“Raven…you brought me back.” It was more of a question than a statement, but as her salty tears joined my own, I knew she’d done the impossible.
My beloved had given me a second chance at life.
And I swore to the goddess in that moment that I would not waste the opportunity.
51
Raven
Itore my eyes from my beloved storm mage and focused on the male who called himself my father.
If anyone had asked me a few months ago how I thought my father-daughter reunion would go, I’d have said badly. I fully expected he would have horns and a tail. Or worse. So the stylish, handsome male standing before me wearing a Hugo Boss suit and Prada loafers had me lost for words.
It turned out my demon dad was a style icon.
Yeah, Dad rocked the silver fox vibe.
“How did you find me?” Alaric gripped my hand so tight it hurt as my other four mates edged closer. I swallowed hard, unable to process how I’d managed the unthinkable and brought him back from the dead.
But it might not matter if my father was here to steal me away to the demon realm. Tiberius and Brianna were no longer our biggest threats.
The glass rattled in the window frames as a dragon roared somewhere above us, but I was too busy spiraling to care.
“We need to leave,” Maverick warned the others. Kenji stirred on my lap but didn’t wake. I must have depleted his energy to the point of exhaustion. The other two Ks moved away and watched from the corner, paying no attention to the dead mages littered around the room.
“Your magic called to me, darling.” Dad smiled like he was proud of me for being a mass murderer. Hmm. I guess I was a chip off the old block. “I knew you’d manifested your demonic powers, but I was dealing with a minor rebellion at the time and couldn’t leave.”
Amazing. My ancestral home was apparently a war zone. Yeah, I couldn’t wait to visit.Not.
“What did you expect it to be like?” grumbled Kenji. “Cancun during Spring Break?”
“No…just less dangerous.”
My familiar rolled his eyes.“The demon realm is the very definition of dangerous. Demons are forever at war with each other. Fighting is what they do to pass the time.”
“Um, Kenji says the demon realm is super dangerous,” I said to anyone who cared to listen.
My father smirked. “Not for you, my darling daughter. Nobody would dare hurt you and risk my wrath.” His black eyes slid over Tiberius and Brianna, both of whom had taken a few giant steps back and glued themselves to the wall as if they hoped he might not notice them.
Brianna made a show of acting relaxed, but Tiberius’s jaw ticked, and I suspected he was quietly shitting himself.
“King Nymon, we would never—” he began before my father cut him off with a raised fist.
“Silence.” Once again, Tiberius opened his mouth—because he apparently lacked any sense of self-preservation—but this time, nothing came out. He gaped a few times, doing a wonderful impression of a goldfish, and then gave up.
Hmm.My dad must be more powerful than the mage. Who knew?
A small smirk slipped free, which Brianna noticed.
“My king, I apologize for my husband,” she simpered, eyes cast downward. “He’s allowed his ambition to get the better of him.”What an ass-licker.I was low-key embarrassed for her.
“Wow, is Alaric’s evil stepmother really throwing Tibs under the bus?”
“Looks like it,”Zane agreed, now close enough that he could sink to his knees and wrap an arm around my waist.
Alaric tried to sit up as his father turned a horrible shade of green, but I pushed him down. I wasn’t an expert on how necromancy magic worked, but common sense said a nap was an essential part of the recovery process.
“Did you really think you could harvest my daughter’s magic?” Dad asked Tiberius. “And that I wouldn’t care?”
