Her father noticed nothing though, and only gasped in his most intrigued way. “Demons, you say? Good sir, what prowess you must have shown.”
“Sweetling, oh, darling, dear, come here.” Her mother’s eyes had gone watery again, and she tugged Amma to her chest once more.
“A banquet!” Her father announced. “To celebrate this man’s great heroism and the return of our only child, safe and sound.”
“Oh, father, no,” Amma squealed as she again escaped her mother’s grip. “We shouldn’t. Not another one of those things. It’s not proper to use coin like that, and—”
“Nonsense!” He clapped. “Thisis cause to celebrate. Tonight!”
“Tonight?” Amma choked on the word.
“No, you’re right, dear, there isn’t enough time. Tomorrow night!”
Amma pinched her nose.
“We shall see to it that you are taken care of,” her mother said to Damien. “Accommodations and anything you might need will be brought to you.”
“I will see to that personally,” said Tia sharply from over their shoulders.
“And you.” Her mother’s eyes turned on her with that same overly-anxious and loving glow. She took up her daughter’s hands and examined them. “You need rest, but first a bath. A very long one, I think. I’ll have my ladies take care of these and your hair and…everything,” she said as if already overwhelmed by the prospect of assigning each chore. “If there’s to be a banquet, you’ll need to put your best face forward.”
“Oh, can’t wepleaseskip that? We could have a quiet dinner instead, just the four of us.”
“But dear, don’t you want to see—”
The door to the hall burst open. Standing in the entry was Marquis Cedric Caldor, golden-haired and statuesque as his bright eyes took in the ready room. He was wearing that dress armor of his, spotless and without a nick or scrape, a similarly shined up sword with an overly-decorative hilt at his side. When his eyes fell on her, she felt as if he had unsheathed it and pierced her right through the heart.
“Ammalie,” he said, breathless, and rushed forward, no concern for who might have been in the way. He swept Amma to him, lifting her up as he bent his head, and pressed his lips against hers with such pressure and quickness their teeth knocked. But he did nothing to pull away, and she didn’t dare either, even as his tongue slid passed her mouth and over hers possessively.
When Cedric finally pulled back, though he did not let go, both gasped for air. Amma had forgotten what a kiss was like, even in just a short moon’s time. She wished she could continue to forget.
“My love, you’ve returned.” His voice shook slightly, and he swallowed back a lump of prudent emotions. “I had my men searching high and low across the realm to bring you back. I was terrified you would be lost to us forever. That the future of Faebarrow itself was lost.”
At this her eyes narrowed, but she remained wrapped in his arms, staring back at that face, a perfectly calculated mixture of horror and relief.
“If you hadn’t come home, I don’t know what I would have done. Terrible things, surely.” Cedric pulled her against him once more, and a shiver ran up Amma’s spine. “But now you’ve been returned to us, and I’ll never let you out of my sight again.”
Fuck, thought Amma.
Then he released her, and her body wavered, free of the too-tight pressure of his embrace and finally able to take a full breath.
“This must be the man,” he said, turning to Damien and taking his hand. “The one I have to thank for bringing my betrothed home.”
“Yourbe—” Damien was tugged into another embrace, this one he simply stood lax under as Cedric slapped him on the back. Left dumb once released, Damien could only stare at the floor, bewildered.
Cedric turned back to Amma, falling to a knee and taking both of her hands into his own. “Ammalie, I swear to you, on my life and by Osurehm’s holy light, whoever is at fault for your disappearance, I will find them, and they will pay by my own hand. Dearly.”
Looking down into his eyes, she saw it, the steely flicker that had evolved into something monstrous since they had met, hidden away and saved only for when they were alone. His words echoed back into her mind—she had disappeared, returned, come home, but not been taken—and the cold dread of realization rose up in Amma then that Cedric, somehow, knew exactly what she had done.
CHAPTER 29
THE MANY FACETS OF TEMPERAMENT
“I
don’t trust you.”
Good instinct, thought Damien as he stared back at the tall, muscled woman that Amma had called Tia. She was human, though he would wager there was a hint of giant somewhere in her ancestry, like Anomalous, which would account not just for her size but for the graceful way she’d aged.
