Page 40 of Demon Demands

I walked down the short halls, opening doors at random and leaving those that led to my mates’ rooms open for them to find. I was antsy and tired, and I wanted to fucking cuddle up to someone… which was weird.

When had I ever wanted to snuggle with anything living? Not that I snuggled with corpses either, but… not the point.

Coming back around the bend, I felt my feet dragging. I was on the verge of being grumpy from an unusually long lack of rest, and so were the guys.

“I left the doors to your rooms open,” I announced, nodding my head in the direction that they’d just seen me return from.

Stone popped his head in the first open door, Vaughn’s room. “They’re the same rooms from home?”

“Mmm,” I agreed. “I asked Franklin to have the doorways spelled. You can pick a different room if you don’t like it, but I like the comfort of my own bed. The doorway here will always lead from the rooms to Hell and back. You can’t actually roam the rest of the house.”

York sighed. “I’m too tired to understand that.”

“All you need to know is if you walk that way,” I pointed straight, “and take all the right hand turns, it leads to the kitchen. Take the left hand turns to come back. If you go the other way, that takes you to Jack’s side.”

Palmer shook his head at me, his stormy gray eyes narrowed or drooping, I couldn’t tell. “What?”

“It’s not important, I’ll explain it again tomorrow if I need to.” I waved my hand, dismissing the explanation that I was too tired to repeat. “We’ll be this way if you need us,” I stated, grabbing Briggs and Stone.

I unceremoniously dragged them to my room, Stone kicking the door shut behind us. Briggs eyed me suspiciously, and I snorted at him, holding my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Cuddles, Wolf. That’s all I want tonight, and you looked like you’d be up for that.”

“Yeah, okay,” he conceded after a moment. “Just cuddling.”

I giggled at his serious tone as I stripped out of my clothes, heading to my bathroom to turn on the shower. “You can be the pillow. Stone can be the blanket.”

Jumping under the spray of hot water, I relished in the burn while washing my hair and body quick-ish. I could hear the guys murmuring to each other, but I tuned them out while I thought about what memories I wanted to show Briggs. I did want his control to snap; however, I also said I’d start slow.

Riffling through my memories. I decided to send him some flashes of nudes I’d taken, but I preferred to call them glamor shots. Some that I still had on my phone. The ones Novak was so certain about and would probably have a stroke over. Maybe I’d send some to him when we got home.

The images were of me in different poses, dressed in lingerie or tastefully naked. A strappy lace number that I loved. A black corset, thong, and leather knee-high boots. A latex catsuit from last Halloween. A tiny school girl skirt with nothing underneath, pigtails in my hair, and a lollipop in my mouth. Me naked on my knees on the shag rug they were currently standing on.

That last one got a reaction, and I grinned as I heard Briggs stomp toward me. “You,” he pointed to me, “are not a good person. You’re always up to no good.”

Smirking at him, I nodded. “I am not a good person,” I affirmed. “Are you going to join me?”

“No,” he asserted, picking me up and carrying me out of the bathroom like a bomb, my naked body as far away from him as possible. He placed me, soaking wet, right outside the door with no towel to dry myself off with. Growling, Briggs slammed the door behind him as I threw my head back, cackling like the devil I was.

By the time he was out of the shower, and Stone had bathed, I was struggling to hold my eyes open. Briggs was wrapped around my back, his breathing already shallow as Stone climbed into my bed, facing me.

“I’m going to go to Oren. I didn’t want you to wake up in a couple of hours and not know where I was,” he whispered, stroking the hair away from my face.

Giving him a small smile, I took a guess at what he was doing. “Going to see your parents’ house?”

“Yeah, Kitten.” He nodded once. “I'm going to fly, so I’ll be back by sunrise.”

Sleep was dragging me under, a vision just out of reach, but I mumbled to Stone just as I slipped into my Sight. “Don’t fly, take Pete.”

* * *

I was awoken before the sun was up, meaning I hadn’t rested for longer than two or three hours. Realizing that someone was summoning me had me bolting upright in the bed, my heart beating out of my chest.

Briggs groaned, rolling over as I slid out from under the blankets. Snapping my fingers to get dressed, I cracked the door open and followed the call.

“Monster… in the kitchen.”

I wanted to roll my eyes as I tried to calm my heart rate. Lucy had not only freaked me out, but my demon too, thinking one of our treasures were calling to us. They didn’t all hold the same tiny tracking mark that I’d given York in Baton Rouge, though. That was something I needed to change.

I took the short way to the kitchen, down the brick lined hall that held no lighting. As I popped out of the pantry in the kitchen, I grabbed a chocolate bar and padded to the coffee maker on bare feet. Running through the motions on autopilot, I urged myself to relax. I was worried about Vaughn and Stone, but I knew they would be fine. I’d just seen it.