I wanted to skip breakfast, but my stomach didn’t lie. My emotions were still raw, but I got dressed andcomposed myself before making my way to the dining room.
Three sets of eyes landed on me as I took a seat at the far end of the table, away from them. It was petty, but what did they expect? They could have their little ménage à trois for all I cared. I wished Lilith had stayed in power. Then we wouldn’t have been experiencing this shitshow.
Maybe I should have taken my plate of food back to my room. Far better to eat alone than endure whatever this awkward breakfast theater was supposed to be. At least in my room, I could lick my wounds in privacy, without having to watch Val’s attention flicker between Sammy and Amari.
“What are we going to do about the house mage?” Val was drinking blood, and I resisted the urge to gag.
It was only a matter of time before he convinced Sammy to let him take a bite out of her. Then she might as well be owned by him.
“They’re harmless from what my mother told me when I was young. She said that many demons stopped trusting them.” Sammy moved her eggs around her plate but hadn’t eaten anything yet. She looked exhausted, and a pang of guilt went through me that I was probably the cause.
“We should be concerned about why this one has turned up. He could be a spy.” Val had a reasonable point, but I knew he was wrong.
“He’s not a spy. His name is Kage, and he is so nervous that he stutters.” I bit into my toast that had been slathered in nut butter and stifled a groan.
“He gave you his name?” Val shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable.
“Yes. Why?” I gulped down some water and set down my glass harder than necessary, sloshing water out. Val acted like I had done something wrong.
“He appeared out of nowhere and spoke to me too. Hedidn’t tell me his name, though.” Sammy shrugged as if a man appearing in her room was no big deal. “I bet he’s the reason my room has been so well taken care of.”
My anger came back in full force. That fucker had been in our room while she was in there. Just how many times had he been lurking and watching us?
Val stood abruptly and strode out of the room. We all exchanged looks. A few minutes of awkward silence later, he was back with a book.
He smacked the book down on the table between us and started flipping through the pages. I rolled my eyes at his dramatics and continued eating my breakfast. As annoyed as I was, a man’s got to eat.
He picked up the book again and began pacing the length of the table with it tucked into the crook of his arm. His finger swept over the page, and he started jabbing it.
“Get on with it already.” I bit my tongue to stop myself from tacking ‘bloodsucker’ onto the end of my command.
“He bound himself to you.” He set the book in front of me, pointing. “If a house mage tells you his name, he is yours, and you can call on him to serve you.”
I leaned over and looked to where he was pointing. “You’re fucking kidding me. Who wrote this bullshit? Let me guess, bloodsuckers?”
“I sense some hostility from you, Nicolas.” His finger moved to another paragraph. “A house mage who binds themselves to another demon answers only to the holder of their name. However, they may accept commands from that person’s mate or mates.”
I grabbed the book and brought it closer, reading through the few paragraphs of information. He would die if I released him after he had chosen me.
“Damn it.” I slammed the book shut and threw it in the middle of the table. “This is wrong on so many levels.”
I dragged my hands down my face as the weight of responsibility for another being settled on my shoulders.
Another life. Another person whose survival depended on my choices. I’d already failed at this once, already buried someone I was supposed to protect, and now the universe had handed me a nervous house mage with a stutter and magic that made him mine whether I wanted it or not.
All of their eyes were on me again, and the dining room suddenly felt like it was shrinking, the ceiling dropping inch by inch, and the walls inching closer with each passing second.
My fingers fumbled slightly as I reached for my glass of water, desperate for something to do besides sit there being scrutinized. The cool glass against my palm offered the tiniest comfort as I gripped it, wishing I could shift and disappear behind it or douse them all and make a run for it. Neither option seemed viable.
Amari had been silent while he ate his slab of meat but put his knife and fork down. “Try calling him.”
I glared at him, my jaw clenched so tight I could feel my molars grinding against each other. The urge to shift and scamper up the nearest curtain just to escape this entire situation was overwhelming, but I stayed put.
Maybe there was a loophole since I hadn’t been aware of what Kage even was. There was only one way to find out.
“Kage, come here.”
I wasn’t expecting it to actually work, but in less than a minute, there he was, standing next to me. He had literally appeared out of thin air.
