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Casey nodded. “I’ll give Evan and Lee a picture of the brand to show around the mansion. And I’ll ask Gray where the records are and how we can access them. Now tell me what happened that sent you looking for me. Are you still upset about what Lucifer said?”
I knew I shouldn’t have let him hold me. I was so fucking weak, despite the fact that I could feel the demon blood working inside me. It wasn’t a physical weakness. It was pure emotion, and I hated it. “I wasn’t looking for you at all. The house wouldn’t let me go anywhere else.”
His lips quirked up. “That’s because the house knows where you should be. This whole place is made of dark magic. I used to think that immediately meant it was bad, but I’ve come to realize that it’s merely the way the magic forms. It’s not inherently good or bad. Like this house. From what I can tell, like the whole of the realm, it’s attuned to the master. If you listen to the staff, they talk about how the house used to play tricks on them. It used to lock them in rooms for days and send them down stairs that simply ended and sent the person falling to the next floor. They like the house better now. It’s become helpful, and one of the ways it helps is to know where you truly want to go.”
“It’s faulty then because I distinctly asked to leave and go home and here I am.”
He sent me a brighter smile. “Yes, here you are.”
I groaned. He wasn’t being helpful. “I rather thought it was because the house knows the rules down here and isn’t a forward thinker. I thought she was sending me back to my owner.”
“I don’t own you, Liv. It’s the other way around.”
“Not according to the rules,” I shot back. “Do you want to let me make the rules since I’m apparently the dominant partner here?”
“You don’t want to be the dominant partner, baby.” There was something in the negligent way he tossed that response that caught every bit of my attention. He was busily packing up things and placing them where they would be cleaned. “You like a little submission in your sex, and not from me.”
A thrill of arousal shot through my system. “How would you know what I like now?”
He snorted. “You haven’t changed, Liv. And you told me yourself that you haven’t had another lover.”
“What if I don’t want it at all? What if something happened and I don’t…can’t…enjoy sex anymore?”
His head came up, and he gave me his attention as he pulled the heavy apron over his head and hung it up by the door. “Did something happen?”
I wasn’t sure anymore. “Of course not. I don’t think about sex the way I used to. I’m not a physical creature. I receive my energy from the Earth plane. I don’t need other energy.”
“Except the demon blood.”
“Except that.” It was only to enhance my powers.
Casey moved into my space, and that chilly room heated up real fast. He stood over me, practically begging me to take a step back.
I held my ground.
He put a hand on the wall behind my head. “I think they convinced you that you needed to be cold and unfeeling in order to serve your master.”
“Logical,” I replied.
He nodded and lowered his head again. “Sure, baby. It’s logical to leave your friends and family behind. You could tell how lucky you were because Myrddin immediately chucked you in a torture camp. Tell me something, Livie, do you remember when you told me that you would have taken the kids in? If Myrddin had found them that first day, you would have been their mentor. If they’d been caught at any time, you would have taken care of them. How would you have done that from the reeducation camps?”
That pain in the back of my head started up again, and it didn’t matter that his lips hovered over mine. I moved to the side, ducking under his arm. “I’ll go back to the room.”
He caught up to me quickly. “Liv, I’m sorry. Don’t go. I won’t mention it again. Let me finish cleaning up and we can find someone who can set us up with the records we need. I’ll even have Eddie find you some research food. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
It had been a joke between our team. If we were stuck inside some musty library poring over a million books, the least Lee and I should get was research snacks. It was usually the junkiest of junk food. Kelsey would come through and eat half of whatever we had so I hid my faves, but then she got hungry and I passed them over. How long had it been since I had some cheesy chips that coated my fingers in orange? Or those overly sweet snack cakes that smelled like my childhood?
It wasn’t a proper diet for Myrddin’s elite.
Still. I didn’t really want to go back. “Some chips would be nice. And maybe some cookies. Is Lee with us because he eats…” I had to stop myself. “Nothing anymore. Sorry. I was thinking about when he was a kid and he ate my Twinkies, too. The kid never found a snack cake he didn’t love.”
“I think he had a whole farewell to food tour planned before he accidentally turned. Although it saved the queen.”
“Only because he was a king. If he hadn’t been, she would be dead right now and Lee would have a big old complex from eating his mother.” I had to wonder if Zoey had known everything would be all right or if she’d been scared out of her mind.
What would I have done if I’d been there instead of fighting Kelsey? Would I have laughed and let it happen? Or would I have found a way to get the queen out?
It shouldn’t even be a question.
