Chapter Thirty-Seven
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Theo
I hold on to Val’s hips, careful to avoid the places on her upper body where the burn has not yet healed no matter what we tried. There’s no way in the hell dimensions she’s using her magic again until we’ve figured out how to keep it from consuming her from within.
“Ready?” I ask.
“You don’t have to meet my family,” she tells me.
“If you go, I go.”
“Monty’s already coming with me.” She tips her head toward her enchanted purse where Montejanus has curled up in mongoose form. The toy unicorn is tucked between his front paws.
“I’m better protection,” I argue.
“And more likely to want to kill my family.”
“True.” There’s no denying how angry their mistreatment of my mate makes me. “What if I promise to be on my best behavior?”
She snorts. “Yeah. I don’t know if your best behavior will rate actual socially acceptable standards in the human world when a guy meets his girl’s family.”
I tighten my claws. “I like hearing you call yourself my girl.”
“Yeah, well, mate’s not really a thing where I’m from.”
“You don’t have to do this.” I’ve already tried and failed to dissuade her. “I’ve ordered guards to watch over your family and Rosemarie’s. Meg has no one left in that dimension, and the sea witch told me she would drown any guards I sent. My people will keep your family safe.”
“I know.” She sighs. “But I can’t run from this emotional mess forever. Not when my mom and grandma tried to trade me in for a flower. Unlike some people, I won’t risk allowing hurt to fester because I avoided talking about it.”
“Touché,” I whisper. “However, talking won’t give me any closure on Gilly’s betrayal. Only taking her head will end this.”
“We’re both going to need a therapist who specializes in crazy family dynamics.”
“Tell me who you want, and I’ll drag them?—”
“No kidnapping.” She puts a finger over my lips, and I nip at her with my fangs.
“Fine, I’ll pay them well to move into the castle for as long as we require their services.”
“Better.” She checks the bag with Monty again before picking it up and adjusting the soft jumpsuit that skims over her burns. “I guess we should get this over with.”
“Get through the meeting with your family, and we can try the healing magic again on your burn.”
“You trying to get into my panties?”
“Always.”
She grins. “I’m not even wearing any.”
I groan. “Then let’s stay in. My guards can handle your family.”
“Nope. Beam me up, honey. Besides, the quicker we go, the quicker we can get back.”
“I’ll banish everyone from our suite, including your soul guardian and your new prickly friend from The Valley of the Gods. You know they will require his return, don’t you?”
“They can have him back when the hedgie is ready to go. Now, let’s see what’s happening with the Bonetti family circus. Teleporting into my old closet at home should be safe. We’ll warn them, and I’ll still have hours before the conference call you scheduled with my friends.” Her soft smile when she talks about her friends makes the difficult conversations I had with their mates worth it to arrange for the four women to talk without monsters eavesdropping on their chat.
“I plan to fill those hours with my horns between your thighs and my tongue buried in your sweet pussy.” I breathe in the scent of her arousal. “Mmm, seems your body agrees with that plan. Time to go, love.”
“Asshole,” she mutters.
I chuckle. “Always.” In the next moment, I don my human glamour, and we teleport into a darkened closet.
Val pushes open the door. “Here we go. I’m glad your glamour is so perfect. Although you may be too perfect. Mom will draft you into the show.” She leads me through a room full of hot pink pillows and sequined throws alongside a microscope and a jumble of textbooks. It’s tidy, colorful, and so very Val.
“This room is yours?”
“It was. Mom doesn’t allow cameras here except at the vanity. She didn’t want me appearing too nerdy or…smart for the show. Yeah, I realize how horrible that sounds.”
“Explain again why I can’t kill your mother.”
“It’s not like your mom and dad would win any awards for awesome parenting. Your dad took your crown, and your mom cursed me to carry this magic that burns me from the inside out.” She heads out of her childhood room. “Your folks were trying to protect you in their own weird way. Maybe my mom was doing the same.”
The second we hit the hallway, I want to yank her back into the room. Stacks of boxes labeled Bonetti Beauty reach the ceiling, so crammed together that the corners of the cardboard have crumbled and dented. Magazines and newspaper pile between them like kindling. “What the?—”
“I know,” she says. “It’s hoarder central. Welcome to the start of my everything has its place obsession. I already lose stuff, and this didn’t help.”
“I’ve known sludge demons who kept their caves cleaner. Is the whole house this way?”
“Everywhere except where the cameras might be.”
“Let me spark the tiniest Brimstone flame, and it’ll all burn.”
“Tempting. But no.”
We turn a corner, and a demon who looks shockingly like Reginald when he’s not in shadow form walks toward us.
“ Val Bonetti?” he says as though surprised, his British accent nothing like Reginald’s voice. “They didn’t tell us you’d be here for the competition.”
“Competition?” Val asks.
“The monster makeovers,” he says as two other demons come out of a doorway.
“Run along, extra.” The pale one with giant teeth waves away the Brit next to us like she’s his queen and he’s a lowly peasant. She glances our way and immediately holds up her hands as if to ward us off. “Val? Don’t jinx my makeover. I intend to win.”
“Harsh,” the other says. He doesn’t look like any demon I’ve ever met. His horns meet above his head in a heart shape no self-respecting demon would allow. “But yeah, I don’t need the latex peeling off. This perfection took them forever to put on.”
“I missed you, too,” Val says without a hint of honesty. “Where’s Mom?”
“Downstairs with Nonna,” the pale one answers.
Both demons back into their room, bumping their horns on the doorway as they go.
“Amateurs,” I mutter.
“The twins,” Val says. Before we start down an elaborate staircase, she whispers, “Guess you didn’t need your glamour after all.”
