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“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 Shadowvalehome.
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?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Val
Theo made good on his promise of making me forget—at least temporarily—about my family and their drama. My throat’s still sore from screaming, and yep, I’m walking a little funny, but my burn healed almost completely with the amount of mating magic we generated.
Hell, the whole castle buzzes with power.
The tech gremlins not working on the DNA project decided to launch a new energy storage system to harness the sex magic Theo and I create so others can tap in for spells, charms, and healing.
Having everyone know their potions get extra sparkle and magical boosts from my orgasms? Notat allembarrassing. But the power bumps mean I rate full body projections of my friends courtesy of Shadowvale being a happy castle.
“How cool is this?” Meg asks, reaching for our illusion forms as though she could touch the rest of us. She might be a minotaur’s queen, but she left off the crown to rock ripped jeans, an oversized sweater, and paint splatters. I spy streaksof dayglo pink in her red hair and almost ask if she’d rolled around in the color, but I figure I shouldn’t kick off our first conversation in forever with talk of her and Leander’s sex altar in the labyrinth’s temple. Even though Ireallywant to ask.
Ava’s sleek blonde ponytail rocks back and forth slowly with the waves since she’s aboard her kraken’s pirate ship. The stacks of planners, stickers, and pens behind her make me think of our apartment together. I miss it, but I’m happy for her. “Rosemarie,” she asks, “are you sitting on an actual throne?”
Rosemarie blushes as pink as Ava’s dress. “It’s part of the Bridge of Souls now. Besides, the dragon torched a lot of the Gargoyles’ Keep during the attack, and I didn’t want to get in the way of the repairs.” She wears a silver crown with a green stone set among her dark curls.
“Such a queenly way to look at it,” I say, not surprised in the least with Rosemarie being the consummate people pleaser. She wouldn’t want to bother anyone. “I feel inadequate hanging out with all you queens and I’m a lowly…me.”
“You’ve always been a queen, and I’m just a princess,” Ava calls. “Which is already plenty weird. Besides, aren’t you next in line for queen of hell?”
My stomach spins, and my good mood deflates like a sad balloon left drooping days after the party. “First, Theo would have to take out his sister. As in behead her. He says he’s ready, but who could ever be prepared for that?”
“It’s an unthinkable level of terrible,” Ava agrees. “But it’s not your fight. Why are you insisting on going with him to the haunted house? Monster battles aren’t fun. I’ve fought one, and honestly, it sucked. I almost lost my kraken.”
“I second the sucky part,” Meg says, raising a paint-streaked hand. “Almost lost my minotaur.”
“Third,” Rosemarie adds. “Almost lost both my gargoyles and the Bridge.”
“How did you end up with two mates?” I ask her. “One’s more than enough for me even though Theo has two cocks. How do you?—”
