Chapter Twenty-Six
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Val
“ H ow long will everyone keep staring at us like we’re some kind of religious experience?” I pitch my voice low, leaning close to Theo even if half the supernaturals here can probably still hear me. It doesn’t matter how loud the magical slot machines chirp or the roulette wheels click. Just as the flashing lights dancing along the ceiling don’t distract anyone but Monty. He flies between the rainbow patterns, letting the colors play over the gold and copper of his scales. The rest of the casino stares at my demon prince and me.
Theo glares away the attention in the crowded room. For a moment anyway. He wraps his wings even more tightly around me. “Be glad I sent all the paying guests packing, or we would have ten times as many gawkers.”
“It’s been days since we…you know.”
The heated look he gives me suggests he does indeed know . “Since I let you out of our bed?” He brushes his lips against my hair, whispering so that his hot breath teases my temple, and I almost beg him to teleport us back to the suite. “Or since we created enough mating magic to alter the space-time continuum by indulging in the most incredible fuck in the history of all the realms?”
A blush flames across my cheeks. “You enjoy making me squirm.”
“Better to make you writhe than risk your wrath, Vicious. You’ve worn me out, and I don’t know that I’d be up to fighting you off if you tried to stab me again today.”
I rush to defend myself. “It was an accident. How could I have guessed a little sulfur might turn a Brimstone Bell flower into gold with thorns the size of daggers?”
“Ora must be jealous you figured out alchemy in minutes when she has studied it for centuries.”
“She is not.” I subtly check on my dwarf friend who’s raking in a jackpot of favors and magical artifacts over at the blackjack table.
“Give them some time and they’ll adjust to our mating magic as just another quirk of living at Shadowvale.”
“How much time?” I try not to freak out at all the attention being heaped on us. “The paparazzi moves on from scandals in hours. What’s hell’s timeline?”
“When you’re part of possibly the most powerful couple in existence? With more magic than the king and queen?” He wraps his tail around my waist, smoothing it along my back in a gesture I’m not sure whether is meant to be soothing or sexy. It’s definitely working as both for me.
“Ugh, thank goodness you’ve disinvited most of your family.” His sisters are nearby. Nic is determined to win a toy unicorn to match mine now she’s seen Monty parade it around, and Gilly holds court at the bar with an ogress.
“Don’t forget you made me take in Dupree.” My prince and mate—how freakin’ weird is that last part?—grumps at an epic level when it comes to talking about his cousin.
“He’s not so bad.” I spot Dupree at the craps table leering at a gorgon and hope he knows what he’s getting himself into. “All right, he’s terrible, but in your family, you have to grade awful on a curve.” I sigh. “If only I could figure out how to isolate a genetic tracer to identify which of your relatives is the traitor. T , t his game of literal thrones might go a whole lot easier with some DNA testing. At least we could stop wondering who did it and who has simply been dragged into this mess the same way you have.”
“Applying human forensic science to demon bloodlines has never been done before. It’s enough you thought to even try.”
“I want to help.”
“You are helping.” Theo drags me into his lap as though it’s where I belong.
“I mean actually help. Not bang you into whatever power level up you were meant to have.” I don’t remind him that he hasn’t seen a boost in his magic since we set the bed on fire with inferno-level orgasms. Sure, Shadowvale healed, we have Brimstone Bell flowers everywhere, and I’ve gone from being a jinx to some sort of creation sorcery wunderkind, but Theo’s ability to call fire has remained the same. So much for mating magic being the key to his winning back the crown.
“I’m down to try again as many times as you’ll let me.” Innuendo drips from his tone, and he slips his hand from my knee to my thigh. “I’ll volunteer for all your experiments in mixing science and magic.”
“You’re volunteering as tribute?” I have no idea if he’ll get the pop culture reference.
“If you’re the prize, I’ll offer myself up however you want.”
Well, damn. Pleasure uncurls low in my belly at the possibility. “Blink me back upstairs, and let’s get this research project started.”
Theo’s grin pops swoon-worthy dimples into his scarlet cheeks. “Happy to oblige?—”
“What have you done?” The shout echoes off the walls like it has been pumped over the sound system, booming so loudly I cringe. It’s a queen’s commanding voice. Worse, it’s the queen of hell’s voice. Theo’s mom has arrived.
“Did you invite her?” I whisper.
“Hell, no.” He scans the room. Nic lifts her hands in confusion, and Dupree settles in as if he means to enjoy the verbal fireworks, but Gilly won’t meet his gaze. He narrows his eyes. “I guess we know who did.”
I squirm to push off his lap, but he holds me tightly, his tail snaking around my leg. She storms toward us, and he doesn’t give her the courtesy of standing.
“Hello, Mother.” Theo’s calm voice contrasts starkly with his mom’s pinched expression.
Monty swoops in front of me, changing from his dragon form to land in my lap as a ball of fur with raised hackles and bared teeth. I don’t question his choice of appearances.
“Everyone leave us,” the queen announces. “Except family.”
No one moves.
She seethes, bright electrical pulses flickering around her claws.
“Not your dominion,” Theo tells her. “While hell bows to you, those seeking sanctuary at Shadowvale swear allegiance only to me.”
