Page 29 of Avaritia

“Fair enough.” This is why I found her the easiest to get along with—Ophelia was great at rolling with the punches.

Dinner rolled into dessert, and everyone seemed to be making a conscious effort to keep the conversation light after the awkward stare-off.

“Are you going along on the royal tour?” I asked Damen, leaning forward slightly so I could see him at the other end of the table.

“Apparently.” If Shades could roll their eyes, he would have.

“Is that such a hardship for you, brother?” Allerick drawled, unimpressed. “Are we interrupting your busy schedule?”

Damen looked slightly chastened, grumbling out a disagreement. I didn’t know shit about how this whole system of leadership worked, but it seemed like Damen hadn’t quite found his role within it.

“While we’re all here, I would like to discuss this ban on feeding in the human realm, and my desire for an exemption,” Rainy announced, seeing an opening in the conversation and really launching herself straight into it. I couldn’t help but admire her confidence—Rainy had more in her teenage years than I had in my thirties.

Theon scoffed. “That’s our cue to leave. Come along, Verity.”

“No need,” Xanthia replied hastily, standing and gesturing for Rainy to do the same. “You young folk stay, enjoy your evening. I will take Rainy home with me.”

“Mother—” she objected.

“You don’t want to embarrass me in front of my dear friend, Orabelle, do you? My dear, dear friend who I so seldom see,” Xanthia added innocently, laying on the thickest layer of maternal guilt I’d ever seen.

“But I haven’t had a chance to speak to the king yet,” Rainy objected furiously, stomping her foot as she stood.

“Oh well. Next time,” Xanthia replied cheerfully, already dragging Rainy away. “Bye all!”

I barely stifled a laugh, not wanting to antagonize the tiny tyrant any more than I already had while her mother carted her away, quietly lecturing her the entire way. Theon watched impassively, not looking surprised in the least by his sister’s reaction.

“How mad is she going to be later?” I asked him, grinning across the table.

“Probably no more than usual,” Theon replied dryly. I snorted before falling silent, noticing that the rest of the table was watching us, scrutinizing our interaction a little too intently for my liking.

They all stared at Theon and me like they were waiting for some big disaster to unfold, and while, sure, we were sort of on track for disaster with the secret mark beneath my clothes, I was still a little salty about it. Nobody had watched the other Shade/ex-Hunter pairings like that.

I was probably a little hypersensitive on this front. I’d spent my entire life being looked at like I was the odd one out, and I was kind of over it. It wasn’t like these guys hadn’t experienced bumps in the road in their relationships.

Different bumps to the teeth-shaped one I was hiding under my jumpsuit, but bumps nonetheless.

I’d have stewed over it a little more, but Theon had his glower out in full force, and I didn’t trust the next words to come out of his mouth not to set us back several steps in everyone’s eyes. The light mood was gone, and it was probably best to call it now and end on a relative high.

“Ready to go, honeybunch?” I asked, shooting him my most syrupy sweet smile across the table.

His agitation cleared, his expression returning to its neutral state of bored arrogance as he turned his attention to me. It wasn’t unlike Allerick’s default expression, in all honesty. There were more brotherly similarities than I’d realized at first glance.

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving already?” Ophelia asked as I stood, looking up at me with puppy dog eyes that were probably the sole reason this royal tour was happening.

Ophelia was definitely a golden retriever.

“We are. This has been so fun, though. Thank you for having us.”

I hugged all the people I needed to hug, thanked our hosts, and all in all, was a perfectly gracious guest, while my secret mate brooded in the background next to Wilder, waiting for me to finish with the niceties.

The moment we were in the in-between, Theon tucked my hand into the crook of his arm in a very determined way—not so much as a gesture of affection but more like the way you’d tell a rambunctious kid that they had to keep one hand on the cart at the grocery store to stop them from running away.

“That was fun, right?” I asked, peering up at him in the darkness, barely making out the faintest shape of his horns.

Theon grunted.

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