Page 41 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

Then I have him huddled against my chest. Dark-blond hair that wants to be curly falls across his brow as he chokes back more pained sobs. From all the places I’m certain that I’ve inadvertently hurt him just while getting him in my arms.

Still crouched, I pivot so I don’t have the audience at my back.

Phone still in hand, the girl runs to me.

I raise my elbow to gently block her from throwing herself on her injured brother.

She hesitates, tears streaking her face.

But when she leans over my arm, using it to support herself, her dark-blue eyes are fierce and determined.

“He’ll heal quicker now.” My words come out in a dark rumble that I’m unable to soften. “Now that he’s not in the cage.”

“I’m okay, Kitty,” Tommy says.

Kitty reaches for him, laying a trembling hand on his uninjured shoulder.

“Sully is near,” Mirth says casually. Her gaze is fixed to the panicking audience.

Well, anyone not laughing as if they’re utterly mad is panicking.

“I can feel him now. I can feel all of you.” She sounds relieved and peaceful, even while half the people in the crowd clutch at their sides, gasping for air and weeping with laughter under the mere touch of her essence.

“There aren’t any cameras in here,” Coda grumbles through Kitty’s phone speaker.

Kitty straightens with renewed purpose, pointing her forgotten phone and its camera back out at the room.

She leans against my shoulder without fear, as near as she can be to Tommy.

The little one is ours as well, like her brother.

It’s another thread-thin connection, but it’s steady.

Her power, the tiniest tickle next to the tsunami that is Mirth, marks her as awry.

Tommy stifles another pained moan.

“It’s the partial shift that’s hurting the most,” I say to him. “You’re going to listen to my voice, listen to my heart, and breathe with me and remember your wholly human form.”

“They gave me something,” Tommy says.

“Close your eyes,” I say steadily. “With each breath, imagine whatever shit they gave you dissolving in the power of your blood.”

Tommy looks at me with fear-blown eyes.

I get in his face so that all he can see is me. “You are so powerful, so unique, that you scare all these rich fucks, Tommy.”

“How … how do you know?” he croaks.

“Because you belong to me. Understand? You belong to Mirth, so you’re mine as well. And look at Mirth …”

He glances past my shoulder.

“Feel her power?”

He nods, pained.

“Feel how strong she is? She’s yours. Not only is her strength, my strength, yours, but you are carved from the same portion of the universe as we were. You’re younger and still learning, and that’s okay. But whatever those fucks gave you? It’s nothing compared to the power already in your blood.”

The pained fear in Tommy’s eyes darkens into a fierce anger.

“Good,” I say. “Now, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and exhale any remaining shit.” I inhale, then slowly exhale.

Tommy mimics me.

As does Kitty. “I’m more powerful than these rich fucks,” she says on her exhale.

Coda cackles gleefully through the phone speakers.

Mirth huffs.

And Tommy laughs. He laughs, shouts in pain, and shifts back into his wholly human form.

“Oh!” Kitty cries. “You did it, Tommy!”

The boy in my arms shakes from the effort, and he’s still wounded enough that he needs a healer. But he meets my gaze steadily.

“Good,” I say. Then I finally look up to address the next issue.

Not that Mirth isn’t in complete control, but I’m fairly certain all this manic laughter isn’t healthy for the inflicted. Not that I care. But Mirth wouldn’t normally hold her power so tightly if she was cool with just going around murdering people.

Three elders of the Merton bond group— the ones who invited me here, and whom I left behind at the table— stand before the stage in the center aisle, seemingly locked in a contest of wills. With Mirth.

It’s a one-sided contest.

Mirth appears equal parts amused and annoyed, but in that detached way that peerage has of making everyone feel beneath them.

I’m thankful she’s never looked at me like that.

To be fair, ranking among peerage is often a nebulous thing. No one but her father outranks Mirth, no one but Mirth outranks me. In this room, at any rate. Lord Savoy, Sully, who is supposedly nearby, completely outranks me.

The Merton bond group as a whole outrank just about everyone they come into contact with. And others tend to treat them accordingly.

But one on one?

There’s no contest of wills they could hope to win, not by rank or by power, when faced with Mirth.

Evans, aka Viscount Boyne, situated between the other two Mertons, is a powerful shield mage, and his power flickers over the trio now.

Apparently he plays squash or who-the-fuck-knows-what with Eli.

