Page 22 of Monster’s Consort (Blackthorn Academy for Supernaturals #18)

Bane

Despite Amaranth and the O’Neils being gone, breakfast and dinner were served routinely.

Ferguson seemed to have his hands full, and though I’d had every intention of finding my anam cara and wrapping my wings and legs around her until she couldn’t move from them, it seemed that Violet was nowhere to be found.

Not to mention, Desmond was trying my patience.

I’d agreed to help him. Not just with his heat issue, but also I’d promised the queen and his parents that I would make sure he remained safe and cared for in their absence.

Except Desmond was not some unruly child.

He was twenty years old. Petulant as all hell, but he was an adult and certainly I did not need to babysit a grown ass adult incubus.

But there was also the truth that if something did happen to Desmond on my watch—while the queen and his parents were gone—I would certainly never be considered for a viable consort.

If something happened to the Dark Fae Prince on my watch I was likely done for and I doubted the queen would let me within ten feet of Violet, and rightfully so.

So whether I liked it or not, I was on Pissy Prince duty, which also cut into my time with Violet.

“Are you okay?” I asked, nudging her arm.

She jolted, blinking at me as if she had just remembered where she was.

“Of course,” she smiled, but I could tell it was not genuine. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

I knew I should have pressed her. But I thought perhaps her worry was centered around her mother and her return. It made sense, but there was nothing I could do to change her worries or soothe them.

So I said nothing and continued to cut my chicken coq au vin .

It had taken much fighting with Ferguson to let me into the kitchen. But ultimately, when I’d popped my wings and glared at him with my incubus gaze, he relented.

Desmond was not impressed, and he was vocal about it.

“A good consort would know how to diplomatically assert themselves without calling their monster,” he’d said.

“A good Prince would know when to shut his mouth. Lest he wants to end up in the coq au vin himself,” I had countered, but he only rolled his eyes at me.

Still, all things considered, I think it turned out rather well for his first official meal.

“Is the chicken too tough?” I asked.

Violet shook her head. “No, I’m just tired, is all.”

“I can’t believe the summer is almost over,” Delaney said. “It feels like we just got here and now, within a few weeks, we’ll all be leaving for Blackthorn.”

“Not without a birthday bash, right?” Norman said with a grin, raising his eyebrows.

Wanda gracefully leaned over to take a bite of her chicken after blowing on it.

I noticed the proximity between her and Norman seemed to be not as distant as it once was, and I wondered if they had made up over whatever it was they were fighting about.

Not that I cared about Wanda and Norman’s slippery situationship-relationship-fingasm-ship.

All I cared about was Norman had seemingly stopped trying to leech lust off of me, and Wanda seemed less bitchy than usual. Which was saying something.

“A festival on your birthday is pretty dope,” Delaney nodded. “I wish my birthday was a damn holiday.”

“When is your birthday?” Desmond asked, his voice apathetic and smooth.

“Not until the end of August,” she said with a huff. “Unfortunately.”

“August twentieth, right?” Violet asked.

Delaney nodded.

“Perhaps we shall declare August twentieth, Delaney Day,” Desmond said with a half-smirk.

I did not miss her blush and Violet giggled.

“Yes, we can celebrate with cat memes and?—”

“Marshmallows,” Wanda said with a smile. “You still love marshmallows, right?”

There was a strange tension as I noticed the faint glimmer in Delaney’s eyes as she looked at the siren, and I just... I knew.

It was hard not to notice the look of one of Wanda’s victims. The sadness, the wonder.

I would have never thought Delaney to be into a woman, let alone a woman like Wanda, but I supposed, like myself, that was Wanda’s plight. Being an incubus and a siren were not all that dissimilar.

We both were creatures born from lust, who wielded lust like it was a shield and an axe. And those we drew into our gravitation pulls often ended up scarred if they were not careful.

Though I didn’t think Wanda had ever killed anyone with her lust, I knew she’d hurt plenty of people with it.

Including sweet, bright little Delaney Caldecott, it seemed.

“I do,” she said with a half smile of her own. “That is the last day before we must leave for Blackthorn,” Wanda said, glancing at Violet. A strange look passed between them, too.

Though it wasn’t lustful as much as it was almost concerning.

But what in the world would Wanda have to be concerned with when it came to Violet.

“So it is,” Violet said.

“We should throw Delaney a party,” Desmond said.

