Chapter Twenty-Two
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Val
R ocking out to the demon version of K-pop, I’m working on an idea for a new acne treatment when Theo teleports next to me and snatches me into his arms as easily as I can scoop Monty up for a snuggle.
“What the—” I stop at the look of fear in his eyes, tugging my headphones off my ears.
“Brimstone’s toxic. I’m getting you out of here.”
“Wait.” I hold up my hands. Too late. Theo blinks us out of the room as if I hadn’t said anything.
“We can discuss this once I extinguish the fire.”
I throw my arms around his neck so he can’t put me down without prying me off. “It’s not fire.”
“Worse, it’s Brimstone.” He reaches for my wrists, and I tighten my hold.
“It’s not . Shadowvale, turn up the ventilation in the lab over Station Three please.”
“If you?—”
“Hey,” I snap. “Who’s the one distracted now? Stop being an alphahole and listen.” His jaw clenches, and with anyone else, I’d worry he might be dangerous, but Theo won’t hurt me. “It’s a simple chemical reaction—controlled and properly ventilated thanks to your magic castle.”
“What were you thinking, building a lab in our suite?”
I would be pissed at his insufferable, overbearing self except he called it our suite. Instead, I toss his words back at him. “I was thinking you said ask Shadowvale for anything I needed. I got inspired by the party, had ideas for some things to help your investigation, built a chem lab, and had even more ideas once I started.”
“The purple smoke came from a science experiment to catch a demon?”
“What? No.” I play back my words in my head except I can’t remember what all I said. “Can you repeat the question?”
“Did you work all night?”
“Judgy much? Didn’t you?”
“It’s different,” he insists.
“It’s not.” I push my fingers through his hair, wondering why it’s a brown and blond in his human glamour but red and black his demon form. “You keep trying to save me.”
“Because you’re my mate.” He leans into my touch, and I melt a little until he opens his mouth again. “And it’s my fault you’re in this mess.”
I cover his mouth. “Should’ve quit while you were ahead.”
He mumbles around my palm, “When was I ever ahead?”
I’m tired, wired, and already lost the buzz of interest in my new projects. Laying my cheek against his chest, I say, “Your mom’s curse doesn’t work here.”
“You’re not cursed.”
“Then a jinx. Whatever, it’s gone in this realm. I can work in the lab, and chemicals react how they’re supposed to.”
“Think the mating magic had something to do with it? Even without a completed bond?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “It created like a dozen new Brimstone Bell blooms. I had to get Shadowvale to repot them all.”
“Mother will be jealous.”
I perk up at the chance of spiting his mom. “With what she has said about me so far, I’m okay with that.”
“Back to the lab?”
I open my mouth to say yes and yawn. Not a dainty, delicate yawn. No, it’s one that cracks my jaw and makes my ears pop. “Let me shut down my experiments and then I’m ready for bed. You?”
“Only if you’re in it.”
My cheeks heat. Why can’t he be snide, easy-to-hate Theo? This Theo is hard to resist, yet I try as I check the half-done experiments, shoving the rest of the smoke reaction under the hood and checking the top-of-the-line DNA extraction and sequencer machines as they whir around us. There are definite perks to being with a demon prince and his magic castle. Monty sleeps curled in a cozy cave of fleece, only the tip of his tail visible.
Theo stands near the door, his hands in his pockets.
“What’s with the human glamour?” I ask him.
“Less tendency to break things.”
That’s it. His confession to being worried about something so un-prince-like as being a klutz? It kills me. “Then let’s get you away from the beakers.” I take his hand and walk to his bedroom like we’ve done this a thousand times instead of twice.
Somewhere along the way, I lose my bravery. Or my good sense. “About that kiss…”
“It was a fucking amazing kiss.”
My heart kicks into a hell yeah drum beat. “Yes, it was.” So much for me staying strong. “Wait, no, what I was going to say is I’m worried about your mom’s prophecy about me wrecking your world if I trap—her word, not mine—you into a mating bond. I wouldn’t have considered it a possibility before I saw you heal or the flowers multiply.”
“She meant our union would metaphorically risk the kingdom, and she’s wrong.”
“What if she’s not? What if she meant it literally?”
He tenses. “Are you saying no to completing the mating bond for now or forever?”
“How about until we figure out whether or not we destroy worlds if we screw?”
“I’ll live with that.” He smiles, and damn, his dimples and those crinkles around his eyes slay me. I don’t even protest when he pulls me close and asks, “What about another kiss? Think that’ll set off an apocalypse?”
