Chapter 6

Two more days passed before we saw home and I was never so happy. Whoever said living in hotels was luxurious or exciting was an idiot. It was a good thing the hotels we stayed at had laundry services or I would have become intolerable very quickly.

I took his word that Marcus had gotten a hold of Talon to pass along the news that we could all return to our town on Murdoc. I felt a little disgruntled that I didn't get to speak with him, but realized that it didn't really matter.

Marcus timed our arrival so that we'd have a late dinner (picked up from a restaurant) and bypass my Aunts on the excuse that it was too late and we were all tired. It was actually true, so it worked. I was too tired and too anxious to pay much attention to anything besides the food and not even that for long.

I stayed at their house, just in case, crawling into Talon's huge, curtained bed that was so comfortingly familiar that I passed out immediately. A vague memory of awakening as Talon slipped in with me was the only disturbance of my slumber for quite some time.

I awoke refreshed, relaxed and relieved for the first time in two plus weeks, Talon's strong arms around me as I laid against him in the near darkness of his canopied, heavily curtained bed. Contentment made me too lazy to get up, his presence, both physically and mentally, comforting and soothing nerves that had been stretched thin. I'd been able to kind of feel him in my head but it hadn't been as strong a connection as it was with him beside me.

"Good morning, my beautiful lady." Talon's rich, dark voice rolled across my skin like a balm.

"Welcome home." I rubbed my cheek on his chest, caressing his smooth skin with my left hand. "Did you miss me?"

His chest rumbled with laughter under my ear, the answer obvious since neither of us were wearing a stitch. "Would you like me to show you?"

And he did.

Some time later, as we laid together recouping, I told him what Marcus and I had spent the weeks doing, where we'd gone and the various sights we'd visited. He laughed at my revised opinion of hotels, agreeing with me somewhat, though not entirely. I told him about my trip to the Demon Realm, skipping over my initial aversion to entering the gate and focusing on my irritation about him not telling me about his parents.

"It honestly never occurred to me," he told me, one hand tracing circles on my bare shoulder. "The odds of a meeting were very slim and it isn't really important."

"You don't think having a mother who is a District Matriarch, the same mother we went to for help, was an important detail to tell me?!" I pulled away and sat up, a mixture of exasperation and irritation coursing through me.

"Like I said," he shrugged, "I didn't expect you to ever meet them. If Marcus had thought you needed to know ahead of time, he would have told you."

"That is not the point," I countered. "The point is you should have told me instead of leading me into the situation blindfolded." Losing my anger, I looked into his beautiful amber eyes. "Are you really so embarrassed by me that I'd never have met them otherwise?" It hurt, really hurt, to think that but that's what it had sounded like to me.

"What?!" His voice, face and scent were all confused and bewildered. When I did nothing but stare at the sheets, he went silent. "Oh, shit," he muttered and punched the bed post. "Dammit! Why do I have to say things wrong?! What I meant was, a Matriarch rarely leaves her area, much less the Realms, so the odds of her showing up here are very, very small. Add to that, I rarely go into the Demon Realms anymore, much less visit with my family, so it seemed an even smaller chance that you would ever meet them. As for being ashamed of you?" He leaned up and gently tilted my face so that I could see his. "Never. You are more precious to me than anything else ever will be." I could feel his honesty, smoothing my feelings like an emotional caress. "It's them that I don't care too much for." He smiled my favorite little smile and cupped my face in his hand.

"Why don't you like your parents?" I asked curiously, shifting to a more comfortable position.

"What did you think of them?" Talon asked instead of answering, leaning back on the pillows.

"Well, they acted just about as I expected rulers to act: aloof and stern with a manner that suggested they cared but wouldn't let personal feelings get in the way of what had to be done."

"Exactly. Whether that's the façade that they've kept up so long the can't let it down or that's how they truly are," he shrugged. "That's how I've known them my whole life."

That explains a few things, I thought to myself with a grimace. As rough as my childhood had been, at least I'd known my father loved me. "Do you have any other siblings?" Zaire had been his younger brother and the one who started this whole mess. It was a good thing he was dead because I'd like to kill him again for all the drama and annoyances he stirred up.