Page 11 of Dancing With Demons

My cheeks heated up. Those words whispered in my ear while his hands were doing things that made my eyes roll up in my head was just too much.

I stepped out of his reach. “Either way, I guess I don’t have a choice.” My gaze traveled to the bedsheets hiding the note. “I won’t get Dora back by cowering in here.”

“How are you going to get your sister back?”

Sighing, I pressed my back to the cool stone wall and slid to the floor. “The first step is figuring out who or what the hallows even are. Lucifer didn’t even know that.”

Tristan dropped down in front of me and took my hands. Goose bumps popped on my flesh as he started kneading them. What did it mean that he couldn’t stop touching me?

What did it mean that I didn’t want him to?

“The entire fourth floor of the south wing is a library,” he told me. “We could start there.”

“We can but Radu warned us that hell prefers propaganda to the truth. Will we be able to trust anything we read?”

“True,” he agreed. “And now that we’re on the subject, that red-eyed bastard has access to more information, resources, servants, and lifespan than almost everyone in hell combined. At the very fucking least, he should be doing the research and pointing you in the right direction.”

I sat up straight, brows snapping together. “You know what? You’re right! He even said himself that he’s been searching for the hallows for centuries. Would it kill him to at least tell me what he’s crossed off the list?”

“Could you get a message to him?” he asked. “That snake of yours was his servant, right? What if I find her? Could she be your go-between so that Lord Shithead can still play like he’s not involved?”

I gaped at him, smile widening. “That’s a great idea. Not even that stamping toddler can argue with that. Oh my gosh, Tristan, what would I do without you?”

That set those dusky cheeks off like a brushfire. Not able to help myself, I leaned over and pecked him on the lips.

Tristan shot up like I pulled out a gun. “I— I— I’m not leaving you on your own, so come with me. We’ll grab something to eat and then I’ll see if I can pick up your snake’s trail. She spent all her time wrapped around you and... and...” He was really not looking at me then. “I’d know your scent anywhere.” He roughly cleared his throat. “I’ll just see if I can pick up a trail for now, but I won’t go looking for her until tonight. After we’ve moved you into the werewolf wing.”

“Are you sure I’ll be safer there?”

“There isn’t an alpha alive who’d call themselves a man after hurting a woman.” His eyes flashed. “And there isn’t one who wants to live if he even thinks of laying a finger on you.”

I don’t know if it was the continued silence on the other side of the door, or the homicidal intent in Tristan’s eyes, but I felt a little better about stepping out of my safe haven.

After changing quickly, Tristan and I walked outside—

—into a horde of vampires.

They crowded the hallway, not even trying to hide that they were waiting for me to come out.

One after the other, they bared their fangs—eyes darkening as their lungs filled with a potential kill.

But not a single one of them moved.

Tristan held tight to me, practically crushing me against his abs. Together we parted the crowd, and they let us—not stopping us from moving down the hall, but also not stopping themselves from following us.

I’d never thought it would happen, but I was actually relieved to walk into the demon mess hall and close the door on those silent, starving vampires.

“Ahh!”

“Fuck!”

“Argh!”

All around us, the demons scattered about the room, lounging at the tables, messing on their phones, or helping themselves to food—all stopped and clutched their heads.

Wait! I know what this is—

“Holy fuck.” A fur-faced demon climbed to his feet, leaving his phone where it fell. “DeadDrop was right. We’ve got some fresh pussy in our midst.”