Free Demon's Revenge (High Demon Series #5) by Connie Suttle Page B

never stayed there anymore and none of my things were there any longer. I figured Rad and Ilvan had taken over the master suite long ago.

    "Reah, it may be out of our price range," Ilvan pointed out. He was my uncle and Edan's younger brother. He'd been afraid to admit his sexual orientation to his father, Addah Desh, as long as Addah was alive. To say Addah was prejudiced might have been putting things in much too mild a perspective.
    "Talk to Teeg. I'm not going to jerk it away from you," I assured him. "Stop worrying about it. I can stay at Aurelius' or Lok's. They're never home anyway."
    "I'd like for both of you to stop bothering Reah about this; she will have a place to stay," Ry sounded angry for some reason, and he never angered. He was always diplomacy and discretion, in the highest measures. I was a little miffed, too, but I'd let them live in the house rent-free, so why should things change now?
    I finished the fish, we got the vegetables onto our plates and Ry and I sat in the kitchen and had a nice dinner while Ilvan and Radolf kept working. I'd found a good bottle of wine to go with our fish, and Ry and I took the rest of it back to our hotel room in Quezlos.
    "Reah, you have to stop allowing them to walk over you," Ry gave me a hug and poured more wine into two glasses the hotel provided. Handing one to me, he bumped his glass with mine.
    "I guess I should reevaluate my relationships," I gulped half my wine. "In ninety turns, we'll see if Radolf wants me again."
    "Reah, he should want you now. That's how those relationships work."
    "Could have fooled me." I gulped the rest of my wine. "All he sees is Ilvan, now."
    "Ilvan is your uncle. He needs to see past his lust for a moment or two. If somebody were homesteading in his house and he needed it, you can bet he'd be having a fit."
    "I allowed it for the past five turns. They're entrenched, now."
    "You have to stop letting people take advantage like that." Ry held my face in his hands for just a moment.
    "Yeah. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon, is it?" I walked away from him. He'd taken the bed closest to the door, so I went to flop on mine, wishing I'd taken a second bottle of wine from Dee's. Yes, the restaurant was named after Dee, Teeg's surrogate father and right-hand vampire. He'd bought the business for me, initially, with Teeg's money, but all the profits went back into the business, according to the books I saw. I seldom saw any of the money, and what I did see usually went to help the disabled on Kifirin. I worried whether they'd have proper care, now. Slapping a hand over my eyes, I moaned softly over how my life had gotten so complicated.
    "Stop worrying about it," Ry said softly. "Get into your pajamas, Reah, and go to sleep. Dinner was incredible, by the way. It would have been the best ever, if we hadn't had Ilvan and Radolf to contend with."
    "Ry, don't let them upset you. We'll just pretend they weren't there." I heaved myself off the bed and went to find my pajamas.
    * * *
    "I want to see Reah."
    "Tory, I don't think that's a good idea, right now. Besides, she's working an assignment for Lendill."
    "I have to see her. Soon. How will she know I want her back?"
    "This is going to take time." Lissa brushed hair back from T0"> back fory's forehead. They were sitting in a nearly-dark kitchen, eating ice cream from Niff's.
    "How much time, Mom? I don't think I can wait very long. It feels like years since we—you know."
    "Honey, I'm sure it feels the same to Reah, too, and that's not a good thing. You know Wylend didn't give you the whole conversation, don't you? He wasn't being completely truthful when he came to you. He regrets that now, because Reah hasn't spoken to him for a very long time, either. Not really. And she renounced her Karathian citizenship."
    "Yeah. Ry told me." Tory dropped his spoon into the empty ice-cream dish. "How could he do this—Em-pah Wylend, I mean? He could have broken Reah and me up forever. Looks like he