Page 43 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part Two

M IRTH

Tommy falls asleep shockingly fast while eating his fourth slice of pizza.

One moment, he’s on the couch next to me, interrogating Kitty about every aspect of every moment they spent apart in the last day.

The next, Bolan is lunging forward and catching him right before his head hits the hardwood floor.

On the opposite side of me from her brother, Kitty, snuggling into my shoulder as if my energy doesn’t remotely bother her, jerks upright with a tiny shriek.

“It’s all right,” Bolan says soothingly as he shifts Tommy back onto the couch, carefully setting his head down on a velvet throw pillow. “Took him longer than I thought.”

“Adrenaline,” Christoph says quietly. Arms crossed and face in deep shadow, the bear shifter has posted himself at the street-side windows. And not for the view. “He needed to know Kitty was safe … with us.”

Bolan stares down at Tommy thoughtfully. “You get a read on his beast?”

Christoph flicks a look at Kitty. She huffs, crossing her arms to mimic his stance, then stares right back at him. Christoph huffs playfully in return, allowing his arms to fall to his sides as he steps closer.

Through the window, the sun begins to flush across the tops of neighboring buildings as it rises.

“Cath palug,” I say. “A gigantic cat shifter. Like Anne.”

Bolan tilts his head thoughtfully, nostrils flaring. “A cath palug? Really. I caught the feline scent but couldn’t place it. It’s retreated now.”

“The shit they pumped into him has flushed from his system. That was mostly what I could scent.” Christoph steps over to stare down at Tommy alongside Bolan.

“A monstrous cat shifter. Rare enough to be practically mythical. No wonder those assholes threw him in a cage. They collect all unusually powerful creatures, not just those with purple eyes.”

“He’ll be fine now,” I say, mostly to soothe myself.

Christoph shifts his attention to Kitty. “Bedtime now.”

Kitty juts her chin out at the huge bear shifter. Christoph’s been trying to get us all to bed since we arrived back at the apartments. “Then why wasn’t I in a cage?” she asks challengingly.

Christoph bares his teeth at her. “They’d get a better price for you once your powers have settled. Maximizing profit. Or maybe the Mertons were just going to keep you for themselves, little seer.”

The twist of emotion that runs through that weaponized term of endearment finally makes Christoph’s reaction to Kitty much clearer. His mother was a purple-eyed seer, and though her cage was far more gilded than Tommy’s had been —

Kitty scrambles up onto the couch, which really doesn’t do anything to even her height out against Christoph. “Mirth won’t let you hurt me,” she spits viciously.

He looks startled, actually taking a step back.

Kitty points her finger at the duke. “I saw you! I saw you!”

All of us adults hesitate for a moment. Then I speak tentatively, my stomach souring. “In your head, Kitty?”

“No.” She sobs once, then stamps her foot on the couch, defiant. “He was sitting out there with all the others staring at us. He’s the reason they put Tommy in a cage.”

Christoph takes another step back, then another. At the last moment, before tripping over it, he sinks down into one of the large leather chairs. Making himself less threatening— but also in shock, I think.

“You …” I clear my throat. “You trust Coda, don’t you, Kitty?”

“No,” she says with utter conviction. “Coda can only be trusted to do what Coda wants.”

More of that shaky silence stretches around us. I meet Bolan’s gaze, but Christoph has his eyes on the ground.

“I think …” I whisper. “I think that is actually very wise. But you trust me, yes?”

Kitty pivots to stare down at me. “I trust you, Mirth.”

“And I trust Christoph.”

The duke takes a deep, shaky breath.

Kitty narrows her eyes on him. “Why?”

“Because he’s mine,” I say steadily. “And you saw what I did to those people in the theater?”

“And the two guys below.”

“Yes, well, I think I might have killed those two.” Now it’s my turn to take a shaky breath. “But that … power …”

“Making people laugh so hard it kills them?”

That’s the simplest explanation, so I just add to it. “That’s a form of empathy. I can feel emotions, and I can … twist those emotions. When someone is lying to me … I can feel it. If I try.”

Kitty’s eyes widen, then narrow again. “Well, I don’t know, do I?”

Bolan tries to swallow a laugh and ends up coughing.

“I am not funny,” Kitty says to him.

Christoph finally raises his head, looking at Kitty.

“I’m sorry you saw me like that, in that situation.

I would never hurt you or allow anyone else to hurt you.