“Humans parading as demons. What kind of show does your family star in?”
“A fucked-up one,” she answers.
I follow her past crew members working on boxes with tons of wires pouring out of every side, pushing massive lighting rigs, and reorganizing furniture like none of this house is a real home.
“Val?” A blonde whose cold glare and haughty demeanor make me think of Gilly—before my sister went psychotic—meets us at the bottom of the stairs. “Why are you here?”
“Theo, this is my older sister, Bree,” Val says. Her sister gives me a scathing once over before dismissing me.
“Again, why are you here?” She breaks down the question for my mate like she thinks my woman is stupid.
“Raised here the same as you, big sis.”
“No.” Bree scowls. “I mean, why are you here ?” She glances around as if checking for cameras or eavesdroppers. “You were supposed to be traded for the rare plant thing that’ll reinvent the skincare industry.”
What. The. Fuck?
I manage not to flame this woman to the ground because it might hurt Val’s feelings. Also, I reassess my comparison of her to Gilly. Both our sisters are clearly cruel and insane.
Bree keeps talking as if she doesn’t realize—or care—that she essentially agrees with selling her sister for something she doesn’t even know the name of. “We voted on it.”
Val goes tense. “Who do you mean by we ?”
Bree waves a hand as if it’s a ridiculous question. “Me, the twins, Nonna, Mom.”
That’s it. I need to end this family one way or another.
“Where is Mom?” My mate’s spine stiffens, anger radiating off her.
Good. Anger is excellent.
“In the kitchen.” Bree gives her attention to the tablet in her hand as though whatever’s on it is more important than her own sister. I want to rip it from her. “Don’t fuck this up for us, Val.” The woman heads up the stairs, brushing off the horrible revelations she just dealt Val.
“Can I kill her ?” I whisper.
“No.” Val doesn’t sound as certain as she did earlier.
“Gods, I hate how our sisters prioritize status over those who love them. At least I have Nic. We have Nic. You know my baby sister adores you.”
Val looks up at me. “Thank you. My found family of you, Nic, Monty, and Ora—you’re everything.” She lifts her chin. “And we’re keeping the hedgehog for as long as he wants to stay.”
Of course she would pick now to negotiate when there’s no way I would refuse her. Although I probably couldn’t have denied her anyway.
We step into the kitchen, and an old woman points her knobby fingers at us with such hatred and fear that I glance to make sure my glamour is intact.
“Cursed one,” she calls out with a hiss that would make any snake demon mother proud.
“Nonna,” Val answers.
“Holy shit.” I keep my voice low so only my mate can hear unless someone in this house is an actual monster with supernatural hearing instead of merely pretending. “Is this how she usually greets you?”
“Pretty much.”
“I can’t kill her?”
Val doesn’t hesitate. “No.”
“Can I at least maim her a little?”
That earns me an extreme side eye. “We’re here to warn them. Not to do Gilly’s job for her.”
A woman with a thousand-dollar haircut and enough Botox to freeze the melting Arctic joins us. “Val, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
My mate’s smile is as fake as this other woman’s lips and breasts and…well, everything. “I’m sure you didn’t, Mom.”
Ugh, a million plagues on my eyes for having noticed her mother’s inflated tits, however negligibly.
“Who’d you bring to visit us?” Her mother’s voice drops into a sultry nightmare.
Apparently, I’ll need to scour my ears as well.
“My demon lover,” Val answers, and I almost choke. “Of course, you’d expect that with the way you offered me up in exchange for a flower.”
“Not just any flower, my darling,” her mother says. “A Brimstone Bell. The very bloom that began our family’s fortune. And no one specified you had to be the cursed child offered up.”
“See any other cursed daughters running around?” Val asks.
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” her mother drawls, and here I thought my mother was diabolical. “You seem happy enough.”
“No thanks to you,” Val mutters.
“Evil.” Her Nonna shakes her horned hand at me.
“Pot, kettle, lady,” I tell her.
“I came to warn you of the problems in hell, and how one of the demon princesses has made you a target,” Val says.
“Because of you,” Nonna seethes.
“Because of you,” I counter. “Because of your family. Messing with magic you don’t understand, and attempting to summon someone you can’t control.” I don’t add it’s also because of me, because I couldn’t stay away from Val.
“Regardless,” Val cuts in, “we’re here to warn you to stay close to the house. Demon guards are here to protect you, and they should fit in better than any of the fake demons you have running around.”
“We don’t want demons here,” Nonna says.
“Then what do you want?” Val asks.
“A Brimstone Bell,” her mother snaps before lowering her voice. “Our corporation teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. The magic is gone. Gone . Without a Brimstone Bell, we’ll lose everything.”
Val’s expression crumbles.
“Your family has already lost everything. Val is all that matters.” I pull my mate into my side. “Let’s go, love. You’ve warned them.”
“Bring them one of the Brimstone blooms.” Her voice goes cold. I’ve heard my Vicious enraged, upset, and scared. But this? It’s infinitely worse.
“Are you sure?” I ask her.
She nods. “I don’t want any reason they can call me back.”
I teleport a single bloom, and her mother snatches it from my hand.
Montejanus peers over Val’s purse, nudging her as though he senses her hurt. “We’re done here,” she says. “Don’t call. Don’t summon. Don’t ask for anything else.” She leans into me. “Let’s go home.”
Home. She calls Shadowvale home .
I glare at her mother and Nonna, letting my glamour slip enough to show fangs and horns. “Give me a reason to come back here. I dare you.” To my mate, I say, “I’ll tie you to our bed and make you come until you can’t walk straight and you’re too full of me to think of this or anything else.”
“Promise?”