Page 10 of Royally Hacked Belle & Flame
I sigh. “He couldn’t come. There’s still a lot of wedding planning to do, and some children went missing from the village.”
Nana sighs. “We’d better start thinking of an excuse, your mother isn’t going to be happy that you’ve avoided letting her meet him…again.”
“I’m not avoiding it,” I lie. Nana shoots me a disbelieving look and I grimace. “Okay, I’m avoiding it a little. Mom is already suspicious about my spontaneous move to ‘Ireland.’ I’m afraid she’ll grill Daemon and he won’t be able to answer hernormal human questions. I’ve been preparing him, but do you have any idea how hard it is to explain basic shit like airports to an immortal Fae man whose only meaningful experience in the human world was during World War I?”
Nana reaches over and pats my leg. “Well, you’ve got a few hours to think of an excuse. It’ll take that long to drive back to Philadelphia.”
“I’ve been starting to think we should tell her,” I say.
Nana grimaces. “Well, I’m glad you think so because honestly I’m not sure how much longer you’ll have a choice. Unless you want to fake your death, I suppose.”
I laugh, but Nana doesn’t join in.
She’s not joking.
Nana’s car rumbles into my mother’s neighborhood, which is so aggressively suburban the HOA probably has drones that fire warning shots if your recycling bin tips over.
We coast past rows of perfectly cubed hedges, every house straining under the weight of synchronized Christmas lights. My mother’s place is the worst offender—a beige brick monstrosity with an illuminated reindeer army and a ten-foot inflatable Santa so menacing I suspect it comes alive at night. There are even lights on the mailbox. Where did she plug them in?
Nana snorts as we pull into the driveway, making a show of shading her eyes against the blinding decorations. “She’s outdone herself this year,” she mutters, and I can’t tell whether she means it as a compliment or a cry for help.
“I’ve always thought being a tacky Christmas-lover was one of mom’s best traits, actually,” I comment, getting out of the car. “I kind of like it. There is no Christmas in Ellender. I mean, there’s Yule, but that’s a lot less…commercial.”
Before we can even ring the bell, the front door opens, and my mother—hair shellacked to perfection and heels sky-high—waves us inside while simultaneously shouting instructions at someone on speakerphone. “No, Kevin, I don’t care what the pilot said, you don’t just sit around an airport bar for eight hours, you get on the next plane.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do, Iris,” Kevin replies patiently, his voice blaring out of the speakerphone. “There is no next plane. There’s a blizzard out here. No planes are leaving the airport for at least the next 24 hours.”
“So rent a car, or bribe someone, I don’t know!” She glares at her phone like it personally invented winter weather. “It’s Christmas!”
Nana does this little cough I know is supposed to be a greeting. I try to wedge myself between the nearest mountain of gift bags and a cluster of poinsettias so I can get my “hello” in, but Mom’s focus is laser-trained on her phone.
There’s a sudden crash upstairs, followed by a plaintive shriek. My mother’s eyes twitch but she doesn’t pause her rant. “Excuse me,” she says, and smacks the mute button. “Ruby, if that was the sound of my Christmas village tipping over, you’ll be doing the dishes by hand for the rest of your natural life!” she bellows upward, then unmutes. “No, not you, Kevin, I was talking to the child.” A pause. “YOUR child,” she adds, pointedly.
I snake around to the staircase, my socks slipping on the polished wood, and peer up at the landing. Ruby—my college-aged step-sister—stands clutching a white rabbit the size of a small dog. She’s petite and blonde, and wearing a black mini dress, sharp black eyeliner and red-and-black striped tights. Herrabbit is wearing a matching striped sweater. She’s cooler at nineteen than I ever was, and I’m honestly a tiny bit afraid of her.
“Hey,” I say casually.
Ruby lifts her chin. “Hey. Where’s the billionaire?”
“Not here,” I sigh.
She gives me a look, then shrugs. “That sucks.”
It does. It does suck.
“Heard you’re eloping,” Ruby says. “Badass. Iris has been rage-Googling wedding venues all afternoon.”
I almost laugh but it comes out as a nervous hiccup. “Wedding venues?”
“Yeah. Get ready, she wants to ambush you into having the wedding here while you’re visiting…but since your guy isn’t here, I guess that’s out. Good luck.”
“I should have stayed home,” I groan, more to myself than to Ruby.
She answers anyway. “Yeah, probably. I wouldn’t be here either but my entire dorm closed for the holidays. That should be illegal, like, peoplelivethere. Whatever. I’ll be down in a second, I just need to put Thackeray away.” She smirks and vanishes into my childhood bedroom, which she seems to have taken over. I wonder vaguely where I’m supposed to sleep tonight, but don’t care enough to worry much about it.
Back in the kitchen, Nana is already pouring herself a mug of something suspiciously dark—it might be coffee, but more likely it’s mostly whiskey. My mother, having finally hung up, rounds on me with a sigh so melodramatic it’s giving telenovela.
“Alixandrea,” she says, stretching my name to three distinct syllables. “You’re late. And wet. And you didn’t bring Daemon.”
