Page 79 of Demon Demands

“We don’t really get much of a chance to kill anyone with Barbie around.” Briggs laughed softly, still holding our mate gently in his lap. “I thought I was a damn good assassin, taking three and four targets out at once. Then Stone and I went after that rogue pack with her the first day we met, and she had two dead for every one I took out.”

“You didn’t see her when we went to get York,” Vaughn told him. “She faded out of sight and reappeared in the middle of our enemies.”

“She was nothin’ but homicidal rage,” Palmer chimed in.

Vaughn nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she was. And she killed supes quicker than I could count. They were dropping dead all around her, and she was throwing knives like they were…”

“A part of her body,” Novak finished for Vaughn.

“Yeah.”

“She nearly sliced the vampire-mage’s head off with that hidden knife in the toe of her boot,” I recalled, glancing at York.

“She said she had planned on cutting him for every day you’d been in captivity, but he spilled his guts, so she decided to bury him in the dungeon. Then he threatened to make her watch while he killed us all, and she fucking kicked him.”

York grinned at us. “She loves me. She just doesn’t like to say it out loud.”

“She wanted to kill you too, before we got there,” Novak chided the druid.

“All in the name of love,” York joked before his mood sobered. “Seriously, though, I broke her heart when I didn’t tell her the truth about what was going on. I could have told her that someone was following me, trying to find her, but I chose to hide it from her. Don’t be like me. She may lie to the people around her, but she won’t lie to you if she cares for you.”

Jack nodded, fully agreeing with the druid as the hellsteed spoke to him. “I couldn’t fix her after you disappeared. I fucking tried, but nothing would do until she had answers.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?” York inquired. “I know you knew about the bond. I told you, asked for your advice. You could have mentioned it to her.”

“It wasn’t my place, York. Do you know how much worse she would have been? I can’t even articulate what it was like to deal with her when you were gone. Just ask Grim. Fuck. Dolyn and Hyde saw it too.”

Jack nodded his head at the siblings, both of them wearing matching frowns. The hellsteed made eye contact with each of us. “She’s not fragile by any means, but she doesn’t open up to people either.

“It was just Lo and me until we started playing with the Drakes as kids. It took her a minute, but she got attached. Losing Dylan and being told to stay away from Dolyn and Hyland was crippling for her. There are no levels to Lo’s emotions. She’s either all in or all out, and she was already all in with the Drakes before Dylan was killed.

“When she cares, that’s it. If she has any sort of emotion for you guys, then... that’s it. Someone hurts you, she'll step in. Someone’s after you, they’ll die. It might sound complex, but in Lo’s mind, it’s very simple. It’s black and white with no gray areas. No one survives when they’re threats to the people she cares about. She’s a no questions asked kind of girl. Hyde, how many times?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow at the little succubus.

She shrugged like she couldn’t answer. “Every time. At the drop of a hat. No reasons needed, no questions asked. There has never been a time where I’ve needed Sloane and she hasn’t shown up immediately.”

Jack hummed in agreement. “Take York as another example. Even though she was heartbroken over his disappearance, she was still all in. She may have been angry with him, but that was her anger. She could control that. Someone else’s anger wasn’t acceptable to her. That fury diminished quickly, as soon as she knew that he was safe and alive.

“All I’m saying is that as you guys make connections with her, you need to understand that her emotional well is either shallow or endless. There’s no in between. She doesn’t give protection out easily, she doesn’t feel for people easily. If anything scares Sloane King, it’s emotions. But don’t let her fool you, she’s got them. It’s like digging in the deserts of Lilk for a golden grain of sand, but once you find it, it’s yours. No one can take it from you.

“Take all this as advice. She shows things differently than how you or I would, but it’s still there. Her love language is action. She’d rather show that she cares than waste her time with sweet words. Just like helping her defeat these enemies that have been accumulating is going to speak to her more than flowers and words of affection. And when that finally ends, it’s always going to be actions that speak the loudest to Lo.”

Jack sighed, staring in wonder at his best friend, his sister for all intents and purposes.

“I will say, she’s the strongest person that I know, not just physically either. I can’t count how many times that bitch has been broken and continued on like nothing ever happened. But I can count, on one hand, how many times that broken part of her has been beyond repair. And I hope you guys never have to witness what we did. I hope you never have to feel what she felt, because… I could feel all of it. Even when she tried to hide it.”

20

Sloane

Friday Night

Dolyn had warned me that his potion would put me on my ass, but gods, I was really fighting to wake my body up.

My limbs felt numb, frozen, and no matter how hard I tried to make myself move, it just wasn’t happening. My eyelids were heavy, feeling glued shut, but my toes were beginning to wiggle. Finally.

I had wished for the vision to be insightful, especially with the harsh effects of the potion. But it wasn’t, not the way I needed it to be, anyway.

I didn’t see clips of the past or future happening around me like I normally would. I saw still images, everything coming too quickly in nauseating snapshots.