I was barely listening to him tonight, to be honest. DeVere, a baron who attended school with my much older deceased brothers, invited me to the auction.

We ran into each other at a totally rigged poker game at the archaic gentleman’s club where Eli suggested I stay whenever I’m in London.

I made my first appearance at the club tonight instead of showing up on Mirth’s doorstep uninvited.

Then there’s the head of their bond group. The elder Lord Merton himself. Vincent. Isla and Archie’s father.

All three Mertons look smug as fuck. Presumably because they think they’re withstanding the onslaught that’s bringing down over half the other toffs in the theater now.

But I can clearly see that Mirth isn’t even trying to affect the Mertons …

to infect them? I’m not entirely certain what her power is, not even with it spread out before me in all its glory.

Honestly, it’s possible she’s holding back even now, having crafted a protective perimeter all around us and only lashing out initially to protect me. The farther away the audience members are from the stage, the less they appear affected.

The main doors also appear to be sealed. Likely a security measure by the auction coordinators, but it’s working against them now.

“That’s enough, Mirth!” Lord Merton snaps. As if he has any right to speak to the princess in that tone, let alone address her without her titles while in public.

“Do you think I’ve made my position clear, Lord Merton?” Mirth asks, utterly amused.

Lord Merton huffs, glancing at me with a deep frown. He doesn’t bother looking at the kids at all as he shifts his imperious attention back to Mirth. “Just take the children and go. I’ll clean up your mess.”

“Your mess,” Mirth says. “Unless you’d like to try to convince me that my soul-bound mate is the head of this chapter of the Mobius Group?”

The other two mages glance at each other. It’s a quick but guilty-as-fuck look.

“Don’t be silly, Mirth. You obviously can’t penetrate Viscount Boyne’s shield, and you certainly can’t stand against me should I decide you need …

quelling,” Merton says, angry but trying to hide it.

“And even if I do let you go, allowing you to take the children with you, you can’t prove that we knew anything about this …

” He nods toward the cage at my back, as if unwilling to lower himself to even say the words ‘child trafficking.’ “Or this … so-called Mobius Group.”

He doesn’t fool my nose. Or the reach of Mirth’s weaponized empathy essence, presumably.

“I’ll take that as a challenge,” Mirth says, smiling.

Coda cackles over Kitty’s phone speakers. “Grandpa has no idea what any of us are capable of. I’ve already got his financials at my fingertips. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll start excavating the centuries of fucked-up shit his family trades in.”

That’s a promise, not just a boast, for a tech as skilled as Coda.

“Yes, very short-sighted of him.” Mirth laughs, quietly gleeful.

In sharp contrast to the power threaded through every word that passes her lush lips, Mirth’s laugh is charming and sweet.

Birds sing, flowers bloom, and the heavens bathe us in joy.

I have no idea if my reaction is from our shared bond. Or from her complete support despite the initial appearance that I might have been involved with the Mobius Group. Or from her earlier claiming of me. Even though we barely know each other.

So I ignore it, straightening to my full height, then shifting Tommy in my arms enough that I can tuck Kitty against my leg with my other hand.

Mirth tilts her head. “But I don’t think you deserve to die laughing, Lord Merton. I also don’t think you deserve something as easy as Coda destroying your financials with a click of a couple of buttons.”

Lord Merton’s face reddens. He huffs again, angrily, through his nose.

His bond mates glance at each other again, openly rattled now. It’s possible they’re contemplating abandoning the head of their bond group. If they were soul bound, their loyalty would be unquestionable — even when faced with the level of danger Mirth represents.

“No …” Mirth muses. “The great and powerful Lord Merton wouldn’t be here at the behest of anyone else.

If you aren’t the head of this chapter, then you’re near to it.

So I will ensure that you’re completely miserable and alive to be stripped of it all.

It won’t take me more than a single phone call.

But perhaps a lunch date would be more polite.

” She flashes him a perfect-princess smile.

“One must always be polite. Yes, Lord Merton? But I can make those arrangements after I get the children safely home.”

Apparently too angry to respond with words, Lord Merton raises his hands toward Mirth. He’s a mage, specializing in potent poisons. Undetectable poisons, according to rumors.

I move, pivoting to protect one child in my arms and the other beside me, even as I step in front of Mirth to take Merton’s hit.