Page 50 of Nope, No Regrets
“Skoll knocked some sense into your wolf at dinner. He’s totally aboard the sharing train now, shit, I think he’s got visions of nine tailed wolf pups after Skoll got to him! It might not be common back on Earth, but it is in other realms. There are plenty of demons that do that here. They even do it in the Underworld. Barbatos was there to meet a daughter he didn’t know he had, and to help Hades get his wife back. His daughter has an entire harem of monsters, and she snagged Hephaestus, too. He’s really proud of that.”
I felt terrible for Barbatos. I wanted him back in Hell so I could get Rei. He came through, and I knew he wanted to throw this massive party to introduce his daughter and her harem to Hell. He kept bragging about how impressive her demonic form was, and how scary her monsters were.
He deserved that. I had Rei. She was here, safe and sound, and I wasfinallygetting the chance to get to know her. Barbatos deserved all the time he wanted with his daughter, and the only reason that got cut short was because of Rei and the Aether Circle. He couldn’t get back to her, or show her off in Hell, until the Aether Circle was dealt with.
“I remember Greek mythology from school. It’s weird it’s real. Isn’t Hephaestus supposed to be deformed?”
“Yes, but not in the way you think. He’s actually perfect looking, like all the Olympians. Zeus was beating his mother, and he stood up to his father. Zeus threw him out of the entire realm, and he fell to Earth. It didn’t kill him, but it broke every bone in his body. Hades took him to the Underworld to heal him. He has a very,tinylimp because of that, but that’s considered a deformity by those people, since they couldn’t be killed previously.
“They spread that among the humans, and they spread it throughout history. Barbatos says he’s quite lovely, and never forgave his father. He’s a talented blacksmith, so much so that he forged a weapon that could kill one of them. He got his revenge in the end.”
Rei leaned in close. Her lips brushed my ear lobe. What was she doing?
“I don’t want to talk about Greek Gods. I want to talk about you. You’ve been pretty much amazing since you showed up in Silverhold. You’ve given me space when you could have tried to demand my time, since we’re engaged. I want to bite you a little, but I hardly know you… and I want to know you, Sota. My parents picked you for a reason. You aren’t a Kitsune like they are. I dig the whole Tengu thing, but please, help me understand.”
“Your father’s third wife doesn’t have many tails. She only ever earned three of them, and they are all emotion related. It was Hiroto that brought me to their attention. My father was part of the palace guard. When your mother fell pregnant, Hiroto helped the doctor because she could sense your emotions, and she senses connections too, so people come to her a lot to play matchmaker.
“She passed my father in the hall. She’d probably done that countless times and not thought twice about it. The guards here are generally faceless for a reason. She sensed something with him, but it wasn’t powerful. Still, it was enough that he was no longer faceless. She pulled him into a meeting with her family so they could figure it out.
“Wow, your father is really something. The guards are supposed to be anonymous and faceless. Sometimes, they don’t even know each other’s names. Takahiro knew who he was. He also knew he had a young son at home, because he’d seen him training me in the courtyard. I wasn’t supposed to be there, but he never said anything about it.
“Takahiro lays everything out on the table and never lies when his family is involved. He told my father flat out that Hiroto was sensing a connection between him and his family. He invited us to dinner. Honestly, I was very embarrassed to be dining with them. I was worried I was going to do something rude and offend them.
“I was young and didn’t even speak as Hiroto told everyone she could tell I was part of their family. That could have meant a million different things, but they all took it to mean they needed to arrange a marriage between us. No one arranged your father’s marriage, and it’s just not done with Kitsunes, because of the whole inner fox thing.
“But, they did it anyway, and my opinion wasn’t considered at all. Hiroto might not have many tails, but she was highly respected because of her gifts with the ones she gained. If she said there was a familial connection, and you weren’t blood related, it would eventually happen one way or another. It could have just meant your father was going to take me under his wing and treat me like a son, but they broke out the old school betrothal.”
“Do you even want this, Sota?”
I tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.
“I didn’t, at least, not at first. In truth, I hated the idea, even if it would have upgraded my status and helped my family. I didn’t like it much better when they had to send you away because Kudan was a psychopath. I didn’t like the idea of marrying a stranger who knew nothing about Hell.
“When I got a little older, I got over myself. Teenage boys are stupid in every realm, and demons aren’t exempt from that. I started to think about what things were like for you. You didn’t have any demons around for guidance. I came to that epiphany right around the time your fox would have shown up. I knew that, no matter how it went down, it wouldn’t be easy when we came to bring you back. They don’t really arrange marriages here anymore, and I know they don’t really do it on Earth either. You took it way better than I thought you would.”
Rei playfully nipped at my shoulder. Yeah, she totally went there. Maybe this would all work out after all.
“I was stuck in solitary, with a dangerous coven of witches that wanted me dead. Warden Snow took their money before, and she waspissedthather nephew died when we tried to break out. Rajack said it was him that was meant to protect Faust, but Faust snapped his neck to stop him from killing me.”
“I knew I liked that wolf,” I chuckled.
Yeah, Rei getting arrested certainly changed things. It didn’t just help us finally stop Kudan and bring down the Aether Circle. I’d met her now. If she hadn’t been stuck in solitary, and her options were staying there or hearing me out, she probably would have tried to fight me. It would have happened with the birthday she had in prison, but all her escapades that landed her in solitary resulted in tails that helped her in the end.
“Faust knew I wasn’t a fox shifter when we met, but he didn’t march me back to the lab to be tested and get the right cuffs. He knew I still had magic, and had no idea what I was, but he wanted to turn it into some crazy prison wolf hunt. I was terrified of him at first, but then he figured out I was his mate. He didn’t tell me and was trying to fix things. It was super weird… and kind of cute.”
“I’ll tell you a secret, Rei. All men get stupid sometimes, and then we have to fix it. We all want you to think it’s cute when we do that, but sometimes we get that wrong too, and hope we don’t get murdered.”
“How would you know? Were you married before me?”
“Words of wisdom from your dad. He adores his wives, and they get along beautifully, but everyone messes up sometimes, and sometimes they are all mad at him at the same time, and nothing he says helps. They just need time to fume and vent and be mad at him together. We play video games together when that happens. He vents and tries to pass his wisdom down to me. Eventually, I’ll beat him at one of his games, but his reflexes are something else. I see that he’s roped your other mates into playing with him when you were occupied.”
“Wren played video games? And no one died?”
“Just some zombies. They weren’t around before she got arrested, and they weren’t available in prison. She was pretty damn impressed you could murder things on the TV with a controller, and everyone was okay with that. I like her.”
Rei fell about laughing, and I couldn’t help but join her. I knew Wren was a killer. I mean, I mostly knew that when I helped get her out of jail, but I used my access to their files to look up everyone who was now in Hell with us. We didn’t want her running around murdering people that didn’t have it coming, but we could put her skills to good use. If she wanted to retire, and just murder zombies with Takahiro, she could do that.
“Please tell me my big, bad wolf played video games with my dad!”
