Prince of Demons 3: The Order of the Black Swan (13 page)

“Well, that explains a lot about your macho thing.” Lana said under her breath.

“What?” Brave turned to her.

Lana smiled brightly, “Nothing. Looks like we found the right house.”

Brave had to interpret everything said, because Lana didn’t understand his parents’ language and they didn’t understand hers.

As they sat at the dining table, Roanald said, “I don’t understand her language, but I think she’s not calling you by your name.”

“She’s calling me by my demon name. It means Brave.”

Roanald turned to his wife with a proud smile and a tone that said he’d never heard anything more wonderful. In his life.

“Do you hear that, Lours? The demons named our son Brave.”

She answered his smile and turned to Brave. “Don’t sound so surprised. I knew he was special from the moment he was conceived.”

“You did not know anything about him the moment he was conceived, much less that he was special.”

“How do you know what I know, Roan? I’ll tell you this. When Bruce was conceived, you were not a person who would presume to say what other people do or do not know,” she huffed. “I don’t know why I continue to put up with you.”

The smile had never left Roanald’s face. “Because I’m good in bed.”

Brave didn’t know enough about normal social interaction between human couples to know if sexual prowess was normally discussed openly or not, but he didn’t remember it coming up when he was a child.

“You’ve been riding that for half my life, Roan.”

“And I hope to keep riding it for the next half.” He reached over and chucked her under the chin with a playful glint in his eyes.

Lana looked at Brave expecting an interpretation of what had been said, but he just smiled and shook his head.

Lana smiled good-naturedly. “Tell me or I’ll make a scene that needs no interpretation.”

Brave laughed. “Have it your way. He’s teasing her, claiming to be good in bed.”

Lana looked at the table. “Okaaay. You could have skipped that part.”

“I tried,” Brave said innocently, still laughing.

After dinner, which was strange but good, Brave and Lana asked for a private meeting with Roanald.

“How will we convince the Reinlitegen the serum is real?”

Roanald smirked. “Arrogance. Pure and simple. The Reinlitegen, like most demons, believe they’re superior to any species who doesn’t share the same abilities, or looks. Humans would be one of those. Like most elementals, they don’t have to work at survival or think about mortality. They’re so sure they’re so much better that they underestimate us. They won’t be expecting deception or devious schemes. They certainly won’t expect the level of risk-taking that you’re proposing.”

He chuckled to himself.

“What?” Brave asked.

“Oh. Just an odd thought. What if they’re so bored with long lives and not much to occupy them that, on some level, the introduction of a population-thinning element is exciting. Maybe they envy death.”

“You’re right. That is an odd thought.”

“So we’re decided?”

“Yeah. It’s a good plan. It’s also the only one we have.”

“Well there’s that.”

“We have to wait a believable amount of time. They would become suspicious if I claimed to have accomplished the task in a day.”

Brave locked gazes with his father. “How long are we talking?”

“I could claim that, compared to the original project, it’s a relatively simple splice. Say, six days. Is that too long?”

An image of the Renagoth Anh cell jumped into Brave’s mental vision. He took in a big breath and let it out slowly. “No. I’ll make it work.”

“They’ll deliver you home and I’ll give them the serum.”

“No. They’ll deliver me to Loti Dimension, where Lana is, and you’ll give them the serum.”

“It’s like that, is it?” Brave nodded. “We just got you home.”

“She’s home to me now. Just like you and that boisterous female upstairs.”

“That boisterous female happens to be your mother.” Roanald’s face softened with a ghost of a smile. “And I’m a hundred percent positive that the part of you that got nicknamed ‘Brave’ came from her.”

When Brave spelled it out for Lana, she wasn’t pleased.

“NO!” Lana stormed off past the row of philodendrons toward the house.

Brave rushed after. “Lana, calm down.”

“Brave, for the son of a brilliant scientist, you can be incredibly stupid. Didn’t I already tell you once that the worst thing you can possibly do is to tell an angry woman to ‘Calm down.’?”

Brave hid a smile. “I think you might have mentioned it, but I was so distracted by your beauty that…”

Lana rolled her eyes. “You’re not going.”

“I’m going.”

“Not.”

“Lana… It’s less than a week. Then we’ll have the rest of our lives to look for romantic adventures.”

She sniffed and looked up at him through her lashes. “The rest of
our
lives?”

“What did you think?” he laughed. “That I went to all this trouble to get you only to let you go? We’re in it together, better, worse, mediocre. Although I just don’t see mediocre in our future.”

She sat down on a garden bench and stared at a crocus-like bloom like she thought it held the meaning of life. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

He took her hand and pulled her up and into his body. She relaxed and let him put his arms around her. “We’ve got now. Let’s make a memory.”