Or Tommy. If Mirth hadn’t come for you, I would have busted Tommy out of that cage the moment I saw him.

So … I can’t say sorry for being there, or sorry for accepting the invitation in the first place.

Because I’m glad I was there. But if you can’t believe any of that of me just yet, that’s okay. ”

Kitty blinks at Christoph for a moment. Then she climbs down off the couch and steps closer to Tommy. She touches her brother’s shoulder lightly, not wanting to wake him but making certain he’s safe.

Before we can continue the conversation, Elias and Sully step through from the hall connecting the two upper suites of my apartments. Finally.

My royal guard attempted to sequester us all separately once they got their hands on us again.

Elias volunteered to take on the brunt of their interrogation and to oversee the aftermath of the mayhem I caused.

After healing Tommy as much as the boy’s system could handle in the first session, Sully joined the earl.

Insisting, without any hint of the anger or frustration on display earlier in the day — well, yesterday now — that as the head of the Savoy bond group, he should make his presence and support known.

I deferred to both of them because I thought it far more important to be with the kids. Though the still-irate earl is certain to use his sacrifice against me in some fashion in the future.

The paperwork will presumably be mountainous.

And I’m a little concerned that Roz is going to outright quit on me. She was so incensed outside the theater that she couldn’t look at me.

But it’s also possible that with my power now unleashed, I really scare the shit out of everyone. Explaining why no one, other than the people currently in the apartment with me, could manage to look at me in the aftermath. Or question me directly.

Elias’s cool facade dissolves upon seeing all of us arrayed in the living room. He pointedly looks out the windows, at the dawn encroaching on the city. I know he’s truly pissed because the few lights in the room dim for a moment.

Sully just grins at us all, tired.

“You should all be sleeping,” Elias snaps, yanking at his tie.

Kitty pivots away from Tommy, running toward the vexed mage before I can respond. She slides to a stop before him, head falling all the way back to gaze up at him earnestly. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

Elias blinks down at Kitty, completely confused that anyone would still be up at dawn waiting on him.

“Did you … did you find Mama?”

“Not yet,” he rasps. “The police are looking —”

“They don’t care!” Kitty cries. “Mom says we don’t mean anything to anyone like that!”

Elias goes down on one knee, raising his hands. Kitty is in his arms before he even gets them fully open. She presses her face into his neck, clinging to him.

His hands spasm. In utter shock, I think. Then he wraps his arms around her and just rocks her gently, side to side. “You mean something, kitty cat,” he murmurs. “You and Tommy, you mean everything to us. To all of us.”

My heart pinches harshly, then warmth floods my chest.

Kitty sobs into the collar of Elias’s rumpled suit. He presses his hand against the back of her head and just holds her. “I’m sorry, Kitty. We’re here now. We’re here now. We’ll figure it all out together.”

Sully appears frozen in shock. Not by Kitty’s emotional display, but by Elias’s response to her. He shakes off his confusion, stepping closer to press his hand over Elias’s on the back of Kitty’s head, holding them both for a moment. Elias lifts his gaze to meet Sully’s.

“Everything will hurt a little less, feel a little less uncertain,” Sully says gently, “after a few hours of sleep.”

Bolan scoops Tommy off the couch. The fledgling cath palug shifter is still sleeping extremely heavily, but if the two shifters aren’t concerned, then I’m not going to fret.

Much. Bolan carries Tommy back through the apartment to the guest room beside my suite.

Between the two apartments, we have six bedrooms, which seemed like too many when Armin and I first had the suites renovated.

Of course, I also own an entire castle now. Lake Thun. Gifted to me by my father during the matchmaking event … for me and my bond group.

Elias straightens with Kitty in his arms. Her eyes are closed now, head resting on his shoulder. She’s been waiting for him and Sully, I think. Something about Elias’s energy makes her feel steadier.

I slip off the couch to follow the kids to bed, pausing to hold my hand out to Christoph. He looks up at me, old pain etched through his gaze.

“We rescued them,” I say gently, knowing without asking that Christoph worked with Coda in New York because of how trapped his mother felt with his father. Knowing that his realization that Kitty is a seer might have triggered the old wound of not being able to rescue his mother.

I know barely anything about the bear shifter, but I know that.

I continue holding my hand out to him.

Christoph takes it, straightening to his feet to loom over me. I’m utterly comfortable in his shadow, though.

“I didn’t doubt you for a moment,” I whisper. “Not one second.”

He exhales harshly.