“Sorry, I came as fast as I could,” she says, then spots me and goes still. “Oh! You must be Delia. I’m Phoebe.”
She sounds a little breathless. A little shy. But there’s warmth there—it hits me like sunlight on waves.
“I’m Delia,” I confirm, standing to offer my hand. “Resident fire-addict and EMT. You must be the brave soul who tamed the ocean.”
She laughs, eyes crinkling. “I don’t know about tamed. I just ask nicely.”
“Phoebe,” Jules chimes in, “this is the one who made Thorne wanna bolt out of a meeting with the Lords because his bond flared when she wandered too far from him.”
I gape. “He what?”
Phoebe grins. “Kael told me. Said he’s never seen the Lord of Fire move so fast.”
My heart does this stupid, swoopy thing. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
“Okay, I’m gonna pretend that’s not the hottest thing I’ve ever heard,” I murmur and fan myself.
Phoebe laughs again, then slips inside fully, and that’s when I see Kael lingering in the hallway behind her—only to be promptly snagged by Alaric and Thorne returning with a tray loaded with teapots and snacks.
“We’ve got it,” Kael tells Phoebe, kissing her temple before letting Alaric drag him away to argue about steeping times or whatever nonsense Demon Lords bicker about when they’re hiding their panic.
The door shuts.
And I can’t help it, I turn to the other women.
“Okay, is it me or is it so weird we’re all from Jersey?” I ask, because my brain has been trying to process that on a loop.
“Um, hello, Jersey Girls are awesome,” Phoebe replies, and we all start laughing.
We’re arranged in a loose circle on Jules’s ridiculous bed—black silk, silver pillows, enough space for at least two more badass women from the Garden State—snort.
Tea arrives five minutes later, plus a plate of little flaky pastries that taste like if baklava and cinnamon toast had a baby.
We have to basically threaten our mates with bodily harm—aka no sex—before they will finally leave us alone.
But they go, and I’m grateful because this—a regular girls’ day—is exactly what I’ve been missing.
“So, how are you coping with all of Thorne’s Demon Lordliness?” Jules asks.
Phoebe snorts into her cup.
“Uh, his what now?”
“You know, all that super-smexy shadow daddy hotness he brings to the table,” she says, waggling her eyebrows.
I might die of embarrassment.
“Seriously! I honestly thought I was having some hyper-specific stress dream the first time Kael said ‘Jersey Shore Aquarium’ back to me with his sexy ocean Lord voice. Like there’s no way that was a normal feeding pool once he stepped in it.”
“Jersey girls only,” Jules says dryly, resting a hand over her bump. “Maybe it’s a warding protocol. The Fates were like, ‘if they’re not from Exit Something, they can’t hack it.’”
I laugh, a real one, chest-deep and warm. “Honestly? I buy it. We grew up dodging potholes and weird smells off the Turnpike. A Demon Lord from a dream-forge realm is so not the strangest thing that’s happened to me.”
“Facts,” Phoebe agrees. “Also, we’ve all done frontline work. EMT,” she nods at me. “Aquarium educator—don’t laugh, those field trip parents are feral—and Jules here with her whole classroom chaos résumé.”
Jules waggles a hand. “I tried it all. PR, marketing, wrangling rich assholes and broken systems. Now, I run a school here for the children, and I adore it.”
“See?” Phoebe says. “At Castletide, I work with the sea creatures, learning what I can and writing detailed logs about it. It’s fascinating,” she explains.
