Page 93 of The Demigod

The one I had dreamed about.

It was made in shades of gray and black with some sort of shimmer to it that made it seem alive. I bet when I put it on, it would have so much movement that it would seem to be dancing around me, much like the shadows around my mother.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” I said, running my fingers over the silky material. “Where did you find something like this?”

“I have my ways,” she said. “You needed a proper gown for this day.”

Tears pricked my eyes as I turned to give her a smile.

“Thank you so much. Are you staying for the ceremony?”

“I am.”

And she did.

She stayed with me as I changed, helping me style my hair and apply my makeup—things I never knew I’d been missing all my life.

Then, arm in arm, we followed the girls out into the woods.

“You will be giving me some of these, correct?” Nyx asked, jiggling one of the club babies on her hip, getting belly laughs out of the baby that had my mother’s face softening.

“Oh, yes.”

“I think I will enjoy being a…”

“Grandmother,” I told her, watching her nose scrunch up.

“Surely we can come up with another name than that.”

“Nana? Meme? Gigi?”

“Nene,” Lenore suggested.

“That might do,” Nyx decided, nodding. “I think I will be a good Nene.”

“Weekend trips to visit Nene in the Underworld,” Charlotte mused.

“If Hades isn’t still holding a grudge about the poppies,” I said.

“Perhaps he would have gotten over it by now,” Nyx said as the baby reached up and tugged her long, dark hair. “But Momus has been goading him about it. No worries; another hundred years or so, all should be well.”

“You’ll give my daughter many of these,” Nyx said, jiggling the baby when we made it to the clearing where the men were waiting for us.

“As many as she wants,” Daemon agreed, his eyes roaming over me in my new dress, the heat clear in his eyes.

Nyx held onto Lenore’s baby as she began the spell that would chip off a little piece of my soul as I bound myself to Daemon for eternity.

It wasn’t exactly a wedding ceremony. But it wasn’tnotone either.

So once it was done, we did seal it with a kiss. Long, lingering.

By the time we came up for air, the woods were cleared.

I remembered the girls telling me how the ceremony made them all need some alone time.

Even as I thought it, the heat bloomed through me.

When I turned back to Daemon, I saw the redness in his eyes, the horns poking out of his skull.

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