“Oh, you don’t have to. I?—”

“Nonsense. If the world can stop for Violet and I, surely it can stop for you.”

Delaney smiled, glancing up at Violet.

“We can head into town,” Violet said. “Perhaps another evening of terrible karaoke and shopping.”

Delaney smiled brightly. “I’d love that.”

Desmond set his silverware down. “Then that is what we will do. One last hurrah before the dreaded school year.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Norman said, his tentacles lifting one glass in the air. His suckers popped on and off the glass, the sound echoing in the room. “To birthdays and karaoke,” he said with a grin.

“To Hot Royal Summer,” Delaney said, lifting her glass.

We all clinked our glasses together and the air grew quiet once more.

I’d offered to help clear the dishes, but Fergy looked like he was two breaths away from exploding, and Desmond had just gotten up.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“The library,” he muttered, just as Violet moved to brush past me.

I caught her by the elbow. “Are you sure you are all right?” I asked.

She looked up at me with pristine blue eyes and for a moment I thought she was going to cry.

“Perfect, now that you are here,” she said, smiling lightly.

“I’m just tired is all. Perhaps I need some rest, is all.”

“Of course,” I said, knowing she had much on her mind.

I wanted to hold her tight on top of that luscious bed of hers. Stroke her hair and let her spill her thoughts and worries and ramblings to me. But she did not seem keen on receiving such treatment, as she pulled me down for a kiss and told me she was going to retire for the evening.

“Good night,” she whispered against my lips, and I could have sworn I heard her voice shake.

“You don’t want me to escort you to your room?” I asked, only marginally hurt by the fact she didn’t ask.

I would have done it without asking, but I didn’t want to impose. I didn’t want to smother her, and the feelings I’d been having—the borderline obsession to be near her always—was starting to take a toll on me.

Perhaps it was the claiming mark, perhaps it was the stress of the situation, perhaps it was the impending start of the school year and all the uncertainty before us. But whatever it was, I managed to stave off the desire to attach myself to Violet like a damn parasite.

“You should make sure Desmond is okay,” she said softly. “Tomorrow.”

“What?” I asked.

“You should go over all of that with him. His spell books, clothes, all the things he’ll need as a first year. Go over it with him.”

“Violet, that could take all fucking day,” I said, because truthfully it could. I didn’t know all of what he brought for his stay at the castle, and I certainly didn’t know where or how he placed at the academy.

“I just... I know what it was like to not have much of a orientation beyond that of what I got when I arrived, and?—”

Watching her face falter, suddenly I wanted nothing more than to do as she asked, if only so I could see the smile on her face, period.

“All right. I’ll bridge the topic, but do not be surprised if I find you and let off some steam,” I teased her.

I leaned down to kiss her once more and she stilled, frozen like a statue.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, little faerie,” I whispered against her lips. “Tell me and I will burn it away.”

“I know you would,” she said softly.

She looked up at me, licking her lips.

“Would you marry me?” she asked, and my eyes widened at the words.

“Are you proposing to me?” I asked, my lips curling into a grin as a laugh escaped my throat.

Her cheeks pinkened and her eyes widened of their own accord.

“No! I just... What I meant was?—”

I kissed her softly, taking her bottom lip between my teeth.

“What a pity. If you were asking me to marry you, I would have said yes.” I kissed her once more, sliding my tongue into her mouth as I pulled her close.

I did not have to think twice about such things.

I’d already claimed her; she was already mine in every sense of the word where incubus law was concerned.

A claiming bite, a mate bond, was the incubi equivalent of getting married.

It was a binding spell of sorts. Violet’s blood belonged to me, and I to her.

My consort title bound us by royal decree.

What was a little paperwork in the grand scheme of things?

“But you didn’t ask, so...” I kissed her cheek and she wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight.

Tighter than usual.

“I love you,” she murmured into my shirt.

I brought my arms up to hold her, rubbing her back. Whatever was on her mind was weighing heavily on her, but I did not want to push her. If she wanted to tell me, she would.

Though there was a part of me that felt a sort of déjà vu.

Violet had left me in the dust once before. No word.

Surely, she wouldn’t do that again. Besides, there was nothing that could happen here. Nothing pressing to pull her away this time.

“I love you, too,” I said.

“Goodnight, Bane,” she said, pushing me away.

I watched as she smiled, leaving me to where I stood.

“Goodnight, my love,” I said as she walked away.