Page 18 of Princess Redeemed

“You’re here,” she says.“Go back to sleep, Hannah.Go back to sleep.”

“But…here?”I try to turn my head.“In the demons’ lair?”

She chuckles softly, smoothing my hair.“What are you talking about?You reallydidtake a blow to the head.You’re home.At your place.”

“But…how…”

“Shh.Just rest.Larissa is coming over later for dinner.”

“Home?”

“Your apartment,” she says.“Your father called me and told me you’d taken a tumble.He asked Larissa and me to come out and stay with you.”

Tumble?I took a tumble?Uh…no.One of your husband’s minions shot me in the chest with a flaming arrow, but…whatever.

How am I here?Back in Chicago at my own place?I was in the ether.Then the demons’ lair.

I don’t remember…

The last thing was the meadow.Rogan.I craved his blood, and?—

Nothing.

No blood.

Then I open my eyes and I’m back home.

With my mother.My mother who abandoned both Larissa and me when she married Richard.I always wondered how he had such control over her, why she succumbed to his every desire so quickly, to the detriment of her children.

How?Richard denied using any of his powers.

“Do you have her under some kind of a thrall?God, it’s all making sense now.”

“You think it was chance that I met your mother?I knew all along who she was.Who you all were, before you knew yourself.And there was and is no thrall.Your mother was so damned needy after your father got through with her that all I had to do was treat her a little less badly.”

But he’s a demon.He’s inherently evil.Inherently untrustworthy.

He could easily be lying.

“Where’s your husband?”I ask.

“At home in Columbus, of course.He knows how you and Larissa feel about him.He stayed away out of courtesy to you.”

Courtesy?Did she really just use that word?

My mother—my brilliant mother, the Fulbright scholar—has no clue who she’s married to.He’s certainly not in Columbus, unless the demons’ lair somehow occupies the same space on a different plane.

Fuck.This isn’tStar Trek.My mind is mush.

My mother will never know her husband’s actual identity if I can help it.Knowing who Richard truly is could destroy her.She’s fragile, thanks to her own upbringing and to her years with my father.If she finds out…

I can’t let that happen.

“I’m so sorry this happened, Hannah,” my mother says.“Your father seemed quite concerned when I spoke to him.”

“He’s never been concerned about me a day in his life.”

And neither have you, ever since you married the demon king.