Whatever Loki was up to, the demon prince (princess?) was not doing anything right now. I headed out of the war zone to find something to eat, but with my senses alert. Sarael stayed on watch.

 

I was pretty sure he was not physical or corporeal enough to actually need to eat. Certainly I had never seen him do so.

 

But still, we were not that different. What were my choices turning me into? Something more fire-based? No, that had started before I decided I wanted to help the fire giants not fight them. But then, maybe that was based on a choice I could not remember.

 

Heck, maybe I’d made the decision before and that was the real reason Odin had exiled me. It did not feel right, but it was a possibility I could not afford to entirely dismiss. Just in case he…

 

Well, no.

 

He hadn’t done anything to me yet. I flopped, exhausted, into a seat outside the closest place with food, which turned out to be tacos.

 

Tacos I could do. I wouldn’t have minded alcohol, too, but I was going to be a good girl.

 

“Who hit you?” an older male voice asked.

 

“Somebody I hit back harder.”

 

I turned to look. Just some guy – no sense of magic or anything else unusual about him.

 

“I’d hope so. Unless you started it.”

 

I thought on the matter. “I didn’t.”

 

“Then good. More girls need to defend themselves. Only way you’ll get some guys to back down.”

 

I decided not to correct the assumption – especially as I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d got the shiner I hadn’t really noticed until he pointed it out. It would be gone soon enough. “Yeah.”

 

He grinned and stood up. “You keep it up.” I saw him talk to the waiter on the way out, and realized he reminded me of the Senator.

 

I also realized I hadn’t talked to Charles in so long he might well have forgotten the sound of my voice and that I should fix that. Well, no, we’d talked briefly. I’d told him I was going on vacation and told him I was back.

 

That wasn’t enough. But I wasn’t about to call him right now. I had other things to think and worry about, after all.

 

Like exactly what my dad was getting up to with that demon, who had summoned it and how we were going to get rid of it.

 

I finished my tacos.

 

The waiter told me the check had been taken care of. Which made me feel guilty – free food because I had let a man believe his own mind’s lies?

 

But it made me even more determined to call Charles.