Chapter 10
ten
DANTE
I wiped the fog off the mirror with the end of my towel, staring at my reflection.
The vampire who'd been holding my throne hadn't been difficult to take down. I'd beaten him without much of a fight, and he packed his shit right away. The siren queen had too, after Jazz beat her.
All of our stuff had been in storage, but we went with Grayson to pick it up. He'd asked his mate if she wanted to come, but the fae queen turned him down. It seemed like she wanted to give us all space for a while.
River had gone to check in with the other angels in the city, for the same reason.
I'd worried that the reunion with Grayson would be awkward, but it wasn't. I'd missed the asshole. Seeing him mated and obnoxiously happy made me feel a little better about being gone for so long.
Nothing else about my old life made me feel better.
Not the modern furniture in my wing of the mansion that looked exactly the same as it had before, with just a little more wear. It had never been comfortable. Now, it seemed silly to have uncomfortable furniture for the sake of looks.
The clothes I'd carefully reorganized in my closet didn't make me feel better, either. Owning nothing but business attire and a single set of casual clothes seemed ridiculous, after spending more than a decade in a scratchy jumpsuit.
The short discussion I'd had with the guy Grayson hired to keep our businesses afloat definitely hadn't helped. He was half-assing his way through everything, and one conversation with him had been enough to prove it.
None of the shit that had once been normal for me felt like it fit anymore.
And that was far from comfortable.
I'd tried to chalk the discomfort up to transitioning from prison life to society again, but it felt like a lie. Some deep, undefined parts of me had changed. I wasn't sure how to come to terms with that.
My reflection did somehow make me feel better. I didn't look exactly the same. I looked… rougher.
Twelve years was a long fucking time to spend locked away underground, especially while starving.
That particular problem wasn't going away completely. Asking Ophelia to let me feed from her every day wasn't reasonable. I'd have to spend the rest of my life with some amount of hunger, but that was alright.
I could accept it. I had accepted it, when I offered to mate with her to get out of the penitentiary.
I'd much rather starve in a mansion than in an underground prison.
I squeezed the water out of my locs, and hung up my towel like a civilized immortal. It took longer than it should've. We'd never hung things up in the prison.
I'd always been organized, before. There was always a schedule, and a list of things to accomplish. Every night, I'd plan out the next day. Even in prison, I'd tried to do the same in my head. It kept me sane.
I wasn't sure how to plan whatever was coming next.
Or what I was even supposed to do next.
My new phone was sitting on the nightstand, plugged in. Ophelia's was plugged in next to it, though she hadn't agreed to keep it. I didn't think she had much money, but the phone thing seemed like something she was refusing by choice. Not because she couldn't afford it.
I'd have to convince her to change that.
My device felt awkward in my hand as I sat down on my bed and picked it up.
Fuck, the mattress was squishy.
I was going to have to stop at a store the next day. Find a firm one. There was no way I'd be able to sleep on a foam cushion after a decade on the rock-like mattresses the prison had provided.
I tossed the duvet aside and lowered myself to my back on the bed.
There needed to be some kind of a plan.
I just wasn't sure what.
I'd definitely have to take our businesses over again. Grayson was paying more than a small fortune every month to the asshole who had fucked many of them up.
Ideally, I'd find a way to get involved with getting the rest of the innocent people out of the prison, too. But Ophelia either didn't want me involved, or there was nothing I could do. Maybe both.
On top of that, there was the mate issue.
She wanted us to live apart. She didn't want to communicate. She wanted to meet up at the grocery store when I needed to feed.
When I had been starving, I'd agreed with that plan. Agreeing had been the only option.
Now that I was thinking more clearly, none of those things sounded ideal.
Yeah, I could let her call the shots, and just go along with what she wanted.
Or, I could attempt to convince her otherwise. Try to seduce her. Make her fall for me. Take her on dates and whatnot.
I'd dated many women, before. It had been a long time, but I could figure it out again. I'd never managed to fall for one of them myself, but making a woman love you wasn't rocket science. They just wanted to be listened to and valued.
