Page 56 of The Demon God's Desire
I lean up and kiss him soundly, my legs dangling in the air as he holds me tightly. Most of the crowd applauds and a few make noises of approval when we break apart.
I pull away and swat him on the arm. “But you better ask me properly this time.”
He winks. “I plan to.”
“Congratulations!” Dean calls, lowering his club. “Guilri,” he steps up, holding his hand out to the man to shake. Guilri stares at it for a moment before grasping it with his.
“You better treat her right or I’ll still brain you with this thing,” Dean says. “But welcome to the village.”
After that, villagers swarm us with questions and more well-wishes. Allan hangs back and I see the hurt and betrayal in his eyes but he makes no move towards Guilri. He gives me a tight smile and heads off for his own home.
We promise to tell everyone more later but right now I’m exhausted and still sore from going toe to toe with a deity so Guilri ushers me towards home and has me lie down to rest.
This time it’s his turn to take care of me. He feeds me, helps me bathe and tends to my injuries with surprising tenderness. “I learned from the best,” he says as he smoothes zabilla on one of my burns.
The burns are relatively minor thanks to Guilri’s request to the Hedonist but they’re still sore and achy and take a while to heal.
We get visitors in the time that I’m laid up. Laura and Dean visit. Laura apologizes for not standing up for me more during everything and Dean apologizes for attacking Guilri. They start hanging out more and become something akin to friends.
Apparently he even starts teaching Dean and Marcus some basic military techniques for defense, which smooths things over quite a lot with some of the hold-outs. We all want to be prepared if and when the dark elf army marches on our village.
Sarah and Judy come by with plenty of advice and homemade buns for me while I’m recovering.
“And can you have your handsome man stop by and see if he can chop down that tree that’s fallen in my backyard?” Sarah asks as they sip tea and have a bun with me.
They’ve been here almost all day and I keep trying to tell them I’m feeling fine. I’m much, much better now. It’s been weeks since my recovery.
But they insist, telling me that I need company because Guilri is doing some kind of training class with the younger people of the village. Our tiny little defense team has grown and everyone wants to know how to be prepared should the worst happen.
Guilri admits he knows he can easily defend us all with his newfound “demi-god” powers but the villagers seem to enjoy learning from him so he continues training them anyway.
And even Allan seems to warm up to Guilri after a while. I think it helps that he’s started courting Alicia Stephens, Dean’s sister. I see them walking around together sometimes.
Turns out Alicia had a long-time crush on Allan but he never noticed her because of his crush on me. They are perfect for each other though, and I suspect it won’t be long until he asks for her hand.
The ladies finish gossiping about Alicia and Allan and then tell me their juiciest bit of news. Laura is pregnant again. I act thrilled when they tell me, not bothering to inform them I found out a week ago when she came to ask me to check.
“Miss Judy, Miss Sarah,” Guilri nods as he enters the house, making the ladies swoon and fan themselves at his presence. “Thank you for distracting Bree for me. Can I have her now?”
I stare up at him. Distract me? He leads me out of the house and the ladies follow behind, tittering and gossiping away as they head home.
Guilri leads me to the center of town where it’s all lit up in the late afternoon sun with thousands of magical twinkling lights everywhere.
“What is this?” I ask.
“I asked Miss Sarah and Miss Judy to keep you occupied while I set this up,” he says, smiling softly at me. There are lights dancing in the air everywhere I can see and when I look back at Guilri he’s kneeling on one knee.
“Bridget Hamza, will you marry me?” he asks.
29
GUILRI
The villagers have really welcomed me into their midst. I think they appreciated that I was honest with them, especially when they found out about the fact that a massive war between the gods is coming.
Between that and the worry over an inevitable march on the village from the dark elf army, I spend a lot of time training the villagers on self-defense.
I can handle any threat but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.