Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I don’t do demonic names. That beast I’d killed would be “cat thing” to me for the rest of time.
Liv stood. “Like I said, someone smuggled one off the plane and bred it in captivity and released it back here. Likely after they trained it to kill Lord Sloane. Is your father still alive?”
“He’s on a lesser plane with no way to get back here,” Gray assured us.
“I’ll make sure the former Lord Sloane is where he’s supposed to be,” Casey promised. “Because killing Gray would be an excellent way to force himself back in. It would be one thing if Gray were dead with no heirs.”
But I was pregnant, and I’d been told demon babies are tough. There was every reason to believe I would carry through this pregnancy and Gray would have an heir who wouldn’t be old enough to rule on his own. “What would happen if Gray died?”
“The Council of Demons would appoint a regent,” Gray said with a frown. “Even if the babe was still in utero, a regent would be found, and he would rule until our son was deemed old enough to handle it on his own. Due to the unique nature of the kingdoms, they would select a blooded relative.”
“I’m going to kill him.” There was zero doubt my father-in-law was behind this.
“Kelsey, I don’t see how he could have done this. He doesn’t know you’re pregnant for one thing. I’ve kept it quiet. Second, he would have to find a drixalranous, and gain access to this plane. There are only a few ways off and on.” Gray slipped out of his ruined jacket.
“Then I’ll start there.” I already had a case, and the worst kind. I wouldn’t get paid for it and it involved people I loved being in danger.
“I think we should start with trying to figure out if it was born here,” Liv countered.
I was going to use her curiosity. She hadn’t been willing to talk before now. If we were working a case together, it might help warm her up. “How would we tell?”
“There are a couple of spells,” Liv mused.
Oh, I had a problem with that. “You can’t work spells.”
She sighed. “They’re not dangerous, and you know you’re going to have to allow me to work the Dark Light spell when the time comes. I can’t leave that up to the princess, who is the only one here with any magical ability. Not that it’s a lot.”
“She’s quite competent,” Casey argued.
“With Fae magic, so the spell I’m thinking about to determine where the beast came from will work, but the Dark Light spell is pure blood magic.” She put a hand to the collar around her neck. “So this will have to come off if you expect me to save Dean’s life. While you’re at it, I’m not going to help you do anything if you don’t remove Casey from my room.”
I was confused. “We’re not in your room. How can I remove him?”
“You can explain to him that he is not sleeping in my room.” Liv carefully enunciated each word, as though I didn’t speak the language.
Casey was sleeping in her room? “Do we not have enough rooms?”
Hah, this was what I’d been waiting for—Hell to play its games with me. What if that big, gorgeous house was like a reverse TARDIS? What if it was way smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside, and we were all going to be cramped and up in each other’s business? That would feel more like Hell than this nighttime Bridgerton set.
“There are twenty-five bedrooms, if you don’t include staff rooms,” Gray announced. “I assure you Casey was assigned one, and it would have everything he needed. Tix would have made sure. He’s nervous about Eddie being here. He wants things to run perfectly so you don’t have him remade.”
“Okay, that sounds terrible. I’m not going to remake him.” I looked to my problem children. “Casey, you don’t have to stay with Liv. Lily assures me the collar will do its job, and we’ll assign a guard outside her room.”
“I explained to Tix that I would be staying with my wife,” Casey said.
Suddenly the giant cat thing with drooling pus wasn’t what had my attention. “Wife?”
“You really want to go that way?” Gray whistled when Casey gave him a short nod. “Can you back that claim?”
“In the tradition of my vampire class, I have bonded with the witch known as Olivia Carey.” Casey kept his eyes steady on Gray. “I can taste the food she eats, feel her emotional state when she is not shielding from me. I felt her again for the first time in years this afternoon.”
“He can’t prove that,” Liv said, her face flushing. She looked like my Liv in that moment. Embarrassed to be caught in something so intimate. She’d had a hard time accepting Casey’s love.