The question was whether I should try that with my mate, while knowing it wasn't what she wanted. And that wasn't a question I had an answer for.
There was a knock at my door. I expected whoever was there just to open it. Jazz and Grayson had never cared much about privacy, and after being in the prison, it was far from an expectation.
They didn't open it.
I left my phone on the bed and crossed the room, pulling it open to find Jazz on the other side.
She'd changed into an oversized hoodie and a pair of the leggings she'd always worn before we went to the prison. Her hair was wet, her eyes were bright, and she smelled like River.
"Hey. Can I come in?" She glanced past me.
I opened the door wider, and she slipped inside.
I started to close it, but she said, "Leave it open. I don't want rumors circulating. River trusts us, but the last thing we need is for Ophelia to hear some kind of rumor about us. She already seems like a flight risk."
Ah.
That was going to take some getting used to. Having someone else to worry about in that way, all of the time.
I left the door open, padding back to my bed as Jazz curled up in a ball on the armchair nearby.
"Everything feels so weird out here. The furniture's too comfortable. The food's too good. The clothes are too soft," she said, lowering her chin to rest on top of her knees.
"We could have bigger problems."
"Like being mated to a fallen angel who refuses to own a phone?" she teased, but there was no real humor behind it.
"I've been putting off choosing a mate for a long time, and I could've done a hell of a lot worse. How are you feeling?" I changed the subject as I settled on my back on the bed again.
Yes, my situation with Ophelia was messy, but that was between us. Considering our mates' complicated past, I couldn't talk freely with Jazz about my situation.
She sighed. "I go back and forth between feeling like prison life is still reality, or like it was all just a bad dream. But then I see River sprawled out on my bed, and honestly, I'm glad it happened. How about you?"
"The adjustment is… uncomfortable."
"Clearly. You're wearing sweatpants. You never used to do that."
I glanced down.
I had put on sweatpants. The only pair I owned.
"Might have to buy a few more pairs of them," I admitted.
Her lips curved. "Oh, the horror."
"I know."
"What are the odds we'll even find Ophelia again? You might straight-up starve to death, Dante."
"Gray knows where she lives, and she's not going to let me starve. We're... friends. Sort of."
"You did snuggle a lot. And you obviously fucked."
"Had to sell the story." I fought the urge to clench my jaw with the words. It hadn't been just selling a story for me. I'd been fascinated by Ophelia since the moment I saw her.
"Is that the only reason you were fucking?"
I remembered the feel of her feathers against my cheek, as she slept deeply, like she trusted me. Her tight muscles beneath my fingers, while I worked on the painful knots in the muscles around her wings. Her face against my throat, as she cuddled in close.
No.
The story definitely hadn't been the only reason.
"Oh god, you're going to have to have the knotting conversation with her." Jazz made a gagging face.
We were all aware that she was one of the very few female demons who didn't enjoy being knotted. One bad experience had ruined her for it, and she had been disgusted every time someone brought it up since then. Which was a good thing, considering she was mated to angel.
Personally, I could've taken it or left it, in past relationships. Most of the time, I'd been with women who weren't demons, so knotting hadn't been an option.
Even if Ophelia and I hadn't been mated, she would've ruined that for me. I was very firmly in favor of knotting, now.
"Been there already," I said.
Jazz looked horrified. "Tell me you didn't knot a non-demon for the first time in prison."
"I don't think my sex life with my mate is any of your business, Jazzy."
"She could've ended up in the hospital! People who get that hurt in the penitentiary die. We both know that."
"She'd done it before. It wasn't a risk."
Jazz gaped at me. "No."
"This conversation is over."
"God, she really is insane." Jazz ran a hand over the top of her head.
"She's not insane, and she's been through hell. Ease up."
"You're kidding, right? We went through hell in her penitentiary.
River fucked up, sure, but that doesn't mean he deserved to spend a century in there.
Her magic feels like death. She doesn't own a phone.
She doesn't have any friends, and she tried to claim that her pottery is her family. She's insane."
