Page 11 of Demon Demands

“Right now, yeah.” Trouble nodded her head, red eyes twinkling with hellfire under the fluorescent lighting around us.

“But I’m still thinking it’s gonna be the fae,” she admitted, her thumb rubbing her lower lip while she watched us with a smirk of her own.

Hyland sighed, pointing her delicate index finger at York. “Still hanging around with the druid, I see.”

Sloane wrapped Hyland’s hand around her elbow, steering the tiny succubus to another door. “That’s a long story best reserved for a girls' night. We can plan that when we get Jack back.”

Sloane

Monday Late Evening

Gods, did I fucking love Hyde. She was like a little sister to Jack and me. I might have called Dolyn a brother, but that would make some of our shared past sound… gross. Nope. He was a friend, and I’d do anything for him and his sister.

I had bled and killed for Dolyn and Hyland Drake. I had bled for Dylan Drake once upon a time, but I hadn’t killed soon enough to save him. The weight of his life would always sit heavily on my shoulders.

Walking back downstairs to Dolyn’s workshop, I stopped in front of one of the pictures hanging on the wall in the hallway. Five children looked back at me, happy and innocent.

Jack and the twins were ten, I was nine, and Hyde must have been two, going on three. Dolyn carefully carried Hyde on his shoulders. Jack and I had our arms wrapped around Dylan.

In the picture, we’re all smiling, and the laughter is clear on Hyde’s face. In reality, Jack and I were holding Dylan back. He’d been scolding Dolyn for carrying Hyde around. He’d thought she was too high, Dolyn was too reckless with their baby sister. Dylan wanted his twin to put her down before she got hurt.

In reality, Dolyn nor Dylan would ever be the ones to hurt her. Their own mother would take that trophy with her to her grave.

Their mother had been a beautiful but cruel demon. A powerful succubus, killing off all her meals, while her two mates worked their asses off to help keep the Underworld safe from monsters just like her. They were both commanders of legions, working closely with Papi.

The Drake kids were the only kids we were ever around when we were younger, but that all stopped when I killed their mother. At least for a little while. Jack and I couldn’t stay away while Dolyn and Hyde grieved, not only for their brother, but for their cunt of a mother as well.

“I knew I’d find you here,” Dolyn quietly stated from behind me. I twisted my head just enough to see him casually leaning against the wall, his muscular arms crossed over his wide chest, eyes shut.

His face was a rugged sort of handsome, facial hair neatly trimmed and edged around his jawline. The hair on the sides of his head faded from skin into a short buzz cut, feeling both coarse and soft somehow.

If his eyes were open, those honeyed pools of ember would haunt me, looking identical to Dylan’s. Hyde had nearly the same color eyes, but hers were a shade lighter, making it easier for me to not see the past in them.

“I know I’ve said it a thousand times before, but—”

He cut me off, not giving me a chance to dwell on the past and voice an apology that wouldn’t change the present. “Sloane, you didn’t know. We never told you what she was doing. Maybe we should have, but we were young and terrified. You can’t spiral into the ‘what if’s’ every time you think about Dylan. Trust me. I know firsthand how bad that can get. For both of us.”

He sighed, reaching out to give my shaking hand a quick squeeze before straightening his large body and nodding toward the stairs. “Come on, Lo. Let’s work on getting Jack back. I’m not ready to lose another brother. And, right now, your melancholy attitude is really fucking with me.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, turning my back to him as I took the first step down to his workshop. Pausing at the top, I couldn’t help but voice another old thought. “You know, there was a time when I imagined…”

I trailed off, knowing that he knew what I was going to say. We’d all thought it, wistfully talked about it as kids, like planning a wedding with your first crush. We’d thought we were mates, Dylan, Dolyn, and I.

The joke was on me, though. The Drake twins were the second treasures that my demon claimed, making me feel a ridiculously close connection to them. Only when she claimed Hyland did I know it wasn’t meant to be.

Dolyn grimaced, rubbing a scarred and tattooed hand over his short ebony hair as he admitted, “Me too.”

He made it sound like a secret he loathed confessing, knowing my mates were waiting on us. I might have once felt the same way.

But I knew, after everything with York, that heartbreak came in levels. Watching Dolyn grieve for his brother had hurt, losing Dylan had been nearly unbearable, but York… his absence had left my heart in microscopic pieces.

I’d been able to move on from both Dolyn and Dylan. I had not been able to move on from York. The losses had shown me the truest forms of a broken heart, but the differences were what led me to the absolute truth.

I had cared for Dylan, I still cared for Dolyn. But I had loved York, still loved the fucking druid, even if I wasn’t ready to say it aloud again.

We entered the workshop, ignoring the talk of hellish political issues. Stalking across the basement, Dolyn opened the training room door for me wordlessly. He knew where my mind was, knew what I needed to blow off some steam.

Everyone grew quiet as I walked inside. Only Grim’s words reached me through my fog. “Fuck. It’s one of those days, I guess.”