Dave jerked to his feet, and Aunt Liz tugged his arm, shaking her head. “Sit down.”
Here goes nothing.I rose from my chair, swallowing thickly. Hudson was a step behind me, a silent protective presence at my back. After wiping my palms on my dress, I swung open the door, just as a man in an impeccable suit opened the rear door of the idling car in the driveway.
Elegant legs appeared first, followed by her familiar form. Her lips curled into a smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes, and my heart beat with an erratic rhythm. They said if you stared your fear in the eyes, you could overcome it. I wasn’t just testing that theory—I was banking my life on it.
She traipsed up the stairs and smiled at me.
I returned the smile on reflex. “Good evening, Grandmother.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Only polite conversation at the dinner table. Leave your talk of world domination until coffee and mints.
Sometimes, bright ideas were so wonderful, they made you feel you were on top of the world. Other times, they were just idiotic. The jury was still out on which camp this fell into. If I was a betting woman, I would say the latter.
I escorted Eloise into my dining room, the eyes of the room ranging from shock to anger. Lucifer looked a little amused, but he was ever the outlier.
Abaddon quirked a brow. “This is quite the surprise, Cora. You really did invite everyone.”
I needed information from her, and we weren’t really in the tea and cake stage of our relationship anymore.
Dave grasped his fork tighter, and I could see him weighing up the many ways he could kill her.
I held up my hand. “Before you get murdery, she’s bound to me for the evening. You kill her, you kill me.” It was my idea. She knew everyone here would place my life above hers. Plus, I wasn’t ready for her to realize we knew about Donn.
Aunt Liz glowered at her mother, as did all my aunts. But Liz seemed a little unhinged at that moment. Maybe it was Dave’s influence.
Hudson, ever the gentleman, offered my grandmother his chair while he placed himself at the end of the table, creating a barrier between myself and Eloise. Maggie found a clean plate and put it in front of her.
“This looks lovely. Your doing?” Eloise asked with a look at Liz.
“We all pitched in, like family should.”
I hadn’t pitched in at all.
“Apologies for my lateness. I had a last-minute video meeting with Gareth.” The presidential candidate. She was testing us to see if we’d heard her delightful news. No one reacted, and that was answer enough for her.
“You know the rules,” I said. “No shop talk, and no drama.”
“Are veiled threats allowed?” Dave snarled. He was white-knuckling that fork like he was weighing up if I should be sacrificed.
“Depends how veiled they are,” Sophia muttered. “Eloise is a little thick skinned, so unless you pitch it just right, she won’t even notice.”
My grandmother stared down her nose at her sister. “I wasn’t aware you were in the country.”
Sophia grinned. Ah. Eloise was monitoring her passport. I suspected my aunt traveled with Lucifer Airways, which meant she’d go undetected. Clever. I enjoyed Eloise being on the back foot for once; it made for a pleasant change.
“How is the pack?” Eloise asked Hudson as she took the first bite of her meal. Everyone else followed suit, but in slow, measured bites while they side-eyed my grandmother like she was an unexploded bomb.
“Restless,” Hudson answered. Okay, we were down to one-word answers. “They don’t enjoy the fact you tried to ensnare them with a spelled pact. That’s below the belt, Eloise, even for you.”
My grandmother didn’t miss a beat. “So you discovered the magic. It would have gone so much easier if you’d signed it, then all of this could have been avoided. But you just had to make it difficult.”
“Wanting freedom isn’t being difficult,” Aira said as she passed Sebastian the turkey plate. Dave eyeballed it and snatched two slices as it went past his nose.
“You would have still maintained your freedom. There’s no need for dramatics.”
Rebecca snorted, a very un-princess like thing to do. “You might have given them the illusion of freedom while you maneuvered everyone, but it would have been just that—an illusion.”
