Page 21 of Married to the Devil

Silas throws one of his pieces of cereal at her, and she dodges it easily, her amusement not breaking.

“Careful now. Someone may think you’re protesting too much,” Francesca says, her brows high.

Silas glares into his breakfast. “Fiona is too young for such things.”

Francesca’s laugh burbles up with charming disbelief. “She’s going to get you if you’re not careful.”

Silas glares before shifting topics.

“Do you know what you want to do today?” he asks me. “Fiona and Connors will get a good read of how the Leonids are taking the territory takeover, but their report probably won’t be done until later today.”

“So, any excursions better be planned well?” I ask.

He nods in acknowledgment.

The walls creep in. No casual walks mid-workday or spontaneously trying different restaurants like I usually do. Visiting my best friend will probably require a whole safety setup because she’s Kalos’s mate, and I’m…no longer a harmless witch.

I’m not a prisoner, but the terms of this new life will be stifling if I let myself think about it. Perhaps it will get better as the Leonids accept our place here.

Or perhaps the chaotic parts of me will be trimmed down to fit this role… Another cost I hadn’t considered, but wouldn’t the peace of a whole territory be worth that?

From my understanding, there hasn’t been any bloodshed with this takeover after Kalos left the power gap when crushing Lorenzo, but that hardly means there won’t be.

“For now, the Leonids are waiting to see what type of territory leader Stoneheart is. Small testing of boundaries will be expected.” Silas gives voice to my assumptions. “There are a few individuals who didn’t fall along with Lorenzo when Kalos struck that could muster enough backing to make a claim.”

“But none of them have a clearer claim than I do,” I say.

“Correct. There are exceptions, your brother, Leo, and uncle are presumed to be alive though they haven’t returned to the territory, so we aren’t concerned about them yet, and your other brother who is currently in Thailand has abdicated any claim.”

I nod, thinking. Everything leading up to the wedding was planned by others. This is the first day after signing the engagement contract that I get to decide what happens next.

The witch part of me aches to commune with magic and wants to set up a space to act as my workshop to make charms. Even if my business has closed its doors, charm making pulses in my being. It’s a large part of who I am, and I’ll still need to make time to indulge in it if only to refresh my own charms.

But I’m not only a witch anymore. I can’t afford to stick my head in the sand to craft all day when the people of this territory must be feeling unsettled. I don’t know much about how things have functioned here since I lived in Kalos’s territory, but I’ve heard troubling whispers. Whispers that I now have the resources and the responsibility to check.

I steel my spine with that conclusion.

“I’d like to catch up on any information you have on the goings on of the territory,” I say.

Silas tilts his muzzle with approval. “Very good. We’ll get you the reports.”

“I won’t be much help,” Francesca says, though there’s a lightness of approval in her voice as well. I think I’ve passed a test. “I’ve been given the responsibility of managing the rest of our holdings while Silas and the boss handle this one.”

She must be as high of rank in Stoneheart’s organization as Silas to be given such a large task to manage. Her bearing makes sense now.

“Where is Stoneheart?” I voice the question I’ve put off all morning.

It’s embarrassing to not know the whereabouts of my husband, but neither Francesca nor Silas seems to think that.

Francesca shrugs. “Who knows? Remy does what he wants. Anytime Silas has tried to arrange an itinerary, it’s useless within an hour.”

I’m taken aback at her using his first name when no one else I know has, but she does work closely with him. Familiarity is to be expected.

Silas sighs, his annoyance clear. “He doesn’t like constraints on his time. He’d prefer things to be flexible, so he has the most strategies open to him at once.”

That doesn’t sound conducive to a relationship. It’s appearing more and more that this will be a marriage in name only.

I should be happy about that. It will allow me to focus on what my role here is.

---