“Enough about me,” I said waving my hands, as if I could magically make all the wedding crap disappear. “How is being a mom?”
Krystan’s dark eyes looked up with an awe of discovery. “Only a couple days in, but it’s fucking awesome. I was worried I wouldn’t bond with the little dude, but I would die for this kid.”
I laughed, some of the invisible weight I’d been carrying lifted off me.
“I mean I’m tired as hell, and my body is healing but none of that matters. Seriously. Look at this smushed up face that Travis and I made.” She gently pinched Tristan’s sleeping face so that his lips puckered in an adorable way. “Doesn’t that face make you want to come back here and live with us? Don’t you want to be a live-in auntie?”
I laughed nervously but didn’t answer, keeping my eyes trained on the baby and not on the source of the reason why Calan and I had to get out of this house. Some people’s decorations were abhorrent, but it was nothing compared to what Krystan had done to this lovely historic house. I focused back on the baby, blocking out my unsettling surroundings.
Krystan went on. “And I’ve recently realized, I practically trained for this.”
“How so?”
“All those late nights partying, I’ve trained myself to run on very little sleep. I got so much practice with all those drunk boyfriends who were incoherent. I got pretty good at figuring out if they were hungry or needed to pass out.” She changed her voice back into the high-pitched baby one as she gave Tristan a finger to grab onto. “Plus working at Whack A Ghoul prepared me to deal with someone else’s disgusting little messes.”
“How does Travis feel about the new schedule?”
A sly grin spread across her face. “I’ve never heard anyone lie so much to me.”
“What?” Why did her face make it seem like a good thing?
“When Tristan is crying or needs help in the middle of the night, Travis is always right there wanting to be with us. I always ask him if he is tired and he always says no.” She stuck a pinky in her ear as if the buzzing had started up again. “The man is as exhausted as I am, but he is so stoked to be a dad he doesn’t care about all the late nights, baby messes, and still finds time to rub my feet.”
Joy spread through my chest as I heard her talk about happy she was. Then the ugly beast of comparison reared up right after that. Why didn’t I feel that happy? I was marrying the man of my dreams, had a sweet little apartment, a cute godson, and a job I was good at.
But Othanos was also out there somewhere, and in my head every night. The dreams were so vivid I woke up with the taste of ash on my tongue and the smell of death in my nose. My need to kill him had me compulsively checking the web for any trace of him. With every demon I vanquished with my new badass powers, I was more powerful and closer to being able to control my abilities enough to kill Othanos. But keeping my obsession from Calan was even more stressful. I didn’t want him to worry, or worse, start hunting Othanos himself.
“Are you positive you are up for this wedding?” I asked. “You just gave birth and –”
She held up a hand. “I’m going to stop you right there. Nothing and I mean nothing is keeping me from being your maid of honor. If you think I’m going to let Jessica Reynolds believe that I’ve stepped down, she’s got another thing coming.”
The guest list for our soiree was mainly friends and acquaintances of Regina and Phillip, but some of my friends from high school had RSVP'd they were coming. Krystan swore Jessica had been trying to usurp her spot as my best friend for years and was adamant to keep the pecking order.
Before I could tell her that was a ridiculous theory, Krystan went on. “Besides, after you guys jet away to your honeymoon, we are closing down Whack A Ghoul for a couple weeks. I think we’ve all earned a vacation.” She said all this while staring at her son with adoring eyes.
“Wow,” I said quietly. “We can just go on vacation and the world won’t end?”
Matching my low solemn tone, she said, “Trippy right?” Then she cleared her throat and adjusted herself on the couch. “Not to add to your burdens, but I may have invited Astrid to your wedding.”
I blinked. “Who’s Astrid?”
“She’s from the Order of Tenebrae.” Krystan had the decency to look ashamed.
I was up and off the couch like a shot. “Are you kidding me? The dark Order is going to have representation at our wedding? They’re the reason for the dimensional tear that opened up the Stygian in the first place.”
“Astrid was against all that.” She waved Tristan’s little hand at me as if could soften me. It did, dammit.
I remembered now. Astrid had been there to help Krystan defeat a dark entity responsible for Mrs. Rits’ death. Anyone connected to her gran immediately earned a spot of trust in Krystan’s eyes.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Why are you still in contact with her?”
“I’m not. She just showed up out of the blue with a baby gift this morning. This cute stuffed giraffe.” She picked it off the couch next to her to show me. It had lime green ribbon tied around its long neck. “Said something about us being allies and paying respects. She seemed, I don’t know, lonely. So I invited her in to see the baby.”
I made a sound between a snort and a huff, still not sure how this ended with Astrid coming to my wedding.
“I mean all the other Orders were invited. I was joking around and then I realized what I said and then I tripped over my words until I finally landed on,come to the wedding eat some cake with us.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I took a deep breath. Our wedding was turning into a weird political peace ground for the five Orders who would all be present in some capacity. From the ceremony to the reception, there was the strong likelihood someone would end up in a knock down drag out fight and bring up century old grudges about prophecy and blah blah blah. Not to mention at some point every one of them had either attempted to kidnap or kill me.
