She appears totally innocent as she looks back at my mother. “Baelfire has been very good for me. The perfect mate.”
Gods, I love my sadistic little keeper. She absolutely knows she’s driving me crazy with her praise—and calling me mate? That’s below the belt.
Literally. My dick is starting to get hard down there, damn it.
“Good,” my mother grins, motioning at the rest of us to head inside. “Come on—as always, you’re still officially invited in, Crypt. Breakfast is ready, and we added a second mother-in-law suite to the house a few months ago. You five can stay in there for now.”
Everyone starts to head inside, but I stay still for a moment, using Maven as a shield to hide my slowly softening erection. She smirks over her shoulder.
I shake my head, booping her nose with mine. “Hellion.”
“You like it.”
“Iloveit. Just like I love y?—”
“I will twist your nipple again,” she warns fiercely.
I laugh.
Quinn prances up to us, bouncing on her toes. She’s my brother Grady’s daughter through two of his quintet members. Technically, none of my brothers has managed to have a kid. My niece and nephew are both a result of other members of their quintet, but still—my family couldn’t be more grateful to finally have kids in the family.
I didn’t see Grady here, so he must still be stationed at the Divide. His family stays here in Decimus territory whenever he’s deployed.
“Will you guys stay for New Year’s? Please?” Quinn chirps.
She’s a water elemental. When I was here a few months ago, she liked to splash people’s laps and loudly announce that they’d peed themselves.
Maven regards the little troublemaker. “I hope so.”
“Me too!” Then Quinn blinks up at Everett. “Hey, why’s his hair white? Old people have white hair, but he doesn't got any wrinkles.”
“He doesn'tlookwrinkly,” Crypt agrees, crouching and cupping his hand beside his mouth like he’s sharing a secret with her. “But I promise that on the inside, he's far more boring and wrinkly than any old geezer you've ever met.”
“His name is Snowflake,” I add helpfully.
“Oh! I like your hair, Snowflake!” she says before hurrying into the house.
Everett sighs. “I fucking hate you guys.”
I laugh and take Maven’s hand, leading her inside.
My family’s house is just as busy and cozy as it’s always been: spacious, rustic, and still heavily decorated for Starfall festivities with bows, holly, fake snow, and all kinds of other shit. The tree glitters in the living room right beside their massive TV, which is currently muted.
But I stop in my tracks when I see what’s on the screen. So do Crypt, Silas, and Everett.
Because holy fuck.
A newsreel shows a slightly blurred image of a massive room with an Olympic-sized pool. Its water is a suspicious red color. Blurred-out lumps in the background can only be bodies, but front and center is a slightly censored, naked, bloodied corpse.
Del Mar.
And standing in front of him is Maven, poised for a fight with her favorite dagger. She’s covered in blood, her throat marked with a vampire bite, and her dangerous dark gaze is pinned on the camera, so it’s like she’s glaring through the screen right into my soul. My mate looks powerful, terrifying, fierce, and?—
“Holy shit, you’re sexy as fuck,” I sigh, squeezing Maven’s hand. “How do you make violence look so damn good?”
Silas squints at the screen. “Am I mistaken, or is that a gaping hole in the hydra’s chest? You took his heart?”
“He deserved worse for putting a collar on Baelfire,” she mutters angrily.
