"Good!" Dani beams, oblivious to the tension. "She's exactly what he needs—someone full of life and light. God knows he could use less doom and gloom after everything he's been through."
Lucian pushes his food around his plate—a man I've never seen waste a single bite of Rosa's food. Beside him, Seraphina suddenly finds her empty plate fascinating, her shoulders tight with unspoken words.
The hair on the back of my neck rises. Something's wrong. Very wrong.
Erik catches my eye across the island, and a slight nod confirms that I'm not imagining things. Even Bryn, new to our dynamic, has stopped her careful exploration of guacamole to study the strange shift in the atmosphere.
What the fuck aren't they telling us?
Danica
71
Something's off. Rhyland is throwing more weird bat signals than the Gotham skyline—like the pieces don't quite fit together. After demolishing my second helping—or was it my third? Who's counting?—I grab Lucian's top-shelf liquor from the kitchen—time to excavate whatever fresh hell happened while we were playing realm-hoppers.
This Brax demon is next-level freaky. But weirdly... harmless? When he shapeshifted from a ten-foot hulking nightmare to Chris Evans' doppelganger, it nearly made me choke on my tongue.
Just when I think I've reached peak weird, the universe says, "Hold my beer," and bitch-slaps me with something new.
"Alright..." I take a shot, embracing the burn. It's five o'clock somewhere, and after the week I've had, day drinking is practically medicinal. "Hit me with it. I know you're hiding something, Lucian. What fresh hell did you stir up while we were away?"
Lucian clutches his chest like I've personally offended his ancestor's cow. "Why do you automatically assumeIstirred up trouble?"
"Because that's what you do," Rhyland rumbles, crossing his arms over his chest to make his biceps look like they're flexing for a magazine shoot.
"I resent that accusation," Lucian sniffs. "Sometimes I'm merely an innocent bystander while shit happensaroundme."
"Name one time," Rhyland challenges.
"Well, there was—" Lucian pauses, finger raised. "No, wait. Idefinitelycaused that one. "But what about—" Another pause. "Hmm. That was also me."
Rhyland's eyebrow arches so high it nearly meets his hairline. "You were saying?"
Seraphina keeps her head down, her golden hair falling like a curtain around her face. "Sera?" I prompt gently. If anyone will give me a straight answer, it's her.
She looks up, a soft smile on her lips that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "It's... Sable." She takes a breath. "Lucian sort of accidentally—"
"I turned her," Lucian cuts in, his voice uncharacteristically flat.
The words hit like a bomb. Erik's glass freezes halfway to his lips. Bryn's jaw drops. The room goes so silent you could hear a pin drop. I stare at Lucian, trying to process the words that just came out of his smart-ass mouth.
"What?"The word comes out strangled like my throat's forgotten how to make sounds.
Lucian shifts in his seat, suddenly fascinated with his drink. "Well, notwillingly. I was trying to save her after the blast, and she... died." He glances up, meeting my gaze with something that might be guilt. "But—fuck. You know how turning goes."
I'm pretty sure my brain just fried itself.
Sable.
Vampire.
Lucian.
The words swirl in my head, refusing to form a coherent sentence.
Rhyland recovers first, his voice dangerously calm. "Explain. From the beginning."
I knock back two more shots as Lucian spins his tale—Lilith swooping in like the bitch nightmare she is, Seraphina's wings getting impaled, that demon Brax having the audacity to parade around wearing my mate's face (which is going to earn him a one-way ticket back to whatever hell dimension spat him out if he tries that shit around me), and Sable...
