Steal the Sun (Thieves #4)(7)

“Dev owns several,” Sarah offered. “It’s a nightclub. I haven’t been to the others, but the one in Dallas is awesome. The place is packed every night. It’s the best music and the best bar in town.”

Dev picked up the flagon that should have been mine and offered a toast. “I learned from the best. I spent much of my youth in this tavern drinking and picking up women. The picking up women part may be over, but the drinking never ends.” Dev proceeded to prove his point by taking an obscenely long drink. He sighed as he emptied the large mug in a single drink. “So good, Ross. Please, if you don’t mind, I’ll take another. My partner doesn’t believe this is the best beer he’ll ever taste, and I have to prove it to him. Forgive me, lover, I’ve stolen your beer. Make that two, Ross.”

“Just the one, please,” I interrupted with a shake of my head. “I don’t think I’ll be drinking today.”

Dev frowned, and I noted Sarah’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

“Are you not feeling well, my goddess?” Dev asked, concern in his eyes.

“I am sure Zoey is simply nervous about meeting our mother,” Declan offered. “I think it is a mark of her burgeoning maturity. She is a wife now. She has to present herself differently.”

This was one of those times I would love to roll my eyes and get drunk just to piss off my brother-in-law. I didn’t point out that I had been a wife for several years and marriage hadn’t cut down my consumption. Actually marriage to Danny had refined and refocused my love of vodka. It wasn’t being a wife that was curbing my drinking, but the thought of being a mom definitely was. I saw Dev bought Declan’s explanation, but I wasn’t so sure Sarah was sold on it. She studied me carefully, her brown eyes making connections I would, no doubt, hear about later.

“Sweetheart, don’t be nervous.” Dev kissed my cheek, his hands smoothing over my hair. “She is going to love you or we’ll go home. I, for one, intend to drink as much as I can before having to face my mother.”

“He probably should,” Declan agreed with a nod. “I doubt Mother would recognize him sober.”

I glanced up where the shining white palace stood. It glimmered like a jewel in the distance. That palace was going to be my home for the next month or so. It was like something out of a faery tale but there was a reason for that. This was the place faery stories had originated. I had walked into a faery tale but I suspected it would prove to be more a Grimm’s tale than anything Disney would put out. I couldn’t expect a happy ending here, not one I didn’t purchase with blood and sacrifice.

“You’re unhappy,” Dev accused me softly, forcing my attention back to him.

I shook off my ominous thoughts and tried to smile brightly. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin Dev’s homecoming. It was all he had talked about for weeks. “No, baby. It’s like your brother said. I’m just nervous. I’ve never had a mother-in-law. Danny’s mom died when he was a toddler so your mom is my only hope for an overbearing relationship with an in-law. Declan aside, of course.”

Declan chose to ignore my comment about him. “I think you’ll find Mother easy to deal with. She wants one thing from you, Zoey. She wants you to make Devinshea happy. That, and of course, as many grandchildren as your body can handle. Trust me. The moment you prove your fertility, Mother will think you walk on water.”

Dev gave his brother a dark look but turned back to me. “Don’t listen to him, sweetheart. You make me happy and that will have to satisfy Mother for now. I won’t let her push you into anything. Our relationship is far more complex than that.”

“Prince Dev.” Loran walked out of the tavern with Ross, mugs of ale in his small hands. The gnome kind of waddled toward us with a big grin on his face.

“Loran, it is good to see you,” Dev replied. “The gardens look lovely.”

The gnome bowed slightly, pleased at the compliment. “I’ve had to work hard since you left. I managed to keep up the ones in town, but our fields are in terrible shape. You’ll have to walk the countryside putting things to rights. You’ve come back just in time.”

Besides his fertility powers, Dev was quite good with agriculture. Declan had told me once that when Dev walked barefoot through the sithein, he left a trail of green wherever he went. It would be interesting to see how his powers had grown with the taking of Bris into his body.

The gnome suddenly got to his knees and took a subservient position.

“That is not necessary, good gardener. I require no obeisance.” The words came out of my husband’s mouth but the voice wasn’t his. I looked up and stared into solid emerald eyes. I almost scrambled out of his lap but he anticipated the move, holding my waist tightly. Bris did not come out often but when he did, he liked to get his hands on me. He was always gentle but he loved to touch me and kiss me. I was scared of just how good he could make me feel.

“Bris,” I heard the Seelie whisper reverently among themselves. “It is the god.”

“Hello, my sweet goddess,” he said with a little smile. “Are they giving you a hard time?”

“Not so much,” I lied, trying not to look too deeply into those eyes. Bris had an effect on me. I suppose I should expect that a fertility god would be intensely attractive, but I found my reaction to him disconcerting. When he put his hands on me, I wanted to melt. It was the same as my reaction to Dev, only more intense. As he had said the night we met, he was Dev and something more.