He was a demon like any other, and demons understood a deal that profited both parties. “I will not sever the mating ritual with you until I am more powerful.”
The monster was listening.
“While I am partially mated to you, there are those who will not risk harming me.” The words cost me. I didn’t want him to know anything of my plans.
He smirked. “My mother.”
“Among others. The mating ritual gives me protection I currently need.”
“Until you win Tiers.” The cold faded from his features.
I could practically see him turning over all the possibilities.Then I will have already hatched my plans to control her. She will not be able to sever it then. I will let her believe that she has won.
Classic evil mastermind stuff.
Carmine pushed off the bed to loom over me. He regarded me on the bed, then turned away as though the sight of pathetic ol’ Syera on the bed was too much for him. “Go.”
The demon king stormed from the room, and there was a whoosh of a portal before silence fell and the smell of sulfur remained.
I released a long, shaking breath.Mother be.How did he find out about my conversation with Tygrio? Questions for another time, because all I wanted after being in this soulless fucking fortress with these soulless fucking people was to go home. That was my sanity in this mess.
I was already late.
First I portaled to the thin, crumbling walkway that I’d shuffled across with the other Tiers contestants last week. No one arrived behind me. Not Carmine, and not his mother. I pulsed out my smoke in search of any tendrils sent to follow me.
Nothing.
Even so, I portaled to a second fake destination before doing the series of checks again.
And then, only then, did I portal home.
I stared at the sad shack wedged against bedrock. Sand extended for as far as the eye could see, and unless you stood exactly where I was, you’d never know that a home existed here.
This place meant so much to me.Home.Refuge. Refuge from myself and refuge from him. Here, I had healed as much as I ever would. Here, I’d experienced so much joy and felt more exhaustion than I’d thought possible. In this place, I’d cultivated the inner strength that Carmine now saw and that everyone else could sense. Not because of unsatiated lust.
A yell sounded from within, and a smile broke out on my face, nearly followed by tears. The door to the shack burst open, and a small form burst from the doorway.
I dropped to my knees, arms open wide to catch the little person who was my everything. Who was the reason I needed to free my twin by entering Tiers. Who was the reason I had to kill Carmine. Who, two and a half years ago, became my reason for all.
“Mama!”
I caught my son in my arms.
9
“Mama back tomorrow?”
There was a specific type of pain reserved for mothers. The type of pain you felt when you weren’t providing enough for your child’s heart. Would Adeuto remember my absences as I played Tiers? Would our connection fade when his innocent adoration for me faded and he became an adult in his own right?
His pain was my pain.
I wanted to be here with him every moment, and that I couldn’t—that I had to deal with his father—made me hate Carmine more. I blamed him in the same way other demons in Tiers did, because if Carmine was suddenly gone, then all of my problems would disappear.
If I’d never met Carmine, though, I never would have fallen pregnant. Even after hearing the truth of my family’s murder, I may not have found the strength to leave if I hadn’t discovered my pregnancy. Demon pregnancies were rare, so Carmine had never suspected the truth. We had only been sleeping together for a few months, after all. Usually such things took decades and centuries.
Demon pregnancies were faster than human ones, too, and far more intense. If not for my grandfather, I might not havemade it. But he’d brought me to the desert, to this place where he’d hidden when Carmine first granted him mercy.
My grandfather had known how to hide me. To hide us.