“Willing to risk it?—”
He cuts me off with a press of his lips to mine in a kiss that tiptoes the line between savage and sweet, possessive and pleading, teasing and take-no-prisoners conquest. Despite his human glamour, he still smells of Theo, and I want to inhale it deep into my lungs to cover the sulfur and ammonia of my experiment, but my breath stutters as I fall into the kiss. I crave him.
When he hitches me up, I wrap my legs around his hips and reach up for horns. Finding none, I settle on running my hands through his hair rather than pry my mouth from his.
He carries me into the bedroom, not making it to the bed. No, he pins me against the wall next to the door, holding me there as he licks into my mouth. My body clenches with need. He tugs at my shirt, palming my breast and tweaking the nipple. Chills prickle my overheated skin.
A moan slips from me, and it seems to provoke him into pumping against me as if he knows exactly what sweet spot he’s hitting with that friction. Between being trapped by his body and the wall, the steady rhythm of his grinding into me, and the hot press of his mouth to mine, I’m shaking and panting.
So much so that I lose all balance when Theo snarls and yanks away from me.
God, talk about a complete one-eighty. Has he suddenly gone off me? I mean he couldn’t have been faking that, right?
I catch myself against him a moment before his arm wraps around my waist. “What?—”
“Someone’s summoning me,” he says on a growl, then drags me to the dressing room where I got glammed before the disastrous presentation to his dad. “Stay here. Don’t come out no matter what you here. Remember, it could all be an illusion, something designed to prey on your sympathies.”
“They can just do that? Rip you away from whatever or whoever you’re doing? In this instance, me?”
“Trust me, Vicious, I’ll make them pay for their impertinence.” He closes the door.
I’m a sweaty, desperate mess, and I’m ready to kick the ass of whoever dared to summon Theo. What a crock of demon crap. Who’s a big enough narcissist to require someone’s presence rather than text like a normal person? Probably a supernatural, but still, they have cell phones in the hell dimensions. What if it’s Theo’s mom? My libido takes a sharp nosedive, and I shove my ear to the door, straining to listen to whatever’s happening on the other side.
Theo speaks with someone who has an equally deep, grumpy voice, only the other speaker sounds rougher, more guttural. I can’t track the conversation, only the voices. The scent of saltwater fills the air as though we’ve walked onto a beach. I can almost make out the crash of waves, and then, beneath the male grumbling, a familiar feminine voice comes.
“Ava?” I whisper.
It’s impossible. My best friend can’t be here in the hell dimensions, but what if she’s on the summoning side of the connection?
I squeeze against the door, fighting to hear anything beyond. Stay here, Theo’s words echo in my head. It could be an illusion .
But that’s Ava!
Twisting the knob, I shove at the door. It’s stuck. Not stuck—locked. “Shadowvale, open this for me right now.”
The door swings open, and I run into the bedroom.
“Ava? Oh my god, is that you? Get out of my way, Theo.” I shove him aside, not relenting when he fights me. A man with tentacles for a face appears in the mirror where our reflection should be. I touch the glass surface, surprised when I can’t reach through. “How does this work? Ava, can you hear me?”
My best friend appears in the mirror, face flushed and eyes wide. “Val. Are you all right? How about Meg and Rosemarie? I’ve missed you.” Her voice goes teary, and I want to climb through the mirror.
“I’m good. Or as good as I can be with Theo .” I break his name down into scalpel-sharp syllables so he’ll know how pissed I am at him right now.
Theo interrupts, speaking to Ava instead of me. “Your mother is the sea witch. Did Seb tell you that?”
“What?” I whisper, but Ava’s face fades. The mirror only shows me and Theo.
“Get her back,” I tell him.
“I can’t,” he says.
“Then tell me how to.”
“You…” His rage-filled expression softens into something wondrous. “Actually, you can. I’ll tell you exactly what you’d have to do. But if we succeed, I need to know if you want your friend to discover the truth about who she is.”
I force myself to remember what he said to her. “A sea witch’s daughter?”
“ The sea witch’s only daughter and heir.”
“A literal witch? I mean, I know her attorney mom can be intense, but are you talking a cackling, cauldron-hugging witch?”
“Worse.” Gone is my teasing, trying-to-tear-my-clothes-off demon. His pinched expression is serious, anxious even.
“Then let’s get to summoning.”