Calladia smacked the table hard enough to rattle the napkin holder. “You hooked up with both Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia?” she whisper-shrieked. “Separately, or . . .”
Astaroth winced. “Now’s not a good time,” he told his mother. “We’re eating lunch.”
Lilith cooed. “A date! Lovely. It’s nice to see you socializing again. Ever since you took in that pup . . . when was it? Eight centuries ago? Twelve? Lucifer knows the years run together.”
Astaroth had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m only six centuries old.”
“You took your duty as a mentor so seriously,” she said. “I always told you even purebred demons are allowed to enjoy themselves sometimes. Especially if you embrace insanity!” Lilith paused. “Or did I only say that to myself?”
Astaroth’s head pulsed with pain. The world spun, and he gripped the edges of the table.
“Astaroth?” Lilith asked. “Are you still there?”
“Astaroth?” Calladia repeated in a gentler tone, looking concerned. She rested her hand on the table near his.
Cold sweat beaded at his brow. It was abruptly too much. The influx of memories, a surprise phone call from his mother, learning he had finally attained a position on the demon high council only to lose it, not to mention that half human revelation . . .
He stifled a whimper and looked at Calladia, silently begging for help.
Calladia grabbed the phone. “Sorry, food is here,” she told Lilith. “Got to go!”
“Oh, all right,” Lilith said. “Enjoy your meal, lovebirds. But don’t worry, I’m going to find out more about Moloch’s aims. We’ll work on a strategy together. You’ll be back at the high table before you know it, and I’ll be drinking Moloch’s blood out of a decorative chalice made from his skull.” She made kissy noises into the phone. “Talk soon!”
The line went dead.
Astaroth stared at the phone. He was breathing too fast, so he pressed a hand to his diaphragm, took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly.
“Here.” Calladia nudged the water toward him. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”
“I would never,” he grumbled before chugging the entire glass. The frantic throb of his headache began to fade, but he still felt dizzy.
Astaroth of the Nine. Astaroth the half human. The two ideas were so opposed, it was difficult to hold them in his mind at the same time.
And Lilith, the ancient and famously unhinged demoness—his mother!
Calladia cleared her throat. “Food’s coming.”
Astaroth sat up straight, determined not to show his inner turmoil. The dryad, Bronwyn, appeared with plates of steaming food, and he murmured thanks.
After Bronwyn had left, Calladia speared her side salad with a fork. She chewed, eyeing Astaroth with a clinical eye that indicated an interrogation was imminent. Astaroth braced himself, poking half-heartedly at the salmon.
“So,” Calladia finally said. “Your mom is Lilith. Like . . . the Lilith.”
“It would seem so.” He took a bite of salmon and made an appreciative noise. “This is quite good. I wonder if they’d be willing to share the recipe for this marinade?”
Calladia ignored his attempt at deflection. “In college we spent an entire class period talking about Lilith. It was a gen ed class, Interplanar History 101: Sex, Violence, and Batshittery. They called her the Mother of All Demons.”
The nickname was familiar, and it provoked a surge of corresponding disdain. He’d heard that a lot, he realized. “She would have needed to be very busy to accomplish that. And she’s old, but not that old.” Lilith had been wreaking havoc for thousands of years, but no one even had an estimate for when Lucifer had founded the demon plane.
“Apparently she’s the mother of at least one demon though,” Calladia said.
Astaroth squeezed the fork tightly enough to hurt. “I remember a bit of her now,” he said. “Her voice . . . she was the one warning me away from hospitals. She said they couldn’t learn what I was.” His throat bobbed. “A hybrid, apparently.” The word was sour on his tongue.
How had every meaningful memory been knocked out of his head, and only random snippets remained? What good did it do him to remember dining, fighting, and fornicating across Europe if he had no clue what he actually was?
“Maybe that’s why you eat and sleep so much,” Calladia said around a mouthful of food. “It’s the human half.”
He didn’t want to talk about his genetics, especially not with the human who vexed and fascinated him in equal measure, so Astaroth decided to pick a fight instead. “Your table manners are atrocious.”
Calladia narrowed her eyes, then reached across the table and dipped her finger in the ramekin holding the sauce for Astaroth’s salmon. She loudly sucked the sauce off her finger while making unblinking eye contact.
Astaroth gaped, horrified and aroused. As an expression of dominance, it was unorthodox but effective. He’d thrown the gauntlet, and she’d picked it up. “Appalling behavior,” he said, eyes dropping to where her pink lips were wrapped around her finger. “Truly distressing.”
Calladia popped her finger out of her mouth. “Enough about my table manners,” she said. “Let’s talk about the fact that your mom is Lilith, you’re half human, and you had a thing with the Borgias, which you apparently remember clearly.”
“When she mentioned them, I remembered.” His appetite had vanished, but he started cutting his salmon into small pieces for lack of anything better to do. “I was young then, less than a century old, and I was studying human behavior across the Papal States.” More hazy memories unfurled, and he closed his eyes to focus on them past the residual echoes of his headache. “Mum sent me there. She said I needed to see what humans were capable of, and the Church was the best place to see the absolute worst behavior.”
“That’s very interesting,” Calladia said, “but I can’t get past the Borgia bit. Did you really date both of them?” She leaned in, practically salivating.
“I don’t know if I would classify it as dating . . .” He envisioned red satin sheets and bare skin, but when he tried to focus on the person beneath him in that memory, he only saw Calladia’s face.
Lucifer, this wasn’t good. Carnal thirst was a slippery slope. Soon, he might find himself—horror of horrors—pining for the witch.
Astaroth shifted in his chair, trying to push the image of a nude Calladia out of his mind. “We had a bit of fun, that’s all.”
She scoffed. “That’s what you call hooking up with two of history’s most notorious schemers and murderers? Come on, drama queen. Give me the dirty details. Was it separately? Or like . . . at the same time?”
Astaroth might not know much these days, but he had a suspicion Calladia’s moral scruples wouldn’t stretch far enough to condone incestuous threesomes. “A gentleman doesn’t shag and tell,” he said in a dignified tone.