Page 65 of Sinless Demons
The pretty demon woman looks up at my mother hesitantly. Her brows lift high enough to almost touch her black horns among her deep purple hair.
She wants to go. She needs to hurry off and get an entire party thrown together in the next two hours.
And here we sit trying to decide if red or white flowers best represent a destructive fae fucker like Nathiale Sinclaire.
I say absolutely nothing.
Mother will never take my word of advice. Even if she has been giving me more worried glances since I left the castle without telling anyone.
She may worry about me, but she still isn’t good at talking to me. Not after what I’ve done.
So I can only wait.
And wait.
And wait.
“Perhaps we’ll do both and honor him with as many roses as our kingdom possesses.” Pen suggests with a sweet smile on her lips.
The pale features on my mother’s face soften as she gazes at my cousin. “You’re right. We’ll do both.” She nods with a bit of finality, and I’m tempted to hug my quick-thinking cousin right on the spot.
But we have more important things to discuss.
“Why isn’t Gravier here?” The royal woman at the end of the table cuts her attention to me with the intense suspicion only a queen is capable of.
It’s only the three of us, my mates—plus Zav—and Nille.
“He’s with his healer but should arrive tonight in time for the memorial,” I say with a lift of my chin, embodying total confidence.
I hope.
“Good,” she says. She says it like she needs him. My mother’s the most powerful woman I know. She’s never needed my father for anything.
Except for this, it seems.
With the loss of her child, she’s not as strong. Or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe it’s the loss of a child, at the hands of a child... And now she has to look that child dead in the face every fucking day and pretend it’s alright.
I can’t change what I did, but I can change the hell we’re all living in.
I can change the way we pretend.
That’s what we do here in these castle walls. We walk among all the bad, all the hate, all the torment. And pretend everything is completely fine.
That’s going to stop.
Tonight.
* * *
Soft violins drip sounds of sadness with every note they play. My gown is the same dark shade of ebony as my mother’s. The room is a sea of fae dressed in shadowy gray-and-black colors. It makes it easy for Sev and Isabella to blend in with them.
But I do spot them. Watching me from the corner at the back of the ballroom.
Portraits of my brother line the walls, with soft golden candlelight casting out the darkness around his image.
He’s asleep among the shadowsis whispered over and over and over again. It’s a well wish they say to those mourning a loved one.
I hate it.
