Page 8 of April's Fool (Northarbor Coven Book 2)

Concerns

Amorandes

“We will travel to the capital and then visit you at your home when we have news. Is that okay?” I wanted to get my son the protections he desperately needed as quickly as possible, almost as much as I wanted to stay with him. He needed more care than just Toth could give him, though Toth was an adequate mate for my only child. Thankfully he would not need to be present when I made the petition. The capital city would be far too overwhelming for such a young demon and Toth required rest to heal.

Cody’s face fell, then brightened as Toth whispered something in his ear. “Um, yeah, that would be good. It’ll give Toth time to recover from this. There’s so much to do.”

“We have plenty of time,” Toth assured his mate, wrapping him up in his arms.

I felt the faint trickle of arousal from my son, immediately feeling faintly nauseated at the way it fed my magic. Damon’s lust had fed me well. A jolt of it had hit me when I’d picked him up. The energy would be enough for me to power a portal back home.

“We will take our leave,” Gregoris said formally, performing a little bow to my son, who flushed, clearly pleased and embarrassed by the gesture.

With one last hug for Cody and goodbyes for the remaining witches and shifters, the hitman long gone, I opened the portal to just outside the capital, and took us home.

My heart hurt as the portal closed behind me, outside of the city gates, cutting me off from my son. Another pang existed for Damon. He had stood looking so alone as Cody and Toth reconnected. Despite my concerns about the hitman, I would admit to feeling curious about him.

“Why can’t we get closer? I am royalty, after all.” Maybe I’d whined a little, but it had been a trying day, or more than a day. I had lost my sense of time with my growing exhaustion. Of course, I knew that portaling was only permitted inside of the city by kings and queens. Though I was a prince, I was so far from the line of succession that it barely counted.

Often I thought that my title was a convenient way for the royals to protect their subjects. I actually investigated the number of times someone had been proclaimed a prince or princess, and it typically aligned with a contract. Naturally, I kept that information to myself.

“Prince Amorandes and his guard, Gregoris, wish for access to the city and an audience with their highnesses.” Gregoris called to one of the many guards at the heavy metal gates. They had stood there for centuries and showed no signs of wear. With my guard’s words, the barrier broke apart, allowing us entry into the vast city.

Trams powered by magic wound their way through the bustling streets, and Gregoris and I hopped on, then changed trams as we worked our way up through the city to the castle on the peak. There we would find our government and rulers. Then they could decide if they wanted to pass protection onto my son.

The demon realm had many similarities to the human world, except our technology was often adapted from theirs during our visits. We powered it with magic and renewable sources, as we didn’t have fossil fuels. No demon dinosaurs here.

There was silence between us as we traveled. We both had much to process, and I had to admit that my mind kept straying to the hitman. Damon was gorgeous. I had wondered more than once since we had met, if he had incubus blood in him. It would account for the tingling feeling when we touched .

Having his body against mine, feeling his arousal, had been a challenge. I had wanted to feed, but Cody would have been furious and I sensed an inner delicate core to Damon that he kept hidden with his flirting.

With effort, I drew my thoughts back to the task at hand: getting Cody and Toth approved and protected. It stunned me to think I had gone looking for one son and found two. It would take time for me to adjust to thinking of the other demon as part of my family, but for Cody, I would.

I honestly didn’t think that the kings and queens would reject him. Cody was a treasure, not just because he was my only child. No, it was more than that. He was unusual in that he was a hybrid of two opposing species. Witches could control us, so generally we avoided them. Unlike other supernaturals, our birth rate was good. Children were usually planned. With other demonkin we were compatible, and one kind would overpower the other in our children. With humans, the child would take after their demon parent, usually with less magic available or a need to feed more often.

Never had there been a witch-demonkin. Or at least, none that I knew of. Having kept tabs on my son at a great distance, forcing the limits of the binding spell, I knew why they had forced me to bind his demon side. I’d not known much about the magical side of Cody. They acted as if he had been born without his witch side. A null was an embarrassment to witches, so it made sense that it was kept quiet.

Knowing that Cody had both sides to his nature, even if he had very little magic, I had researched as much as possible around running my businesses and trying to live my life with the gaping hole missing. Dramatic, perhaps, but my son was a shining light in my life. He was this beautiful soul that had come out of such a dark time. He made it all worth it.

So, I knew he was the only documented witch-demonkin in existence. I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that no other had ever been born. Cody was just the only hybrid of his kind we knew about.

As such, he would be a treasure in court. They coveted the unusual. There was no chance that my petition would be rebuffed. My walk through the shining palace gained a hint more of its normal swagger. I was a prince. My people loved me. I was a fair and generous employer and I had fathered the only witch hybrid in our extensive records.

Mother and Father were waiting for us just outside the doors to the vast chamber where our kings and queens held audiences. I was in for a scolding. After they hugged us both, of course. They loved Gregoris almost as much as me. Sometimes more, I felt .

Sufficiently greeted, Mom held me at arm’s length. “Did you come here without my grandson? After waiting all this time! Now we can see him and you’re making me wait more?” Her voice rose with her incredulity.

“Mom!” I gasped. “Is that how things are now? You can see Cody and I no longer matter?” I teased with a grin, pulling at my lips. I was sure mischief danced in my eyes. Behind Mom, Dad snickered.

“Psht!” she chided, swatting at my arm. “I can see you any time. Where is our grandson? What’s he like? Is everything okay? Last I heard, you were going for dinner with him and his friend topside and then you went missing for nearly a day!”

My mom was a strong demon. She had to be after losing me for years when I served the witch family Cody came from. Sure, I’d been allowed to return home periodically, mainly so I could replenish my magic, since Cody’s grandfather had a distaste for my incubus feeding habits. Damn prude.

