Page 1 of The Demon Prince's Accidental Mate
Chapter One
Lily
“Hi there, sweetie.” The short, elderly lady with thin frizzy white hair and a wizened frame came bustling around the corner as I pulled open the creaky door to the used bookshop. “What can I help you find today?”
“Do you have any books that deal with, uh, not loss, but complicated emotions?”
“Complicated?”
I nodded, sighing, unsure how to explain it to the woman so that she wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy like the young woman at the chain bookstore had done.
My father was an abusive asshole piece of shit, and the day a Faerie killed him, I felt two emotions.
Neither was sadness. First was surprise because, until the moment the vindictive bastard was burned alive in one of his bakery’s ovens, I hadnoidea magical beings were real. The second thing I felt was a grand sense of relief. He was gone, and I wasfree.
The feeling of loss started to settle in as days turned to one week, then two. Not that I missed my father. Fuck him. Even if we’d had a good relationship, I would have been too busy working like a madwoman to keep the “family” bakery from going under.
Unfortunately for me, he was the only one with any link whatsoever to my mother. I’d secretly held out hope that he might let something slip one day, and I could learn about her. Even her name was a supremely guarded secret I was deemed unworthy of knowing. Now, he was dead, and I had no way of finding out what had happened to her.
Or why she’d abandoned me.
It was a lot to process, and I struggled with it as the days went on.
“Complicated emotions,” the old woman repeated, muttering rapidly under her breath as she turned and shimmied off into the store.
I followed her, wondering the entire time if she wanted me to or if I should stay at the front.
“Have something for everything, I do,” she said, her watery brown eyes focusing on me with a sudden intensity.
Was she trying to reassure me so that I didn’t leave? There was little fear of that. I had never noticed this little bookstore set in the back of an old house, and now that I had, I intended to check it out fully. Maybe I could rescue some hidden gems from the dusty shelves.
Money was tighter than ever, but used bookstores were great for that. This one was so close that I knew I would frequent it regularly.
I followed her down a set of squeaky stairs into a basement and through a heavy-duty door carved with a design I couldn’t fathom into a square, white room.
“I feel like I’m inside a bank vault for used books,” I commented, trying to lighten the mood, wondering what purpose such a room served.
The woman laughed. Cackled, to put it more accurately, a sound that absolutely did not put me at ease. I shifted my weight, wondering if I should leave.
“Don’t worry,” the woman assured me. “You’re safe. You don’t have to worry. Old Andie won’t hurt you. We’re just here so you can tell me everything. Nobody will overhear what you say here. Nor will they judge you. No matter what you have to say.”
I eyed the woman, Andie, wondering if she was reading my mind or if she was just guessing.
“Well, come now,” she said with an impatient gesture when I didn’t immediately begin babbling my tale. “You wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be in my shop, if you didn’t need a particular type of help. So, out with it. Let’s go.”
“I … what?”
“Old Andie, she knows, she knows. You have an aura about you, young woman. I can see, indeed. So, tell me what happened. Whatreallyhappened.”
I hesitated.
“Don’t think I’ll believe it, do you?” she pushed. “Think I’ll call you crazy.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” I said softly, somehow drawn in by the woman’s warm energy.
“No crazy in here. Old Andie will believe you. Seen things, I have. You can tell me. I’ll believe you.”
I thought it over. What did I have to lose? Being laughed out of another store wouldn’t change things much.
