d been afraid for Adeuto. “I agree.”
Athira glanced back, eyes narrowed. “What did happen?”
I released a breath. “I got lucky.”
I wasn’t about to share the exact details with a demon who could betray me.
Carmine would undoubtedly try to tie me closer and closer with the last three rituals.
Now that I knew rituals came with the price tag of losing who I was, I wasn’t about to tell Athira my single antidote to finding myself again. I might need Neti in the future.
But phew. Right now, I’d let myself feel glad that Neti had attacked me and made me think the realm was exploding. Even if her healing had felt like she’d ripped hundreds of barbs out of my flesh and bones.
“The banquet will start soon,” Athira said. “Scrub away the traces of me.”
She disappeared through a portal.
I erased her magical and physical presence from the chamber after.
She’d done me a solid tonight. Shit. I wished that Adeuto and Owu hadn’t witnessed that.
They must have been terrified. Maybe rushing there had been unwise, but tonight I’d write a letter for Athira to deliver to them.
I could only imagine how she’d explain everything otherwise.
And some toys for Owu. He needed his own things.
After hugging myself tightly, I hurried through a shower.
“No crimson,” I growled, then paused in the act of reaching for a pale pink dress that a self-respecting Magus would trade their best foraging kit for.
Carmine had known something was up with me since the last ritual.
He’d known I wasn’t myself and why. He’d apologized to me—in typical cryptic fashion.
From this side of the fence, I could see without question that he’d said those brutal, sneering things about my family’s murder to drive me to my senses when I was trying to seduce him.
Which only further confirmed that he’d known I wasn’t myself.
He’d watched the way I treated Darthy, and I recalled the strange look in his eyes when I’d acted out of character.
Carmine understood what had happened during the joining ceremony, and he’d chosen to keep me in the dark. Nothing new. He hadn’t done anything to reverse whatever had happened either.
Which meant a cruel and unhinged Syera had served his purposes. Which meant my sudden change back to Old Syera would alert him that I had a healing source.
My head panged. I wasn’t meant to think this much.
Okay.
Okay.
“I need to play along.” Until I knew the consequences of not doing so.
I picked a short crimson dress made of leather. Panels were cut out of the torso, but it wasn’t anywhere near as revealing as last night’s fancy loincloth number.
Out of everything I’d done after the last ritual, wearing a loincloth was the biggest indicator that I hadn’t been myself.
I ruffled my shaved head, feeling the fluffiness. I’d regret shaving it in about two months, but for now, I kind of liked the lightness and ease. My hair was always done.
Heels on.
I clicked down the halls and burst into the dining hall soon after. My most preferred evening. The kind where we just ate and bitched.
I ignored the sideways looks from red and crimson demons seated at the long tables. Darthy didn’t look up from her empty plate, and I might’ve stopped to smooth things over if there wasn’t a part to play.
Guilt pulsed through me, but she was collateral in my war against Carmine. I was grateful for my demon morals sometimes, though my Magus side held other views on the topic.
I sat next to Carmine and flicked my napkin out.
“Enamai,” he murmured.
I glanced at him. “Carmine.”
He searched my gaze. “Are you well?”
“Good as ever, mate.” The words soured in my mouth.
“I wondered… after last night.”
Oh, shit. Last night. I’d totally forgotten. I should be ashamed and pathetic. “Last night?”
You couldn’t come up with anything better, Syera?
Nope, I really couldn’t.
“You don’t remember last night?” Carmine asked in a low voice. His gray eyes rimmed in crimson were like lasers burning into mine.
I didn’t know the right answer. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Gratia snorted and sipped her drink. “Not as good as you think, brother.”
Carmine’s jaw clenched, but not at her comment. He closed his eyes, and that torture that I witnessed in him from time to time had its brief cameo on his face and in his demeanor.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
His throat worked. “Nothing, enamai. Everything is fine. Please eat before the food grows cold.”
I’d been going for “humiliated woman in radical denial,” but I got the sense that Carmine had made a whole other connection. If I’d managed to slip through that interaction, then he could believe what he liked.
I was myself again. And maybe I’d missed a great opportunity to kill the demon king, but my fight had returned. Now I had a mystery or three to solve.
Freedom for my loved ones and supernatural races was still possible.
I had to contact Tempest.
I had to figure out a way to harness that white magic from the Crave Arena. That was the way I could fight Carmine and survive to live a life with my son.
