Reign Check

I laughed then, and it sounded slightly hysterical. “I’m not going to marry you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Good.”

He eyed me. “And you can wipe that horrified look off your face because it’s obviously not true.”

“Do I look horrified?”

“Yes, you do.”

I grimaced. “Nothing personal, Rhys, but—”

He held up a hand. “Say nothing else. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it to you. I’ll find another dragon to help me.”

“Second opinions are really important,” I said.

He just glowered at that.

We rode the rest of the way back to Erin Heights in silence. Now I had even more information crowding my already full brain. Maybe that Irena chick should go see a shrink, herself. She was one crazy dragon lady.

Marry Rhys? That was completely ridiculous. Sure, over the last couple of days I’d started warming up to him a little. He knew I was a demon princess when no one else in the human world did — not including Chris, of course — and that was both reassuring and a bit scary, depending on the hour of the day. But that didn’t mean I wanted to date him, let alone marry him and magically become the queen of the faeries.

Some of the books I’d studied in history class talked about arranged marriages. A few years ago, before my mom wrote about vampires and other monsters in love, she wrote historical romances, and a major plot point usually involved the heroine having to marry somebody she didn’t want to in order for her family to survive and prosper.

But this wasn’t two hundred years ago. It was now. And nobody, at least not in Erin Heights, got married because it had been arranged — especially not by a dragon in human form who saw fuzzy and indistinct images of the future.

Once we got back to town, I leaned forward so I could tell the chauffeur my address. He approached my street and pulled up at the curb. The sight was a relief after such a stressful, emotional day.

“Do you go back to the faery realm every day after school?” I asked Rhys, feeling strange at breaking the heavy silence between us but wanting to say something before I left.

“No.”

“You stay in Erin Heights?”

“Yes.”

“With who?”

“At a hotel.”

“All by yourself?”

He nodded.

“Isn’t that lonely?” I asked.

He raised his brown eyes to mine, and I saw there was now zero humor there. “Time for you to go, Nikki. It’s been a long day.”

“Wow, somebody’s touchy, isn’t he?”

“We’ve arrived at your house. Please get out of this car now.”

I wasn’t quite ready to move yet, or to follow the king’s every order. “Are you still going to Melinda’s party tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

The chauffeur exited the car and came around to my side to open the door. “You don’t have to feel weird about this, you know. I’m not going to tell anyone. The dragon must have given you a false reading.”

“I know that. There’s no way she could possibly be right about this.”

He sounded pretty darn certain.

“Oh, well, good,” I said.

“And do you know how I know?” he asked, his teeth clenched. I hadn’t realized it until then, but he was actually angry about this. “Because you’re a demon.”

“Half demon,” I corrected.

“Whatever.” He looked at me, and there was more distaste in his perusal than I remembered ever seeing before. “Demons are evil creatures of darkness and I want no association with them, now or in the future. I hate them.”

I glared at him as my own level of anger rose. He was basically saying he hated me, wasn’t he? “Any particular reason, or just because hating demons is in fashion right now?”

He held my gaze steadily, but after a moment I saw his bottom lip quiver just a little bit and pain flicker in his eyes. “A demon killed my parents.”

That unexpected statement knocked the breath right out of me. “Rhys, I didn’t know—”

“Please, Nikki …” He shook his head and turned his face away from me. “Seriously. Leave me alone.”

I wanted to say something but I wasn’t sure what. Words escaped me. So instead, feeling sick inside, I did what he asked. I got out of the backseat and the door closed behind me. The car drove away and soon disappeared into the distance.

The whole next day, I tried to keep a very low profile. I stayed home, mostly in my room. I even caught up on some homework. As it was the beginning of the weekend, this was not overlooked by my mother.

She practically had to drag me away from my safe bedroom and English homework for a mother-daughter lunch early Saturday afternoon.

“Everything okay, honey?” she asked. I could tell she was still concerned about what had happened earlier that week — my lie about going to the mall with Melinda. Her trust in me was on shaky ground and would be for a while.

I missed Michael desperately. When he said he wouldn’t come to the human world to see me again until my father sent him, he hadn’t been lying. Despite thinking I’d spotted him out of the corner of my eye a couple of times this week, it had been five whole days since I’d last seen him for real.

And Rhys … well, he obviously hated me. I figured it was mostly because his parents had been killed by a demon, leaving him all alone and forced to take the throne whether he wanted to or not. While I didn’t think this was cause to hate an entire species — even if that species was demon—I couldn’t really hold it against him too much. It still kind of bothered me, though. I didn’t want to be judged because of something I had absolutely no control over. I was half demon and I wasn’t going to be changing any time soon.

And the prophecy — make that prophecies—well, I had no idea what to do about them. The next time I saw my father, I’d ask if he could find another dragon to help me get to the bottom of things. Yes, that was the sum total of my fabulous plan of action. I was working on something better, but nothing was immediately coming to mind, unfortunately.

Add to that the fact that I knew Mom was still hurt, so I was trying my best to be a good daughter.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I told my mother. I could tell she knew I was lying, but luckily she didn’t press for more information. Maybe she figured it was simply the same boyfriend problems. “How was your date with Mr. Crane?”

“It wasn’t really an official date.”

“Dinner, then.”

“It was nice. You’re lucky to have him as a teacher.”

She wasn’t gushing about how wonderful he was, so I hoped that meant there were no wedding bells in her immediate future.

Finally some good news.

“Are you seeing him again?” I asked.

“We have dinner plans tonight.” She looked at me innocently. “I know you’re going to Melinda’s party, so I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

Good news status removed.

“Why would I mind?” I said tightly.