Bane
Despite Amaranth andthe O’Neils being gone, breakfast and dinner were served routinely.Ferguson seemed to have his hands full, and though I’d had every intention of finding myanam caraand wrapping my wings and legs around her until she couldn’t move from them, it seemed that Violet was nowhere to be found.
Not to mention, Desmond was trying my patience.
I’d agreed to help him.Not just with his heat issue, but also I’d promised the queen and his parents that I would make sure he remained safe and cared for in their absence.Except Desmond was not some unruly child.He was twenty years old.Petulant as all hell, but he was an adult and certainly I did not need to babysit a grown ass adult incubus.
But there was also the truth that if somethingdidhappen to Desmond on my watch—while the queen and his parents were gone—I would certainly never be considered for a viable consort.If something happened to the Dark Fae Prince on my watch I was likely done for and I doubted the queen would let me within ten feet of Violet, and rightfully so.
So whether I liked it or not, I was on Pissy Prince duty, which also cut into my time with Violet.
“Are you okay?”I asked, nudging her arm.
She jolted, blinking at me as if she had just remembered where she was.
“Of course,” she smiled, but I could tell it was not genuine.“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I knew I should have pressed her.But I thought perhaps her worry was centered around her mother and her return.It made sense, but there was nothing I could do to change her worries or soothe them.
So I said nothing and continued to cut my chickencoq au vin.
It had taken much fighting with Ferguson to let me into the kitchen.But ultimately, when I’d popped my wings and glared at him with my incubus gaze, he relented.
Desmond was not impressed, and he was vocal about it.
“A good consort would know how to diplomatically assert themselveswithoutcalling their monster,” he’d said.
“A good Prince would know when to shut his mouth.Lest he wants to end up in thecoq au vinhimself,” I had countered, but he only rolled his eyes at me.
Still, all things considered, I think it turned out rather well for his first official meal.
“Is the chicken too tough?”I asked.
Violet shook her head.“No, I’m just tired, is all.”
“I can’t believe the summer is almost over,” Delaney said.“It feels like we just got here and now, within a few weeks, we’ll all be leaving for Blackthorn.”
“Not without a birthday bash, right?”Norman said with a grin, raising his eyebrows.
Wanda gracefully leaned over to take a bite of her chicken after blowing on it.
I noticed the proximity between her and Norman seemed to be not as distant as it once was, and I wondered if they had made up over whatever it was they were fighting about.
Not that I cared about Wanda and Norman’s slippery situationship-relationship-fingasm-ship.
All I cared about was Norman had seemingly stopped trying to leech lust off of me, and Wanda seemed less bitchy than usual.Which was saying something.
“A festival on your birthday is pretty dope,” Delaney nodded.“I wish my birthday was a damn holiday.”
“When is your birthday?”Desmond asked, his voice apathetic and smooth.
“Not until the end of August,” she said with a huff.“Unfortunately.”
“August twentieth, right?”Violet asked.
Delaney nodded.
“Perhaps we shall declare August twentieth, Delaney Day,” Desmond said with a half-smirk.
