Page 23 of April's Fool
Damon turned and looked completely unruffled. “I know I can. Then it’s all up to the coven. I’m not going up against a witch.” He shuddered.
“Not a fan of witches?” I’d caught his hesitation with them when they had shown up to help Cody. I doubt anyone else noticed. They likely hadn’t been paying as much attention to him as I had been.
“No.” The simple word said more than a whole paragraph. There was history there. I decided not to push. Instead, I went to my room and packed a bag.
Gregoris entered just as I was finishing up. “Your highness… should we be getting involved in this?” His expression spoke of concern, but his recent actions told another story. My bodyguard was jealous of Damon. I’d clearly left this talk too late. I hated upsetting people, but drew in a breath and held it before I spoke.
“Yes. Not only is it important to my son that I keep Damon safe, I care about Damon. You know this and I’m sorry if this hurts you.” Gregoris’ mouth opened and closed without a sound escaping. “I know the lines have blurred between us and there may be feelings involved, so I will understand if you don’t want to come with us. If, going forward, and you wish to, we could find another place for you. If working for me is uncomfortable for you.” I sighed. “It’s really okay to stay here. We’ll go straight to the witches.”
“I’m coming with you! You can’t leave me behind!” Fire flashed in his eyes. His magic flared. In response, mine threw up my personal wards. Gregoris stumbled back at their strength.
Gregoris growled in frustration. “Please, sir, don’t leave me behind,” he begged. “I couldn’t bear it ifanything happened to you. Why do you need to go at all? Why can’t we just open the portal for him?”
“You want me to leave Damon on his own with witches when he’s clearly uncomfortable with them and when he’s in trouble? Who are you, Gregoris? I thought you had more empathy than this! I want to help Damon. I want to be near him.” I sat on the edge of my bed and clasped my hands together. This was a mess of my own making. I’d seen the friction between them and done nothing to stop things coming to a head like this.
My friend paced. “I don’t understand the fascination with the human. He’ll grow old. He could die at any minute! The man is a killer, and he was after your son!”
“Yes, he is. And he could have killed Cody at any time,” I said simply. “I know Damon is a good person and only kills those who would harm others. That’s why he protected my son.”
Gregoris turned a furious expression on me. “He’s not good enough for you. You’re a prince and he’s just a…”
“Just a human,” the man in question drawled as he leaned in the doorway. “And one that has somewhere to be.” He straightened. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get going. Places to be, people to see and all that.”
My eyes narrowed. The emotions coming off Damon were complex. There was hurt there, anger, a flash ofbitterness that stung. Also, a tinge of humor, likely at my expense. I could have handled this better.
“Damon…” I tried to put my thoughts into words.
“Maybe we just aren’t meant to be, Mori.” Damon shrugged. “I’ve never done the serious stuff and I think we might be too different. Besides, you two make more sense than we do.”
“That’s not what I want.” It just slipped out. I caught Gregoris’ flinch. “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “Gregoris, I care about you. I really do.”
“Is this one of those human break up cliches? It’s not you, it’s me? We’ve never had a problem in the bedroom, so we are obviously compatible.” He sat on the bed, slumped in defeat.
This time, it was Damon’s turn to flinch. “I’ll come back.”
“No,” Gregoris sighed, “I’m sorry, I just wanted…” There was a long pause, where we all stared at each other. It was super uncomfortable. Damon lingered, looking all for the world like he wanted to flee. While the silence stretched on, I searched for something to say. Then Gregoris spoke again. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You’ve been nothing more to me than my boss and my friend, despite how much I wanted things to be different.”
“Gregoris…” I reached for my friend.
“It’s fine. Let’s just get this done. Find a witch and then we can deal with all this when we get back.” He stood, then chuckled. “Guess that Seer was accurate.”
I felt my face drain of color as his meaning became clear. Gregoris was going to leave me. “No!”
“It’s for the best, your highness. I’ve lost myself in this. Caused harm to you with my own feelings. I’m looking at things recently and nothing I see pleases me.”
“But—“
“We can talk about it when we return.”
I couldn’t lose my friend like this. Somehow, I had to convince him. I glanced at Damon. Was he worth losing Gregoris over? Even before there was a chance with the young man, I hadn’t considered a relationship with the guard, so putting the blame on Damon was unfair.
Maybe Gregoris was right. Perhaps some distance between us would do us good. My heart ached. Either way, with or without Damon, I was going to lose Gregoris, just like the Seer had said.
A portal to the human realm was easy enough to make. Damon supplied the location and together, Gregoris and I formed the doorway to Northarbor.
The coven house was so well warded that we exited the portal quite a distance away. They would likely know we were on our way, as any coven worth their magic had several alerts. I’d forgotten about their tricks in our haste to get to Toth. None of us had believed that Basil, the witch that had owned Toth, would have had much time to do anything to my new son, or get away, but we had underestimated just how clever he was.
Now we were going to do this the human way. It was unlikely that Basil knew all the tricks that Damon did.