"Her magic feels like night, she was tortured as a child, and she's both independent and an introvert.
That doesn't make her insane. She came to get us out of the prison as soon as she found out we weren't supposed to be in there.
The situation River put her in was bad enough that imprisoning him was reasonable, considering her age at the time, and what she had been through. "
Jazz stared at me. "Holy fuck."
"What?"
"You like her? As a friend, at least?"
I dipped my head. "Yes."
"You never like women."
"That makes me sound incredibly misogynistic."
"As friends. You never like them as friends. You date them, and you woo them, and you treat them like a million bucks, but you never actually become friends with them. Wow." Jazz sat up, draping her legs over the chair as she leaned back. "This is a first. Or a second, if you count me."
"You're being ridiculous."
"Well, you liking your mate as a friend is a good thing, regardless of how I feel about her. Don't fuck it up by treating her like one of your other girlfriends."
"If I could fuck up a friendship with my mate by taking her on dates and bringing her gifts, our connection would be pretty shallow," I pointed out.
"That's not what I'm talking about. You fucked it up by making yourself into their dream man without actually letting them into your life."
"They never asked for personal details."
"Opening up on your own is part of being in a relationship." She dragged a hand through her hair. "We really need to get everyone else out of the prison who doesn't belong. Without River there to protect them, you know that place is going to shit."
"I know."
"Do you think she'll do it? You know her better than River and I do."
I propped my head up on my arm. "I think she will, if she can. Before, she couldn't have gotten them out even if she wanted to. She didn't have the power for it. It took her nearly a year to get the pottery ready for the two of us."
Jazz's eyebrows shot upward. "Fuck."
"Yeah. Now that she has more magic, I don't know how long it will take, or what she's planning.
If she has a plan yet. She seemed overwhelmed by everything that happened, so she'll probably need time and space to figure it out.
Everything will go better if I give her a few days to adjust to being out of the prison before I reach out. "
"You can't starve anymore," she argued. "We both know you need to feed every day, even if you don't like it."
"I bit her in the car. I can wait until the day after tomorrow. Considering how the last decade went, I can get by with feeding every other day."
Mostly.
"I can go with you when you track her down, if you want. We can both try to talk her into going back for everyone else. River wants to get involved too, but neither of us think that would end well."
"You can't get involved. I'll ask her on my own. She might have a plan by then."
"I guess a few extra days wouldn't be the end of the world."
Both of our heads turned as Grayson stepped into the doorway with two plates of home-cooked food.
My stomach growled immediately. So did Jazz's.
He narrowed his eyes playfully as he took us in. "Are you doing platonic snuggling without me?"
Platonic snuggling was the name Jazz had given the many random times when Grayson was an asshole because he'd gone too long without physical contact.
I'd always dragged him into my bed and forced him to snuggle with me until his dickishness faded. Jazz joined in reluctantly, though she usually sat on a chair and just stuck her foot into the bed so she was technically a part of it.
"I don't platonically snuggle with other people's mates," Jazz informed him.
Grayson strode into the room, handing her one of the pasta bowls before plopping down on the bed next to me. "Unfortunately, I do."
She lifted an eyebrow. "And your fae queen doesn't kill them?"
"Technically, it was only Darius. He's basically her brother, so murder was off the table. And it was only a couple times, thank fuck."
"That sounds like a much better story than the ones we've been exchanging," Jazz said, digging her fork into the bowl of pasta. "Tell us, immediately."
He chuckled, and launched into the story.
After we ate, Jazz went back to Grayson's place to grab another plate for River, and Grayson went back to his room to unplatonically snuggle with his mate.
I picked up my phone, and clumsily made a plan on the app I'd used before. My bed felt uncomfortably empty, on top of being too soft. Spending the last week sleeping with a pretty little angel draped over me pretty much ensured that.
I'd get over it.
That was really my only option, at the moment.
The next two days would be about retaking control of my largest businesses, and driving around to check in personally with the people running them.
After that, I'd figure out what to do about Ophelia.