She looked up to ask what he meant, but words left her when she saw the heat in his eyes and took his meaning. “Where? Here?” She looked around the garden like she was trying to imagine it.

He laughed and tugged gently on her hand. “My room.”

She let him lead her through the back of the house, up the stairs and down the hallway to the last door on the right.

He opened it and stepped in behind her thinking not much had changed except for the fact that everything was smaller than he remembered. Everything from parents to room sizes.

There was a single bed with a bright coverlet featuring star maps. It seemed to say that it had stood steadfast like a silent sentry for over two decades waiting for the boy to return. Overhead there was a large mobile of the solar system and one entire wall was full of toys and sports equipment for a little boy.

“Still the same,” he tried to be nonchalant, but she could hear the strain.

He saw that Lana’s eyes were brimming with tears. “Lana. What is it?”

Her voice broke a little when she tried to speak. “They took you, Brave. The demons. You were just a little boy and they took you.”

“Hey.”

He cupped her face in his hand and wiped at the tears with his thumbs. He’d watched the woman through all sorts of trials and hardships and she’d never hinted that she might cry. Not once. But she was crying over a lost childhood, time he would have spent growing in a loving nurturing home, and he loved her more than ever for the empathy she showed him. He knew he’d never get enough of Atalanta Ravin if they had a hundred lifetimes together.

“It wasn’t all bad, you know.”

He bent at the knees so he’d be at her eye level and smiled. “But you can make it up to me if you want.” He pulled her into his body for a graphic demonstration of the fact that he had something in mind.

CHAPTER 5

The Reinlitegen agreed to Brave’s terms. They would release all demon hostages if Brave turned himself over voluntarily. They would hold Brave until he could be exchanged for their custom designed serum. They would also pledge that the Reinlitegen, no matter how many generations removed, would never return to Renagoth Anh.

“There are so many,” Brave said quietly to Abide.

Forty three Callii females were exchanged for Brave. They had to be escorted home because they were still handicapped by the effects of liquefied farsi. It would take several days for that much farsi to wear off.

Within minutes of being grabbed by the Reinlitegen, Brave found himself back in the dungeon of Renagoth Anh. He cursed while trying to remind himself why he had thought volunteering to be the bait part of a bait and switch sting was a good idea. At least they didn’t chain him. It seemed they would be satisfied with taking advantage of human limitations.

They also let him keep the two duffels that Lana had packed. He hadn’t paid attention to what she was putting in them because he was sure the Reinlitegen would confiscate them on sight.

When they left, he sat down on the floor of the cell next to the duffels, which she had called care packages.

“So, let’s see what’s in my care packages,” he said to the cell walls.

She’d filled the bags with protein bars, bottles of water, blankets, a toothbrush with tooth powder, toilet paper, some paperbacks he hadn’t read with a post-it note proclaiming, “Juicy”, a battery operated reading light with extra batteries, a battery operated music device with extra batteries, and a small pillow.

Every item he removed from the bags made him smile, but it was the pillow that made him laugh out loud. And he thanked her silently for taking care of him.

EPILOGUE

On the sixth day of captivity, the deal was completed. Brave was returned in good condition with new “juicy” ideas to fuel the romantic fire.

Abide told Brave that he didn’t fully understand why Brave had risked himself for the return of Callii hostages, but that he wanted to acknowledge that the Callii were indebted to him for as long as he lived. He added that Brave would always be wanted and welcomed home as a Callii prince returned to his people. He and the strange female, of course.

Brave and Lana spent a day in the garden of his childhood home talking about what they would do.

Lana began. “I can continue working for The Order, but it doesn’t pay much and you’ve seen the size of the bed. If I’m not going to work for The Order, we need to figure out another way to make money.”

“Money isn’t a problem.”

She laughed.“No? Why not?”

“Because I have more demon gold than we could spend in five lifetimes. It’s deposited in a vault in Dallas.”

Lana stared for a minute. “Dallas?”

He dipped his chin and drawled, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Funny. Why Dallas?”

“Had to pick someplace. We can spread it around. All over the world if you want. We could have a house on every continent, a bank account in every solvent country.”

“Hmmm.”

“What’s hmmm?”

“I like money and, don’t get me wrong, it’s fabulous news about the demon gold and all. But I’m kind of fascinated by the idea of meaningful work.”

Brave looked thoughtful. “I get that. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about paying rent while we look for meaningful work.”

She laughed. “I guess not.”

Brave slid his eyes sideways and coupled that with a smile that said he was up to something. “I hear having babies is meaningful work. Comes with its own kind of harrying adventure.”