Page 59 of Hers to Rule

“Good.” The image of her sweet kitty curled up in bed made her warm inside, but she steeled herself for what she knew was coming. “How about our guests?”

“Kima growls whenever I get near the door, which I suppose is to be expected from a lion shifter. Giselle says they’ve been eating, so I think we just need to wait for them to emerge from the guest room.”

“And you think they aren’t a danger to us?”

“I think Kima will be an asset if we can convince her to stay. But if they want to go, then we should let them.”

Mari nodded. “I saw Willow at breakfast. They didn’t seem inclined to go home, which was a surprise.”

Cisco shrugged. “I think they want to talk to Rio, but he’s not ready for company yet. I let Esmé know they were safe.”

With reluctance, she moved on to the part of the conversation she was dreading. “You want to ask me about it now?”

Cisco looked her over carefully. “If you want to talk about it.”

“Honestly, I’m never going to want to talk about it, so we might as well get it out of the way.”

“What was it?”

Mari shrugged. “He looked like a demon, but I got the feeling he only took that shape because it was a familiar one for me. I’m not sure what he actually is. Maybe some kind of demigod?”

Cisco frowned. “And it blew Argento into atoms?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He said he stopped protecting Argento, and that whatever had been after him, whatever my father and the other incubi had been running from, finally found him. But it happened in a fraction of a second.”

“So they were keeping it captive here, using you to feed it, in order to protect themselves from something even worse?”

“That’s the impression I got.”

“And you don’t think it wants to hurt you?”

“No, I really don’t. I mean, the whole thing was really intense, but if he had wanted to hurt me, he had every opportunity.”

He picked up one of her hands and examined the mark of Dohal’s claws on her wrist. “These look like they hurt.”

She remembered how it had burned, how she had screamed, but somehow, the memory didn’t cause her any distress, as if the pain had been incidental. “Not in a bad way.”

Cisco looked skeptical. “In a sexy way?”

Mari blushed as she remembered how Dohal had made her feel, like she was on fire but never burned. “I guess.”

He rested their joined hands against his thigh. “Okay, what is it you aren’t telling me? I know there’s something.”

She exhaled a long breath. “He made it sound like I was made for him. Like to be his perfect mate or something.”

Cisco searched her face for a moment. “Do you think that’s true?”

“I have no idea. Honestly. It makes a certain kind of sense, that they would want another layer of control over him, especially if they thought he was making attempts to get free.”

He rubbed her hand with his thumb. “There’s more?”

Mari nodded. “He made it sound like I wasn’t just a sex witch, like I was something else. Like my father and the incubi had created me with a purpose, made me into something else.”

“Something like?”

“I don’t know exactly.” Mari shrugged. “He used the word goddess a lot, but I don’t know if that was literal or metaphorical.” She swallowed because the last part was difficult to come to terms with. “He said they wouldn’t have been able to control me forever, that I was too wild. Maybe too dangerous? I’m not sure.”

Cisco pulled her up out of her chair gently, bringing her closer to him. “You’re not dangerous, Mari. No matter what the creature thinks.” He curled an arm around her and kissed the side of her face gently. “And just to put things in perspective, I’m sure that I called you a goddess first.”

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