A few weeks later I was sitting in my kitchen, Wilting Bluebell bustling around and making snacks while shooting me disapproving frowns. The brownie didn’t like the mistress of the house eating in the kitchens. The mistress shouldn’t even know where the kitchens were located.

Wilting Bluebell and I were the same age, she should know I wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in my mouth. My papas didn’t raise a spoiled brat in a looming castle or a sprawling estate. We had cottages and the wide open sky.

Wilting Bluebell could get over it.

She padded past me, giving me another one of her little glares. I picked up a piece of toast and took a big bite, crumbs littering the tabletop and a few falling to the ground. There that had to make her happy. At least I’d given her something to clean up. I swore, I did more to keep my brownies happy than anyone else in the tween.

Pro: I got to be a slob and it thrilled the brownies to pieces.

Con: The house I’d owned for what seemed like forever wasn’t really mine anymore. It’d been infiltrated and taken over by little rag-wielding brownies.

Maybe that wasn’t a con.

Killian Howe cleared his throat, pulling my attention from Wilting Bluebell and back to our meeting. He still had that disapproving frown thing going, too. He was in the Wilting Bluebell camp and had wrinkled his nose when I led him to the kitchen.

Everyone in the fucking tween could get over it.

Meeting Killian’s gaze, I took another big bite of toast, more crumbs falling. “You were saying?”

Yes, my mouth was full. Yes, my fathers taught me manners. Yes, I did it to annoy Killian.

He was looking a lot better these days now that the immediate threat of Silaran was gone. Immediate, not permanent. Today he wore another one of his perfectly tailored suits, perfectly pressed with perfectly polished shoes.

I wanted to throw him in the pond out back just to fuck with him.

But… we had to work on this dem shit. I’d decided to allow them back into Orlando with limited access on a case-by-case basis. Which meant I needed to work out the details with him. I needed a contract written—the mystically binding kind signed in blood and couldn’t be broken—that would allow dems who remained on their best behavior back into the city. Well, best compared to their normal behavior I guess. Dems were… dems.

There was a lot of legalese and fine print, but Killian assured me that it was all meant to give me as much room as I needed to enforce my rules on anyone who entered. It would also make sure they were bound to do as I said.

Violators would face the strictest of consequences. Plus, my boot up their ass.

Then we’d worked on access cards, mystical passports for dems entering the city. I’d hand them out at Hell’s Chapel to any dems I decided could be trusted in my city.

We were still going over the details—such as, show up at Caith’s house and she will kill you—when Sam walked in. He carried a smiling Bry on his hip and held a card in his hand. My mate had found an apartment down the street, but we still spent a lot of time together. Bry had taken a liking to him, which was definitely a good sign. Especially considering he was getting more and more mobile the more time passed. Pretty soon, I wouldn’t be able to keep him from wandering off and setting something on fire.

Which was why it was great that the two enjoyed spending time together. I had a fire-resistant babysitter while I dealt with this shit with Killian.

Plus, it meant Sam was close. We still had a fuckton of issues and his relationship with On High was still very shaky. We’d decided separate residences were best—for now. I wanted my mate in my life and if that meant having him, but not, then that’s what it meant. Even if it hurt.

Sam handed me the card. “This just arrived for you.”

I took it and frowned. It was a postcard with a picture of a smiling couple standing in front of an active volcano. One of the national parks in Hawaii? They wore floral shirts and sandals, so it seemed like a reasonable guess.

I flipped it over. No return address and there wasn’t even a postmark. It just held four simple words. “Wish I was there.”

Uncle Luc.

I looked at the picture again, holding it close and squinting. Now that I looked, I wondered if the volcano was even on Earth. It looked more like the sulfur-spewing pit found in Hell.

That closer look revealed something else. The man in the picture was Uncle Luc. Smiling. With his arm around a woman.

“What the On High?”

I looked at Killian, eyebrows raised. He averted his gaze, giving me another of his enigmatic shrugs. I’d learned by now that he wasn’t at liberty to share the things he knew about my uncle’s personal life. Running of Hell? Yes. Who he was banging? No.

And… unless it was my imagination, the chick sported a rather sizable bump on her belly.

“Oh no.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Uncle Luc’s long absences suddenly made sense. And if that bump was what I thought it was, we were all in for some serious trouble.

It looked like the Morningstars were about to have a new addition to the family. I wasn’t sure the world would survive.

For now, I had a little reprieve before that bun came out of the oven and I’d spend it with the two men I loved most, my son and my almost-but-not-quite-until-On-High-got-its-head-out-of-its-ass mate.

* * *

Don’t miss out on the other Caith Morningstar novels.

- I can handle the blood, gore, and frustration, but can I deal with the pain of loving—possibly losing—the angel Samkiel? Probably not, but I’m gonna try anyway.

- I lost Sam once and survived. The question now is whether I can survive losing both of the men I love most?  Or rather, will the world survive?

- Now I’m running, I’m killing, I’m saving the world, and I’m… trying to hang on to my angelic mate, Sam.  I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail at one of those. I just hope it’s not Sam.

* * *