Still, it had left her anxious when I was gone from her for too long. I felt like a youngling again. A demonkin barely in control of his powers. Not a centuries old demon with a child of his own.

“Well?” Mom’s voice became shrill.

“I can explain,” I tried in a soft voice .

“There better be a damned good reason you were gone for so long!” Mom’s cheeks reddened with her anger.

“There is,” Gregoris said calmly, inserting himself into the conversation.

I shot my bodyguard a look. This was my mess to explain. “Well, you see…” How did I explain all that had happened in the last day since I had found Cody?

“We met him. He was staying at one of my hotels! Cody is adorable. You are going to love him, but the reason that we were gone is that his mate—“

“Mate?” Dad interrupted.

I smiled, thinking about the demon that was protecting my son and teaching him about his abilities. Having seen what Toth went through to keep Cody safe, I knew he was the perfect fit for my son.

“Yes, it’s a funny story.” I went on to fill them in on Toth’s contract, what he was made to do, and how he fought it when Mom got angry at the idea of anyone harming Cody. I then explained about Basil calling on Toth and our hunt for him.

It took some time to tell my parents all the story and have them understand Cody needed a few days with his mate to rest and recover from the ordeal. My parents were wonderful, but they weren’t very patient.

“So you see, I’m here to request that both of them be recognized.” To protect them both, even with Toth’s new name. Cody had gifted his mate a new name. He gifted his mate something that would protect him from being summoned ever again. He was the only one that knew the name other than Toth. This was just another layer of magic to keep them safe. Once they were recognized as princes of the land, they couldn’t be put under contract to witches like Toth and I had both been, ever again.

Dad drew Mom away from us, clearly seeing that she wanted to protest waiting for Cody and Toth to come to them. It was too much to expect the young couple to deal with grandparents they had never met only days after Cody had unlocked both his demon and witch heritage and completed their bond. They needed honeymoon time like humans did. Shifters had their heats, after which they could be guaranteed some peace for a day or two. No, my parents needed to be patient. Something Mom struggled with.

They returned to us, Mom with a resigned look. “Fine. We will wait, but only for a week. And we’ll come with you to petition. Our words will have more weight. Plus, your dad is owed a favor in court.”

I knew it cost Mom a lot to give me that, so I wrapped her in a hug, my wings folding around us. “Cody’s perfect, Mom. Just wait and see. You’ll be glad you waited for when he’s not utterly terrified and overwhelmed. ”

She squeezed me tightly. At her height, she came to my shoulder, so it was easy for her to rest her head there without damaging me with her horns. “Thank you. I’m so happy he’s free now. I just want—“

“I know.”

Gregoris continued his quiet stalking as we entered the courthouse portion of the palace of the demonkin kings and queens. I feared that I’d offended him, but shrugged it off. While I cared for my guard, and he was the closest thing I had to a best friend, we needed better lines drawn. I knew his feelings for me were an issue. I couldn’t return them and didn’t want to hurt him.

Walking behind us, he stayed silent. Dad gave me more than one questioning look, but I shook my head minutely. That chat would have to wait until another day.

Court was busy. All kinds of demonkin, incubi, hellhounds, elementals, all waited in line for their chance to address one, or more, of the royalty within the main chamber. Not all would go in front of the kings and queens. Some would put their case to the heirs, demonkin much higher in the line of succession than I was.

Our turn came a couple of hours after we arrived; it would have been rude to jump the queue. As it was, the staff served us refreshments, which I made sure to share with the people I had made friends with in the line as we waited. Some had amazing stories to tell, and I wanted to go in with each to offer them the moral support they needed. Unfortunately, my parents wouldn’t allow me to help where I could. They were kind in their rebuffs, reminding me, and my friends, that I needed to stay on task.

When each returned to the waiting chamber, I either celebrated or commiserated with them before they went on their way. Then it was our turn.

I had to admit to being a little cowed by the court. The main chamber was vast, allowing many of the royals to be in attendance. There was no actual count of how many kings and queens we had, though it was rumored that there were a pair to represent each sub-species of demonkin. Not knowing which were which offered them another layer of safety from anyone that would attempt to take their lives.

About a dozen of them stood in front of us. Again, like in the outer chamber, there were elementals sitting next to hellhounds. They were a wonder to behold. The power that they radiated replenished my own levels beyond anything I could have expected. We demonkin got our powers from the very air around us, but here, in their presence, it was like the air was supercharged with energy. It buzzed along my nerves and pulled at my control.

Vaguely, I could feel the concern from Gregoris as I twitched and reacted to how quickly my magic was being restored. Despite being almost as depleted as I was, he remained by my side without making a movement.

“Speak,” several voices ordered as one.

As before, I told the story of my son, beginning at his conception, then the forced binding of his powers and my inability to see him grow up or offer him refuge with his people. I spoke of the binding in more detail, about all the failsafe I had put into the magic, to the point where I was nearly drained as I offered my son the only safety net I could manage. While I hadn’t known that the witches planned to bind his witch powers too, my spell had broken both bindings thanks to the contact with Toth.

My new son-in-law was harder to talk about. There were many parallels in our stories, as with a lot of demons forced into contracts with witches. This brought back a lot of unpleasant memories for me, some of which the royals could probably see. There were demonkin there that I couldn’t classify at a glance.

Once finished, I fell silent, waiting for the judgment to come. Finally, it did. The sound echoed through the chamber. One voice as before.

“Petition granted.”

Cody and Toth were now princes and safe from this, at least. Basil was still an issue. As was the human, though he was the hitman’s problem now.