Page 16 of Lifeblood

Lance nodded, but then a slow smirk came over his face.

“What?” I didn’t see anything funny about neck pain.

“Nothing,” he said with a chuckle. “In any case, I wanted to apologize for last night. The other demon kings can be so serious sometimes when just alittlethought and care was all that was needed.”

“It’s okay.” I supposed. But I wasn’t about to argue with Lance now that he was before me again, the both of us here alone, and, most importantly, when my stomach was calling for that tray of breakfast. It rumbled even now. “It must be hard ruling over so many demons. Making decisions for the Demon Courts as a whole all on your own.”

“Not really,” he said lightheartedly, but his tone didn’t match his eyes. Before I could point it out, he was already pivoting the conversation. “How’d you sleep? Besides your neck, anyway.”

It was my turn to laugh, dry though the sound may have been. “Everything about my life just changed. How do youthinkI slept?”

Lance shrugged and closed the distance between us. He came to sit on the bed beside me and placed the tray of breakfast foods between us. “Always worth it to check in.”

“How didyouall sleep knowing everything’s changed for you four?” I countered. “It wasn’t just my life that changed last night.”

Lance inclined his head. “Touché.”

Silence fell between us. It unsettled me, so I tried to inject some humor. “So, breakfast for the prisoner?”

Lance’s dark eyes grew serious.Shit. Had I offended him somehow?

“You’re not a prisoner,” he said curtly.

I leveled him with a look. “Much. I’m not bound, but I’m not fully unguarded, either.”

“You turned yourself in,” he reminded me.

I nodded. “To save my friend from the same fate as all the women who’ve ‘won’ the wife lottery before.”

Lance sucked in a tight breath. “I like you, Ava. But you’ve really got to stop insinuating we kill the women who win the wife lottery.”

I sat up straighter. “But they never return.”

Lance glanced down at the tray of fruits and cheeses and pastries. He plucked a strawberry from a dish and popped it into his mouth. “Just because they never return to the Humanlands doesn’t mean they’re dead. It’s more complicated than that.”

“So you all keep saying.” I picked at the tray, too, eating some of the fruits and cheese.

He sighed—a little overdramatically. “Let’s just enjoy breakfast together for now. Once we’re allsafeback at the palace, we’ll explain.”

“Not to keep asking the question, but why not here?” If there was a danger so worthy of Lance’s statement, I wanted to know what it was.

“Enemies abound,” was all he said before eating another strawberry. I lifted an eyebrow, to which he added, “There’s a reason why we don’t often leave the Demonic Courts except for the lottery.”

“See, that’s what worries me. What kind of enemies can you four possibly have?” Ineededto know. But I was also scared of the answer.

“Luckily, none you need to worry about.” He completed the evasive maneuver with another eaten strawberry.

I chewed my tongue. At first, I’d thought Lance was the only amicable demon king out of the bunch. But now I saw that genuine kindness came with a lot of distracting conversational pivoting.

We fell into silence again, but this one was easy as we focused on eating breakfast together. I studied his smiling face between bites, taking in his glittering, rainbow skin and unnatural fae demon eyes. He looked more monstrous faerie than stereotypical demon. Like I’d have to watch my words and my name instead of my soul.

If Mordred was many centuries old, so too were the others. Maybe not as old, but old enough to maybe give me answers to questions I barely had defined in my mind.

“What do you know of lifebloods?” I asked as the silent moment went on.

Lance raised an eyebrow. “What don’tyouknow is a better question.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Because the truth was, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Not the full extent of it anyway.

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