Page 23 of Wayward Daughter

“It’s a fairy tale. The Holy Grail for shitty demons. They quest to find out the object he’s trapped in to let him out, but as far as I know, no one has ever succeeded. They used to tell us eat your vegetables or the Yellow King will eat you.”

“So, it’s like a cult?” Rainer asked.

“I’ve never specifically heard of one. A lot of demons look for him just for clout. They don’t actually want to let him out, they just want to adventure. Hell, I don’t even believe in the guy and we looked for objects he might be in during Spring Break.”

“You can’t show your titties and get drunk like every other young person?” Rainer growled.

“Those aren’t my titties, ass face. Call Sasha.”

“Good point. And I will. Why would they be interested in my sister and my niece?”

“The legend is that the Yellow King levels up by consuming his children and once he eats every race, he can’t be trapped again. That’s just one of the stories. Others involve world domination and anarchy. Some say he’s going to wipe out humans and supernaturals will be kings.

“But Logan is very much human and as far as I know, he’s only eaten a blood fae, a demon, and a witch. I can’t really imagine why any of them would be so interested in her.”

I could confirm Logan was human. She smelled human, and she had terrible seasonal allergies. Supernaturals didn’t get those.

“My sperm donor was a bastard, but not that kind of bastard. Do you happen to know what coven is in the legend?”

“No. Some of the covens are just as secretive as shifters. It would be an old one and they would be Eclectic witches since that’s several kinds of magic. I’m pretty sure the Yellow King is just an urban legend and some people have taken it too far. It must have spread to the rest of the community.”

“Thanks, Delilah.”

“Has Pan learned that trick I’ve tried to teach him yet?”

“No?”

I hadn’t told Logan about that yet. I should have been taught this by my dam, but I was stolen from her when I was just a pup. I’d been practicing and still hadn’t been able to do it yet.

When I did, it was going to change everything.

Pan was keeping secrets, but that was his business. He’d show me when he was ready. I was a lot more curious why he seemed to have imprinted on Saul when then only men he seemed to care for the entire time I’d known him was Rainer.

We’d packed up for the night and gone home. Father Caleb was pretty crafty. I knew he didn’t like that William dude and didn’t want him here. Father William was just as ambitious as Bishop Henry. Caleb was letting William track our escapees and Delilah put the word out there be assholes in New Orleans. Bigger than the usual assholes.

Caleb left me access to their lore and Rainer said they could take a few of ours back with them, but they wanted to dig into the Pope that started their organization. And honestly, I did too.

I trusted Delilah. She’d never lied to me before. If she didn’t think I should know something, she just refused to answer instead of fibbing. As far as she knew, The Yellow King wasn’t real. He could be the ancient version of Slenderman, but how would an Anglo Saxon nun and a writer thousands of years apart know about a demon boogeyman?

I read the collection of short stories back to back. The first four stories were weird horror stories connected with a play that causes madness to anyone who reads it. The rest of the stories weren’t horror at all and more romance.

I did a deep dive on the author. His work spanned several genres, from romance, to historical fiction, to weird horror. He died three days after surgery on his intestines, so he was human. The supernatural community either had innate super healing or they used magic. They also didn’t get human diseases.

Agnes wasn’t supernatural either. At least, I didn’t think she was. If she said she’d been visited by a demon called The Yellow King, her family either would have hunted down the demon or contacted someone in the Flame to do it rather than shipping her off to a convent.

I settled into my bed with my laptop to research. Pan snuggled into my side.

“What’s your deal with Saul? You usually hate men.”

“I hate men who want to have sex with you. Saul is a priest, so he does not. He was more turned on by the food y’all laid out than your ass in those pants. He’s just really secure in himself and isn’t afraid to be weird. He’s big enough to get away with it. I don’t know, I just guess he’d be fun to be friends with.”

“You aren’t wrong. I think in a different life, he’d make a great friend to get up to mayhem with. At the end of the day, he’s still a priest. We can educate him and hang out with him for now, but we’re going to have to send him back when we are done with him. Those three might be how we change things.”

“You’re going to have to let me eat that bishop if you want anything to change.”

“No way. We can’t make that guy a martyr. Plus, he probably tastes like unseasoned cabbage boiled in hot dog water.”

“Well, we can’t leave him in charge. The other three aren’t so bad now that they are listening. He’s withholding information because he wants this to blow up. He’s willing to martyr them for his cause.”