"Honey?" I realized he had something to say to me. Blinking away tears, I gazed into his dark eyes. This was one of those times when they were filled with stars. I could lose myself in those eyes, if I let myself go.
"Gardevik Rath and Erland Morphis will come to you with a proposal very soon. Say yes, avilepha."
"What are they going to ask for?" I didn't want to say yes if I didn't know what I was agreeing with.
"You will learn of it soon enough. Now, you should come with me to Le-Ath Veronis. Much work waits for you there."
"Yeah. I was afraid of that," I muttered with only a hint of sarcasm in my voice. Kifirin had been feeding me energy the entire time he'd held me. I wasn't nearly as weak as I'd been before. Now I had to find a way to deal with my life—living without my wizard. I wanted to cry again, just thinking about it.
"They will regret their decision one day," Kifirin nuzzled my temple, before placing warm lips against it. "While you may not have kept track of all who have mistreated you, I will not be so generous."
Surprisingly, Kifirin folded me to Casino City. We walked down one of the main thoroughfares, taking in the sights. I hadn't been in this part before—I'd only been to the landing station, where the shuttles delivered tourists and gamblers from the space station. And then inside the Chessman, Adam's casino, for a party honoring his and Kiarra's anniversary. Actually, the Chessman was three blocks away from the street where Kifirin and I walked. My hand was tucked in the crook of Kifirin's elbow as I stared around me.
"Honey, this makes me want ice cream," I said as we strolled brick-lined streets amid exclusive little shops and boutiques. "Or a cookie," I added. It did. Either of those things sounded good.
"There are no shops offering either," Kifirin smiled down at me and patted my arm. "You could open them, love. That would be a ready income for you, to use any way you pleased."
"It would, wouldn't it?" I agreed with him. I still had the funds that had been turned over to me—money that had originally come from Sergio Velenci, which Merrill had invested. A tidy sum in the beginning, it had grown exponentially since then and had been recently moved to a bank on Le-Ath Veronis. I was running through this in my mind—I could open sweet shops and sell fresh baked cookies and ice cream made onsite. Maybe brownies or other goodies. Visitors flocked to Casino City; they'd buy, I think.
"I'm going to do this," I breathed. "I just need to find someone to run all this for me."
"Many would leap at the chance," Kifirin agreed. "They will come to you, avilepha. I know they will."
* * *
Kifirin and I sneaked into my study later and pored over a map of Casino City with Grant and Heathe, both of whom gave me a big hug when I arrived. I knew Kifirin was distracting me from the Shadow debacle, but it was working for the moment. I just wasn't looking forward to the time when Kifirin left, as he invariably did. I'd have to face my other mates, then. How had things come to this? How? Glendes and Raffian had known what I was when Shadow made his proposal in the beginning. They were throwing a wrench into the works now, instead of at the start of our relationship. I didn't understand this at all.
"Avilepha, you are wandering away from me," Kifirin touched my face gently and drew me back to the map. I sighed as I examined available spaces in the shopping districts of Casino City.
"This one," Grant pointed out a shop that had recently come up for sale—it was a jewelry and souvenir shop—one of many on the same street, and couldn't compete with its neighbors. It was large enough, too, to house a bakery in the back, plus ice cream machines.
"Grant, can you and Heathe get on that for me? Ask the sellers to quote a price, and make sure they're not gouging. That looks like the perfect spot to open our first business." I looked at both my assistants—Heathe was grinning—he was excited about this, I could tell. And since both of them could now eat normal food if they wanted, well, so much the better. Grant was already planning this out in his head—I recognized the signs of turning wheels.
"I think you should name it Niff's; that is what Gardevik and the others were calling you when you woke among the High Demons," Kifirin teased me gently.
"Yeah, that's better than Queenie's any day," I agreed. "And we can use my cookie recipes."
"If you sell apple pie, you'll have people lined up at the door," Grant sighed. He loved apple pie.
"We'll sell apple pie and you can eat what we don't sell," I gave him a hug. We settled on half interest for me and a quarter interest each for Grant and Heathe. It made me miss Davan—I think he would have loved to be a part of this.
"Lissa, I must go," Kifirin leaned in to kiss me. "I will return in a few days and I will spend the night." He bumped his forehead against mine. Nights with Kifirin were sporadic at best, so I wasn't about to tell him no, even though I wasn't in the mood to have anybody else in my bed at the moment. Karzac would have a screaming fit anyway, I think, if I considered sex with anybody until he said otherwise. I just nodded, gave Kifirin a kiss back and stared at the space he'd occupied when he disappeared.
"What is this? You come back and do not inform us?" Gavin, Tony, Garde, Winkler, Drake and Drew all folded in. It made me wonder where Erland and Roff were, but then Roff was probably at the winery. I hadn't seen my Larentii, either, but I didn't question what kept them—probably big Larentii secrets or something. Rigo and Thurlow appeared moments later, while Gavin stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Honey, things haven't gone well since I woke up," I muttered, hanging my head. If Kifirin hadn't come to get me on Harifa Edus and fed me his energy, I might not have made it off the planet. He'd helped with my misery, too, but it had only been tabled for the moment. I expected it to come calling again very soon, when I had time for it to catch up with me again.
"We heard about Shadow." Drake and Drew didn't sound happy about that, but they'd been friends with Shadow before I came along.
"I'm not going to interfere with your friendship," I muttered.
"We know that, but you ought to talk to him—he's really upset," Drew told me. "Baby, he had a meltdown when Raffian took your ring back. Now he won't speak to anyone from Grey House."
"Uh-huh. What am I supposed to do about that? Good old Dad and Granddad saw fit to tell me, in the nicest way possible, that I wasn't a fit mate, so they had to bring in reinforcements. All while saying they'll treat the reinforcement like crap just so they can get heirs out of the whole thing. That really made my day." I was just about to walk away from the rest of my mates, right then and there. Honestly—how did they think I was going to feel about all this?