Smiling shyly, Kinan said, “I’m glad to be with you, too. Seriously, though, how are you?”
Cormal considered this. “Really well, I think. Part of me honestly thought I wouldn’t come out of an encounter with Brannal unscathed. Both he and Perian have been kinder than I deserve.”
Kinan made a sound of protest, which made Cormal smile.
“I messed up badly,” he reminded Kinan.
“But nothing irreparable has happened,” he stubbornly pointed out. “They’re both all right, and they seem to be happy here, and you had reasons for what you were doing, even if some of those reasons were dumb.”
Cormal couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that’s true. Learning that Perian is actually half-carnalion and half-human isn’t entirely shocking.” He made a face. “All right, it’s really shocking on the one hand because I didn’t realize carnalions and humans could reproduce.”
He’d lumped all demons together in his mind and never so much as considered it.
“It still kind of boggles my mind, if I’m being honest. But it also makes a lot of sense, because there were lots of ways that he didn’t really behave like a carnalion. And it’s become abundantly clear even to me that we don’t have anything to fear from children of two worlds—nor them from me.”
Kinan smiled at him. “I’m glad.”
“And if there’s two of them,” Cormal couldn’t help but point out, “maybe they can both help you.”
Kinan swallowed visibly, and the look in his eyes made it clear that this had occurred to him, too, though it didn’t look like he’d been going to say it out loud.
But if Perian had been able to do this much, wouldn’t he and Trill be able to do twice as much? Might that not beexactlywhat they were looking for?
The Mages and the Mage Warriors had failed, but Cormal was absolutely willing to embrace this strange new reality where two people who happened to be half-demon might be able to help Kinan.
“Shall we get ready for the day?” Cormal asked.
They needed to fill Trill in. It had sounded yesterday like he knew a lot more about being a child of two worlds than Perian did, and Cormal would shamelessly take advantage of that for Kinan’s sake.
“Yes, let’s.”
Of course, Kinan didn’t actually have anything he needed to do to get ready, but while they’d been at the inns, he’d been happy to ogle while Cormal performed his morning ablutions and got dressed, which Cormal certainly wasn’t going to complain about.
If it happened to take a bit longer to leave the water closet and there were mutual orgasms involved, no one else needed to know.
Actually, with this group, they’d probably all guessed—and were doing the same in their rooms. None of them seemed to mind. Really, their biggest problem was that Molun would pester them for details. Not because of Kinan being intangible, but just because he was like that. Cormal rolled his eyes.
He and Kinan made their way downstairs and to the dining room. Perian looked up from the table, took them in at a glance, and smirked. He didn’t actually say anything, though, for which Cormal was grateful.
He appreciated the acceptance, but he’d never had his sex life on such public display before. It was a little disconcerting.
“Good morning,” Kinan murmured.
Brannal rose to his feet. “Your Highness.”
Kinan made a face and waved him down, saying earnestly, “Oh, please, don’t. I’d like to be just Kinan here.”
Not looking entirely convinced, Brannal nevertheless inclined his head and sat back down.
Cormal realized just how thrown Brannal must have been yesterday, because he hadn’t treated Kinan like royalty then.
Perian, who’d been having picnics with Kinan and his sister for months, didn’t look at all fazed to be having breakfast with him.
Cormal pulled out a chair for Kinan, and they both sat down.
Brannal poured Cormal tea, which made Perian’s eyes soften. It was strange how easy it was to see the affection now, when all Cormal had been able to see before was his growing suspicions that Perian had been using Brannal.
It was only a few minutes later that Molun, Arvus, and Trill arrived, all of them looking… very relaxed.
