Page 75 of The Deer and the Dragon
My mouth opened, the uneaten cookie falling onto the plate where I’d left the dredges of my coffee. It had been abhorrently sweet. I shoved it away as I asked, “Then why do you buy them?”
“In case my little sugar goblin stops by,” he said, ruffling her hair as he passed in a return to his room.
She smiled happily as she popped another cookie into her mouth.
My heart squeezed painfully as I looked at the place where he’d been only moments before.Twenty years.He’d kept the pantry stocked for twenty years, just in case she paid a visit. Just as I was about to scold Fauna for not appreciating his love, I thought of something she’d said to me in the car when I asked why Caliban had stayed with me.
If you waste this lifetime, he loves you enough to try again in the next. And the next. And the next.
And because I didn’t have the emotional capacity to deal with half of what I was going through, I did what I did best: I compartmentalized. I shoved the pain into a little pocket and decided to distract myself.
I kept myself busy by poking around the apartment while we waited for the arrival of a lillith. While most of the home was beautiful in its simplicity, he did have a number of antiquities that made the mythology enthusiast in me drool. A row of interesting candles had metallic threads where a wick should have been. An intricately carved dagger with a passage written in ornate Latin rested behind a glass enclosure, propped up on display. A black book with writing that may have been Sanskrit sat upon what could only be described as a small pulpit, opened to a single passage. There was a piece of pottery with, if I wasn’t mistaken,hisform, arms outstretched as men knelt, presumably pleading for their lives.
The sound that rang through the apartment to signal someone’s arrival wasn’t the familiar, robotic buzz of a delivery man. Instead, an ominous, haunting note slithered through the building.
My heart caught in my throat as I nearly knocked over the priceless antiquity I’d been gingerly fingering. It had to be the lillith. The night creature. The royal stylist. The bitch from 1360.
I scrambled to the kitchen to refill my coffee cup just so I’d have something to do with my trembling hands when she entered. I pressed my back against the furthest cabinet and braced myself for gnashing teeth, for Cheshire smiles, for whatever talons might grant someone the title of shriek owl.
Azrames opened the door, and my eyebrows lifted in surprise.
Given Fauna’s description of the woman, I’d readied myself for one of two extremes: either a shriveled monster or a towering figure in a golden, drapey gown. I thought I’d meet the ancient Sumerian Morticia Addams in black and lace or the imposing reincarnation of Cleopatra. Instead, a bored-looking woman with horns that started at the crown of her skull and curved around her ears stepped into the room. She wore pointed stilettos and tailored, high-waisted black pants with a semi-sheer black bustier tucked into her pants. She removed enormous, angular black sunglasses and folded them in half, tucking them so they dangled between her breasts. She looked like she’d come straight from a private jet after a fashion week in Milan. She pursed nude-painted lips as she gave me a once-over.
“This is the girl?” she asked, crossing her arms. She dangled one hand in my direction, manicured nails pointing at me.
“It is indeed,” Azrames confirmed. Then to me, he asked, “Would you like to introduce yourself?”
All three looked at me expectantly as I clutched my coffee cup.
“Merit,” I said. I didn’t think I was imagining the way Azrames visibly relaxed. Fauna’s proud grin from the far side of the room was unmistakable.
“And you can call me Ianna,” she said.
I didn’t miss the careful wording. I was curious who, if anyone, knew her real name. I idly wondered how the fae-like-creatures in the room had chosen the names they gave freely, before asking the same question of myself. I wasa woman of three names in a single lifetime. Maribelle had earned me an ocean of money, and then Merit had outshined her ten to one. But I hadn’t come to Hell seeking riches. My aliases had done well, but hopefully Marlow would be the one who found herself a prince.
Azrames shut the door behind her, politely offering coffee.
“Don’t be dull,” she said, perching delicately on his black leather chair. “Offer me a real drink.”
“Sky’s the limit, and I only carry top shelf,” he replied, no hesitation at the hour. “What would you like?”
She asked Az to make her a martini, which I found utterly fascinating.
“Onion or olive?” he asked.
“Bitters,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s breakfast.”
Gin and vermouth made for a quick cocktail. He procured the citrus and peeler seemingly from nowhere and finished in a flourish.
“Ianna, you remember Fauna?” he asked, handing her the glass carefully garnished with a fresh curl of lemon. Ianna made a dismissive gesture, to which Fauna rolled her eyes.
Watching this woman—thisdemon—tuck her hair behind her curling horn as she elegantly sipped gin at nine the morning was a stranger fiction than anything I could have dared to imagine for the mythological world within thePantheonseries. The morning light refracted on the glass, breaking the sunbeams into tiny rainbows on his furniture.
“Merit,” she said with the sort of clipped authority that I expected from a CEO, “why are you standing in the kitchen? I didn’t come across the city for you to shrink like a mouse. Assert yourself.”
I swallowed and hurried obediently to the couch opposite her. The others watched with mixed curiosity and amusement from where they loitered. Fauna stayed near the island while Azrames leaned against the wall.
“I’m looking for the Prince,” I said, deciding against giving her the name I’d ascribed to him. “And in order to do that, I’m told I need to speak to the King.”
