Page 4 of Nope, No Regrets
Now we were in this mess because his daughter couldn’t leave Olympus alone, and Bael wanted their resources. Rei was alone, and Bael wanted their resources. I wasdyingto hear how Barbatos was going to explain why Hell hadn’t come for her until now! It wasn’t because I hadn’t tried.
Neither of us gave a shit about her nephew. She acted like she was angry about it, but I heard her heart race when she talked about it. Warden Snow didn’t really care, despite all her bitching. If Rei killed him, well, he probably had it coming.
“Demons don’t live here with you. We don’twantto live among you. Rei is an important person in Hell, and her life was in danger. Her brother is a dangerous individual. Know that this decision was not made lightly, but it was decided to move Rei to this realm and keep her ignorant of her abilities. It’s entirely possibleshethinks she’s a fox shifter, unless she’s earned more tails.
“We didn’t get Rei right away because she was still in danger from her brother. She wassupposedto be safe in your prison until we took care of Kudan. Kudan resorted to bribery and left Hell. We followed to bring Rei home.”
That was the truth, but there wasa lotleft out of that. Warden Snow wasn’t buying it.
“It sounds like you have bigger problems than trying to get The Silver Fox out of my prison. There’s many people who want to see her hanged.”
Barbatos just waved his hand dismissively, like the Aether Circle was nothing.
“I’m well aware… tell them Rei is in for a lot of torture in Hell. We are kind of famous for that, after all.”
We totally were, but Hell was much more likely to throw Rei a party for stealing from the Aether Circle. None of us liked that coven, but Warden Snow didn’t have to know that, and we could play that angle.
“Oh, yeah. We aren’t even going to be able to get married for ages, because everyone is going to want a go at torturing her.”
“Sota!” Barbatos barked. “We’ll be on our way, but we’ll be back tomorrow. I trust you’ll have done the test and confirmed Rei is a demon by then. Do what you need to do to release her to our care. Things will end very badly for you if Kudan gets his hands on her and she’s not released to our care.”
“I’ll need more than a day to investigate this,” Warden Snow argued.
Too bad. All she needed was a blood sample from Rei to confirm it. I’d waited long enough. Rei and I were in the same building now. It was taking all my self-control not to bring my Tengu out and slice my way to solitary to get to her.
Barbatos stood and nodded to me, we were leaving.
“You have two days to do this the right way. We’ll be back, and if Rei doesn’t leave with us because you made it happen, then wewillmakeit happen.”
Why were we playing nice with thisgomi majyo?!We didn’t owe her shit. It was not our problem that she employed lazy people who messed up Rei’s blood test. Anything that happened after that was on that employee.Of course,Rei wouldn’t say anything to have her magic taken away. She was a Kitsune with the Aether Circle after her. It was expected she’d try to escape.
It was silly to even get mad about it.
I said nothing in front of Warden Snow because I didn’t want to ruin this. Barbatos outranked me and I knew he was leading this entire operation, but I fully intended to say something to him when we returned to our hotel room.
