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“Understandable, but if I could have one moment of your time,” Baron rumbles in a calm voice that nevertheless makes my blood pressure spike.
How can he sound so chill at a moment like this?
I cut my eyes his way to find him looking every bit at ease as he sounds.
But when he gives my hand one last squeeze before releasing it as he steps forward, I’m flooded with hope.
He’s up to something and knowing him, it’s something clever. As much as I adore Baron’s handsome face, broad shoulders, and the thick muscles that bunch beneath his sweaters, it’s his brain that truly makes me swoon, that curious mind that is always churning, working, sorting out the best solution to every problem. He also uses his intelligence to torture himself, but every gift has a dark side, and I know I can help him learn to be kinder to himself in the future.
But for now, I’m just hoping his habit of probing a problem from every intellectual angle and the hours we spent reading up on demon law today will save my niece. I keep thinking there’s a loophole in the law somewhere, but I’m too terrified of losing Amy to remember it right now.
“Cassandra, do I have your permission to represent you as legal counsel in this matter?” Baron asks my sister.
Casey jerks her focus from Amy to Baron and back again before nodding tightly. “Yes. Just…get her back. Please.”
Baron nods. “I’ll do my best. Just a few questions. When did Immanuel first propose marriage?”
Casey’s head rears back. “He didn’t. He never proposed.” Her lip curls. “He always said love was all we needed.”
Baron extends a hand toward the demons, palm up, calm and easy as you please. “Well, I believe that settles the issue. The father never proposed marriage and therefore has no legal claim to the child.”
“Will you marry me?” Manny blurts out, anger flaring in his dull eyes. “There. Problem solved. Now, she’ll say ‘no,’ and we can go. Right, Casey?” His tone takes a turn for the nasty. “You’ll never marry me, not even for Amy. You act like you’re such a great mom, but we both know you’ve got your limits. Like how you’d never go bowling or shooting rats at the dump with me. You think you’re too good for me. And deep down, you’re as selfish as everyone else.”
Casey pales and time slows to a crawl.
I know what she’s going to say—that she’s about to agree to marry this abusive, manipulative monster to save her daughter—but I can’t think of any way to stop her without losing Amy.
Mercifully, Baron is already two steps ahead.
“It’s my understanding that Cassandra is in no position to consider your proposal,” he says, still cool as the proverbial cucumber. “She’s already accepted the suit of another man and, if I understand demon law, that means you no longer have any legal claim to the child. Is that accurate, Captain…”
“Captain Snurl,” Raisin Face says, his lips pruning into a cat anus of disapproval as he narrows his eyes at Manny. He glances back to Baron and inclines his head ever so slightly. “You are correct. If Cassandra is indeed engaged to another man, having accepted the suit prior to Immanuel’s offer of marriage tonight, then Amy will be released into her mother’s custody—temporarily. Upon her marriage, that custody will be permanently conferred upon Cassandra and her husband until the child’s sixteenth birthday, when Amy will be considered an adult under demon law and free to come and go as she pleases from this world and ours.”
“Thank God,” Edmond says, slipping his arm around Casey’s shoulders and drawing her against his side. He kisses her temple and murmurs, “See, darling. I told you everything would be all right.”
Casey melts against him, looping her arms around his waist as her head drops to rest on his chest. “Thank Goddess. Thank you. So much.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Edmond says, hugging her closer. “You’re going to be my wife. Your happiness is my happiness and Amy is already part of my heart.” He looks up, his lips curving in a chilly smile for Captain Snurl. “I’m just so glad we got this sorted out before you took our daughter away. That would have been embarrassing for everyone involved.”
“And would have entitled my brother to one hundred gold pieces compensation for the abduction of his future stepdaughter,” Baron adds, arching a brow. “Is that also correct? The penalty for child theft is still a hundred gold pieces and the immediate return of the offspring?”
“It is.” Snurl bares his teeth in something too feral to be called a smile, then snaps his fingers Manny’s way without looking at the shorter man. “Immanuel, return the child to her parents.”
“But I—”
“Now, man,” the second in command—Gurl or Gnarl, I think he was called—snaps. “You’ve already wasted enough of the tribunal’s time.”
“But there’s no ring.” Manny clutches Amy tighter to his chest, sending another rush of terror across my skin. What if he refuses to hand her over? What if he would rather hurt Amy than see her happy with her mother and another man? “If they’re getting married, why isn’t she wearing an engagement ring?”
“I’m having it sized, you idiot,” Casey says, taking the hand Edmond slips into hers and holding on for dear life. “Obviously.”
“It was my maker’s,” Edmond adds. “A treasure far too ancient and delicate for our jeweler here in the village to handle. We sent it away to a master in Salem to be sized.” He glances down at Casey with a look of such adoration, I almost believe it myself. “But the ring is secondary. It’s the promises we’ve made that truly matter.”
Casey looks up at him with a small nod. “It is. And the love we feel. I love you. So much.”
Then, she presses up on tiptoe and kisses Edmond, and it’s not just any kiss. This is the kind of kiss that makes you blush and wonder if you should look away to give the two people privacy, the kind of steamy, intimate, shameless kiss that belongs in the final scene of a movie or on the airport tarmac moments after a soldier returns home from battle. It’s full of passion and longing, but also such heartbreaking tenderness it makes my chest ache.
On instinct, I step forward, taking Baron’s hand again.
