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He so hadn’t. He’d been a couple of inches away from having his throat slashed open and ruining that suit, but I did understand delicate male feelings. “Sorry, babe. I panicked.”
He sighed. “You did not. Damn it. What was wrong with him? He should never have attacked me like that. He shouldn’t even be here.”
Gray got to his feet and dusted the grass off his slacks. I hoped Tix knew how to get those stains out.
“Aren’t all the creatures here supposed to be oathed to you, Lord Sloane?” Casey asked.
Gray stared down at the corpse. “Yes. They are. The weird thing is I couldn’t feel him coming. I’m connected to these lands. When I want to, I can feel every living creature here. At least the ones born here. The drixalranous are indigenous to this plane.”
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been bred on another plane and brought here specifically to attack you,” Liv mused, coming in closer. There was a look of pure curiosity on her face.
Despite her rewriting of history, Liv was usually the one to insert herself into the cases I investigated. She’d called herself Watson to my Holmes, though you should understand that I do not play the violin and I drink way more beer than Sherlock ever did. But Liv was an excellent Watson, and she’d always had my back. “What do you know about this oath thing? Is it a spell?”
Liv knelt down, studying the cat who was covered in that icky drool and now sported a couple of neat bullet holes, one through his left eye. “It’s more a function of how the Hell plane runs. I know this is going to surprise you, but Hell lords aren’t the sort of beings who normally inspire loyalty. So in order to be sure there weren’t constant coup attempts and utter chaos, the idea of the oath was born. Think of it as fealty reenforced with biological constraints. Any creature born or made of this plane can’t harm the head of the house. It’s why it was such a big deal when the previous Lord Sloane was cast out.”
“If Gray hadn’t been willing to take control of the house, they would have slaughtered every creature here and started over,” Casey explained.
“That’s awful.” I didn’t love the idea of Gray ruling a plane of Hell, but I also didn’t think it was fair to murder everyone and start over. Talk about a shitty layoff plan. “So how do we explain the cat thing?”
I don’t do demonic names. That beast I’d killed would be “cat thing” to me for the rest of time.
Liv stood. “Like I said, someone smuggled one off the plane and bred it in captivity and released it back here. Likely after they trained it to kill Lord Sloane. Is your father still alive?”
“He’s on a lesser plane with no way to get back here,” Gray assured us.
“I’ll make sure the former Lord Sloane is where he’s supposed to be,” Casey promised. “Because killing Gray would be an excellent way to force himself back in. It would be one thing if Gray were dead with no heirs.”
But I was pregnant, and I’d been told demon babies are tough. There was every reason to believe I would carry through this pregnancy and Gray would have an heir who wouldn’t be old enough to rule on his own. “What would happen if Gray died?”
“The Council of Demons would appoint a regent,” Gray said with a frown. “Even if the babe was still in utero, a regent would be found, and he would rule until our son was deemed old enough to handle it on his own. Due to the unique nature of the kingdoms, they would select a blooded relative.”
“I’m going to kill him.” There was zero doubt my father-in-law was behind this.
“Kelsey, I don’t see how he could have done this. He doesn’t know you’re pregnant for one thing. I’ve kept it quiet. Second, he would have to find a drixalranous, and gain access to this plane. There are only a few ways off and on.” Gray slipped out of his ruined jacket.
“Then I’ll start there.” I already had a case, and the worst kind. I wouldn’t get paid for it and it involved people I loved being in danger.
“I think we should start with trying to figure out if it was born here,” Liv countered.
I was going to use her curiosity. She hadn’t been willing to talk before now. If we were working a case together, it might help warm her up. “How would we tell?”
“There are a couple of spells,” Liv mused.
Oh, I had a problem with that. “You can’t work spells.”
She sighed. “They’re not dangerous, and you know you’re going to have to allow me to work the Dark Light spell when the time comes. I can’t leave that up to the princess, who is the only one here with any magical ability. Not that it’s a lot.”
“She’s quite competent,” Casey argued.
“With Fae magic, so the spell I’m thinking about to determine where the beast came from will work, but the Dark Light spell is pure blood magic.” She put a hand to the collar around her neck. “So this will have to come off if you expect me to save Dean’s life. While you’re at it, I’m not going to help you do anything if you don’t remove Casey from my room.”
I was confused. “We’re not in your room. How can I remove him?”
“You can explain to him that he is not sleeping in my room.” Liv carefully enunciated each word, as though I didn’t speak the language.
Casey was sleeping in her room? “Do we not have enough rooms?”
Hah, this was what I’d been waiting for—Hell to play its games with me. What if that big, gorgeous house was like a reverse TARDIS? What if it was way smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside, and we were all going to be cramped and up in each other’s business? That would feel more like Hell than this nighttime Bridgerton set.
