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“Thank me by eating your food,” she smirks.
“Yes ma’am.”
CHAPTER 23
Baby Steps
Rez
I tried my damnedest to get out of the after dinner training with Astaroth, but the fucker came and found me with Knots. He didn’t take my argument seriously when I told him Knots needed a nurse. Nope, the fucker gave me an ultimatum. He said for every minute I wasted of his time, he was going to cut into either Knots or my puppy.
Fucking sadistic asshole number two. He surpassed Bez when he said he was going to turn my pup into chop suey. Reaper’s a sweetheart—he only got into the fridge and ate his weight in steaks… and pissed a small hole in the ground during dinner. I caught Fluffers playing with my little guy while I trained, and if I ever get a free moment, Knox might be able to help me out when it comes to training Reaper.
“Well, your limbs are attached and you’re still alive,” Astaroth says, giving me a once over. If I could hold myself up, I would so flip him off.
As it is, I can barely keep my legs under me as I’m bent over, resting my hands on my knees and panting like my little puppers does. Shit, that was a work out.
“Is that a compliment?” I ask between heaving breaths.
Zissa laughs as she walks past. “Nope. He doesn’t do compliments.”
I peer up at him, and he just smirks as he turns to walk away. Thinking I’m done, I turn to put the weapons back when he speaks.
“Keep the weapons, you’ll need them for tomorrow’s practice.”
I find myself chuckling as I turn to talk to his back. “Can’t practice. We’re leaving early to get Demstones,” I inform him, mustering up enough energy to smile wide at him.
“Oh, really?” Astaroth turns to study me, and I give him a slight nod. “Well then, she’s all yours,” he says, peeking over my head. I turn and notice Murmur standing behind me, giving me a wide smile.
“Fuck me,” I groan as I slump to the floor.
* * *
“We’ve been at this for hours,” I sigh, glaring up at the Demon before me.
“And we’ll be here all night too if I can’t get you to advance in your training,” he mocks me.
“I can’t cover the damn bo-staff in a protective layer, Murmur. I told you this. I don’t even know how my defensive shield works. Look at my bracelet.” I raise my arm, showing him my magical bracelet we have to wear for school. It’s supposed to track my power, and when it reaches a certain level, I can run the Gauntlet and then travel back to Earth. But it hasn’t changed in the slightest. “I’m practically a dud according to this, I have no power.” I growl out in a huff.
Murmur eyes my bracelet and huffs. “Of course you’re a dud, if you go by that,” he says, pointing at my wrist as I let my arm drop. “Those are only attuned to Purgatory. It’s not going to read down here.”
I let my head fall back onto my shoulders as I let out a groan.
“Okay,” he sighs. “I don’t like to do this, because there are always side effects. But I think you need the boost,” he says, approaching me.
“Do what? What kind of side effects?” I squint at him.
“I’ll be poking inside your head at where your abilities lie, trying to find where your defensive shield is and hopefully give it a small boost so you can feel it and pull on it naturally. With that being said, there’s usually the chance that I might brush up against the wrong thing and either boost or suppress some abilities.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.
I step back from him as he advances. “So, you’re saying you can take away my abilities?” I question.
“Nope, in your case, since none of them are really showing yet, except for your hit-or-miss defensive shield, I’d only be boosting them.” He smiles and points at me. “You asked me what the side effects are in general… not what they are for you. But on a positive note, I might be able to see how thin the barrier is that’s possibly holding back your abilities. Who knows, I might get lucky and be able to tell exactly what they are while I’m poking around and boosting them.”
I chew on my bottom lip as I decide on if I want him to poke around in my head or not. The idea of us finding out what my powers might be is pretty tempting. Ugh.
“Or we can try this all night. I took a nap today, so I can go all night,” he says, crossing his arms and leaning back on his tail!
Fuck it, I want to take a shower and go to bed. “Fine,” I whine.
