Page 76 of Demon's Bane

Or so Esme thought.

“And before Allie, uh, Queen Allison, recast the bargain,” I continue, “witches couldn’t get through. It was some kind of Goddess thing, something to do with the way the bargain functioned before. Or at least that’s what I always assumed. But others in the coven… others higher up and more powerful than me might know more.”

My face flushes again at the reminder of how unhelpful I’m probably being.

Alva smiles kindly. “We don’t expect you to have a realm’s worth of answers for us.”

“Well,” Rhett says, standing from the table and clearing away the empty plates to deposit them in the sink. “We might have a few more after we speak with the king and queen today.”

Halla snorts. “Or they’ll just toss you in a cell beneath that mountain of theirs, and the rest of us with you.”

Alarmed, I turn in my seat to face her. “Why would they do that?”

“Because our council made the ever-so-wise decision to handle this on our own rather than take it directly to them,” Alva says, an irritated edge to her voice. “A decision which I—”

“Opposed,” Rhett and Halla respond in unison, sounding so very alike.

“We know, ma,” Halla says, “but you were out-voted, and for better or worse Rhett stepped up and went to the human realm to investigate it with the coven.”

She pauses for a moment, glancing back and forth between Rhett and I. “And perhaps there was a reason for that.”

The flush on my face deepens, and Rhett crosses from the kitchen to stand behind me with his hands resting lightly on my shoulders. I tip my head back to look at him, and the tenderness in his gaze makes my breath catch.

“Whatever the case,” he says, running his thumbs in soothing strokes over the nape of my neck, “what’s done is done. And perhaps the new queen will show me some leniency, given how much her best friend seems to like me.”

I roll my eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

He squeezes my shoulders, gives me another one of those looks that makes the bottom of my stomach feel all warm and melty, and apparently we’re being a bit obvious, because Alva clears her throat.

There’s no judgment in her gaze when Rhett and I tear our eyes off each other. There’s nothing but warm approval and undeniable affection as she looks at her son, along with a hint of something else that almost seems like… relief.

All of it—the easy conversation with Rhett’s family, the kindness they’re extending to me—puts a bubble of happiness in my chest.

Right alongside a tight squeeze of worry.

Even with as amazing as last night was, everything between Rhett and I still feels like a question so much bigger than I’m capable of answering. Having a demon mate, figuring out what any kind of path forward for us would look like, navigating two different realms and a whole lot of trouble still brewing between them.

And that was even before I met his family.

We’ve just barely scratched the surface, but Halla and Alva seem great. More than that, they obviously love and care for Rhett and are happy to see him happy, and it doesn’t take a huge leap of logic to assume the opposite would be true, too.

If all of this doesn’t work out…

I don’t want to think about it right now. Ican’tthink about it right now. Not with a trip to the demon court looming ahead of us and the very real possibility that we’re about to seriously piss off the king and queen of the demon realm.

So I smile back at Alva, brush my fingers over Rhett’s where they’re still resting on my shoulder, and try to concentrate on the present instead of worrying over the future.

Alva and Halla stay for a little while longer, helping to clean up and telling us more about the cave-in and the start of the long, slow process of getting it cleared out. They wish us well on our trip to meet with Allie and Eren, offer Rhett some last-minute advice on how much he might have to grovel to keep himself out of a dungeon, then head back toward the village.

Rhett and I linger in the doorway, watching them go. When they disappear around a bend in the path, he lets out a tense breath.

“Was all of that too much?”

I glance up at him. “Your family?”

“My family. All their questions. Going to court today and putting it on you to—”

“Okay. Let’s take it one at a time. First, your family’s great. Second, their questions are more than fair.”

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