“You’ve no idea what you’ve done,” she says with such a hiss that I wonder if Theo’s mom can shift into a snake the same as Monty can switch into mongoose form. “You’ve unleashed a weapon—one that could end our kingdom. If not our entire kind.”
A weapon? I mean I’ve had stabby tendencies since meeting her son, and I’ve set off a few teensy fires in the lab, but those hardly qualify.
“And I should care because?” Theo waves away her concerns. “Father disinherited me, remember?” I can’t decide if his flippancy in light of such serious accusations pisses me off or turns me on. They stripped my demon of his crown, but obviously, they can’t take away his colossal ego.
His mother comes closer, and I wonder how she gets such a perfect red sheen across her claws. Are they coated in actual blood? “If you insist on an audience for family business,” she says, “then it’s not on me when the entire realm learns you’ve been stupid enough to go and actually mate the human I used as a hiding spot for deadly demon magic?—”
“You did what?” Theo’s tone goes icy.
Which seems ironic given the boiling rage pouring through my veins. What is it with this woman and humans? I’m done— done —playing nice. “You human-hating, insult-slinging?—”
The queen cuts me off. “Why do you think I made a deal with your grubby, penniless family? I needed somewhere to stash a magic that might as well be a cross between the bubonic plague and a nuclear weapon for our kind. Somewhere that wouldn’t risk such a curse being passed on to my children.”
Gilly stalks from the bar, a glass gripped tightly enough in her hand to turn her scarlet knuckles pink. “What do you mean passed to your kids?”
Her mother looks to Theo. “Son, please, do we need everyone to hear something that will have them plotting to kill your human?”
My brain’s spinning on the fact she can’t even call me his mate when it skids to a halt on the last. “Wait.” I push at Theo. “Plotting to kill me? The king, your husband, his dad , painted a target on his back to grab the kingdom’s crown. Why would anyone come after me? I’m…I’m no one.” The harsh truth leaves me on a whisper.
Theo’s wings tuck close around me. “You’re everything .” Raising his voice, he says, “Can everyone else excuse us for some unexpected family business?”
Those he has granted sanctuary file out of the room quickly and quietly with concerned glances cast our way.
“You have a supportive following,” I tell him.
“So do you.” He sounds so convincing, and his certainty cuts through my anger and sadness with the sweet possibility that maybe I’ve found new friends here.
Nic crowds closer, looking as worried as Gilly seems pissed. “What do you mean, Mom?”
“Dupree needs to leave,” Gilly snaps. The clank of glass against wood as she slams down her drink underscores the command.
“But I’m family.” Dupree gives his classic smarmy smirk. Theo’s cousin definitely doesn’t do it for me. If he hadn’t saved me from those cyclops, I’m not sure we’d be friends. While he’s entertaining, any idiot can see that right now isn’t the time to stir up trouble with the few of us left inside the casino.
Theo’s mom ignores them, staring into the distance and pressing her lips together as if trying to keep from sharing whatever lies beneath the ominous crap she’s been dishing out. “There’s a hereditary power in my line, one that destroys. If it had passed to one of you, my children, you wouldn’t have been able to control it in infancy. Your father and I would’ve been forced to…” She closes her mouth, seeming to shrink in on herself.
Nic glances to me. “The demon court kills children whose powers can’t be controlled.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the chest. “That’s horrific.”
“It’s rare,” Theo says, pulling me as close as we can possibly be. “But it happens.”
Nic shakes her head. “There’s no way you could’ve known any of us would inherit that magic. Theo has Brimstone fire, I have Infernian earth powers, and?—”
Gilly interrupts. “I have none.” Her gaze swings to me, the scarlet spinning into flames. “You stole my magic. All these years, I thought I’d been born less because I didn’t come first, but no, it’s in you.” She curls her lip. “How could you give away my birthright, Mother? And not tell me? Not tell any of us?” Backing away one slow step at a time, she shakes her head in a frantic, furious version of Nic’s earlier movement. “I can’t handle this. I can’t. Not right now.”
Theo stands, pushing me off his lap and curling me tight against his side. “Gilly, don’t?—”
Too late .
She teleports away, leaving us stunned and Gilly open to more attacks outside the wards of Shadowvale.
That’s it. I had zero patience at the start of this conversation, and I’m so far out of fucks right now that I don’t care who I rile up. I jab my finger at Theo’s mom, not giving a damn if she decides to magic me into some wormhole. “Fix this,” I tell her. “Whatever you did, make it right.”
“I can’t.” Her snarl doesn’t have me backing down.
Oh no. She wants to spit verbal fire? I’m more than locked and loaded. I’m a freakin’ powerhouse of pissed off. “Undo. It.”
Bright magic flares from my hand, spiraling toward Theo’s mom. She flies backward, taking out a table of pixie poker. Chips tumble to the floor with a musical ping, ping, ping , and sparkling dust flies. Enchanted cards dance from scattered stacks to sweep around the falling queen.
Theo’s wings flare to shield me as Monty chatters and switches to his dragon form, launching into the air above us. Both are ready to defend me before I can shake away the light blasting from my skin.
Oh shit . What have I done?