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soon. Or they would lose her.
    “Maybe it ’s just that the demon world is too big for you?”
    Maybe that ’s what it was? Maybe they both—she and Bronwen—just missed home too damned much?
    She said little else as she carried Cerridwen in to the main living hall. It was where Rathan and Kindara often sat when not in the privacy of their suite. The rest of Rathan ’s close family would be in there occasionally. Aureliana tended to avoid that room—most often Ren was in there discussing business with his brother.
    But Cerridwen had toys in there, and so that was where she headed now. Dinner wasn ’t quite ready, and the child would need to be entertained.
    And she was a good buffer between Aureliana and her father.
    They never made it to the main hall. Bronwen stumbled by, worry on her face. Aureliana passed Cerridwen to Ren, and grabbed Bronwen’s arm. “Bronie?”
    “Danae ’s having her babe. I must go to her!”
    Aureliana let her go.
    Ren cursed softly and Aureliana turned toward him. “What is it?”
    “The Twin Kings are both in the castle still. They will get word of this. Sinrik is determined to remove Danae and the spawn to his own lands. Rathan is still objecting.”
    “Surely they will not make Danae go?” It was barbaric to even expect that Ren ’s sister would be given to a male just because he’d fathered a babe with her. No one even knew if the act had been consensual… “Rathan won’t allow it, will he?”
    Ren tightened his hold around his daughter. “Never. And neither will I. My sister has a choice. Sinrik may not believe it so, but she will be protected. Come. We ’ll take Cerridwen to the dining room. We shall eat our dinner, and wait for the news of the spawn’s arrival. Cerridwen, my little kitten, tonight you get a cousin.”
    Aureliana didn ’t want to be with him; not just the two of them and his child. It was too intimate as they sat at the dining table. Too familial. They entertained Cerridwen and Aureliana tried not to think of what could have been between them. What she wished would have been between them. Grief for what she would never have threatened to overtake her, but she pushed it away. Ruthlessly.
    She ’d made her decision months ago, and that was the decision she would live by.
    Kindara was seeing to Danae, Rathan was pacing the hall outside Danae ’s suite. Aureliana thought it sweet how worried he was for the sister he’d had a hand in raising.
    Ren was worried, too, though he tried not to show it. Softer emotions were not her Rajni’s way, by any means. He might not like showing it, but he cared about his sister a great deal. A part of her softened toward him again.
    As the hours crawled by he grew more worried, and Aureliana found herself staying by his side. How could she not? He was her Rajni . And he needed her. She rocked Cerridwen when the little one fell asleep in her arms. By that point Ren was pacing over the parlor rug. “How long do such things take?”
    “As long as they take.” She ’d had many friends birth babes, and the waiting was by far the hardest part for the loved ones. “You do no one any favors wearing a hole in the carpet.”
    “Danae is so young to have spawned. Damn that Warrior bastard for daring to do this to her.”
    “Has she said anything yet of what had happened?” Danae was remarkably close mouthed about her time captive in the Warrior Twin Kings’ home. Bronwen had said far less. “Bronwen speaks of it not at all. And we do not dare push the issue on her.”
    Bronwen had been taken by one of the warrior Twin Kings when he was a political prisoner in Rathan’s castle. Rathan had had nothing to do with it; from what Aureliana knew of the situation Ren had even objected, but Rathan’s board of advisors—who’d technically ruled in Rathan’s absence—had gone ahead and kept the Twin King captive.
    Koios had broken out of the castle the night Aureliana had been brought to the castle for the first time. After