“Any plans for the next ritual, my son?” Athira said from Gratia’s other side. Raes was on my left, and I could guess that Athira had taken his seat.
Before throwing me in the fucking deep end. This was payback for scaring her earlier.
“Not so soon, Mother,” Carmine answered. He hadn’t touched his food, but he toyed with the stem of his goblet.
Athira sniffed. “Why the delay?”
“I am waging war.”
“Completing the mating will strengthen you. And the human.”
Human insult. This was definitely payback.
I asked her, “Don’t you have enemies to track down, Mother?”
“Always,” she answered. “But the worst of them is dead.”
Carmine glanced sharply at her. She was referring to my grandfather, and even if she was secretly on my side, that was a low blow.
I smiled over my goblet. Those seated closest to the royal table were listening, and not bothering to hide it. Not at eat and bitch night. “The worst of us still lives, Athira. But perhaps not for long.”
Carmine glanced at me. He’d hurt his neck looking between us. This was one of those times where his reactions were all human. A man caught between his mother and mate.
I laughed into my drink.
Gratia asked her mother a timely question, and my grin widened when Raes turned to me and said, “Syera, I heard that you train early in the mornings. I wondered if I could join you. I have some skill with weapons, but I have much to learn.”
I’d say absolutely now that he was becoming the mate of a princess.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m there at dawn most days.”
Though my trainings had become sporadic with near-death and many blackouts. My body was missing the exercise. And my mind.
“Thank you,” he said.
I studied him, and the way he stared over the heads of the demons before us, instead of at them. In turn, they stared at him in clear challenge and disgust—led by Athira’s attitude, but also Gratia’s public distance.
They’d treated me in a similar way.
“Raes,” I said. “How is your family? Are they keeping up with the blacksmith business?”
He darted me a look. “They say things are well, but I sense they’re…”
“Trying not to worry you?”
“Just that.”
I leaned back and stared at the demons staring at him. They found other places to look. This should be Gratia’s job. I hated Carmine, but when we’d been together in public, no one had dared to look at me the wrong way. “You should go see them.”
He blanched and shot a quick look down the table. “No, no. That won’t be necessary.”
“I don’t see Gratia forsaking her family because she’s mating to you. Why should you forsake yours? Unless there’s some issue with the color of your family’s scales?” I followed his look down the table and locked eyes with Gratia. “That wouldn’t be the case, would it, sister?”
“Never,” she declared.
Did anyone believe that? At least she’d given the right answer.
I sighed happily. “That’s settled. Your family will be overjoyed to see you.”
A crimson near the front snorted.
A victim. I called to him, “Demon, come here.”
The demon glanced at his neighbors, then seemed to realize I meant him. He released a jet of smoke, which was about the equivalent of pissing his pants.
He shuffled to the royal table.
“You were amused when I mentioned Raes seeing his family. Please go ahead and share the joke?”
The crimson stole a peek at Carmine, then met my gaze. “Mate-intended, I was laughing at something else.”
“I don’t mind a joke, demon,” I replied. “I do mind a lie. Go on, I’m eager to be amused too.”
There was no way out of this for him.
The crimson squared his shoulder. “I am not the only one to find amusement in the joining of our powerful princess with a blacksmith of purple scale. I had expected him to fight his own battles.”
“Expected… or hoped?” I asked.
Wisely, he didn’t answer.
“You must have felt very sure of victory being of crimson scale. But then, how odd that you were never of strong enough caliber to be the mate of a princess yourself. Perhaps that is because you tend to laugh at demons who you deem weaker than yourself. Tell me. When was the last time you made a sword?”
He remained silent.
“No? Then tell me, when was the last time you cooked your own food or did anything more than wipe your ass?”
A few laughs.
No reaction. The crimson was fixed on survival now.
I flicked the crimson aside with a snap of my smoke.
He flew over the heads of the others to crash against the far wall.
I stood. “Raes is the mate of my sister, and though he is far more capable of survival than most in this chamber, I officially challenge any of you to mock him. He is championed by the royal family.”
I should have just said “me.” All gazes swept to Athira.
Dang. Well, payback was a bitch, and two could play at that game. “I said the royal family, not the mother who just birthed some of the royal family.”
Gasps rang out, and I sat again, unable to stop a few chuckles. I strongly believed that mothers were stronger than anyone in the world, but damn if I didn’t mind lying through my teeth to reduce Athira to a commoner.
Yep, I’d enjoyed that.