Gratia cleared her throat. “I’m going to spend time in the fortress gardens tomorrow morning. Would the three of you care to join?”
A demon’s idea of a garden was not the same as the Earth definition, but the women fell over themselves accepting the invitation.
“I’ll come too,” I said.
The three crimsons exchanged glances.
“Won’t it be lovely?” I smiled at them.
They blanched, and Gratia smirked.
Shit.
I escaped to the throne shortly after. That I considered sitting next to Carmine as an escape outlined just how bad I was at networking.
Carmine didn’t acknowledge me.
“No greeting?” I murmured. “I expected a proposal to buy more power by fucking you at the very least.”
The orange scale pouring me a drink squeaked and hastened away.
Carmine glanced at me, then resumed his unseeing stare across the room while tapping a finger on his armrest.
I sipped my nectar drink and hummed. “The gates, is it?”
He tensed.
The gates indeed.“Everyone was tense in the training hall. Must be a doozy.”
“Not something to discuss here,” he said quietly. In warning.
Bet he didn’t know what “doozy” meant.
I sighed. “Then take a load off, demon king. Don’t worry about something you have no control over.”
Carmine shifted on his throne. “I have control.”
I peered around. “Not from this ballroom you don’t.”
He grunted. “That is perhaps true. But this won’t last long.”
“You’re king, Carmine. Surely you can go wherever you want when you’re attacking other supernatural races.”
“I’m not attacking them,” he surprised me by answering. “Yet.”
I took another sip. “Recon then. I don’t blame you. Magus magic is nothing to sneeze at.”
Carmine’s gaze landed on me, and that seemed to confirm that magus were his first target. “I have learned that much from knowing you, Syera. And from fighting your family. Your grandmother came close to beating me. If your twin had not been injured in the crash and needed your mother’s attention, then I believe you all may have united to conquer me.”
“We can only dream,” I replied, shoving back fury.
His focus remained on me. “And if you had not been revealed as my mate, enamai. That filled me with a power unlike I had ever known.”
“How fortunate.” Tygrio was dancing in front of me, and I snorted at the twinkling look in his eye.
Every day he lived was a fucking delight to me.
“Look away from the boy, Syera,” said Carmine. “I’m in no mood for it tonight.”
