Page 86 of Demon Demands

He leaned against my dresser, groaning, “Trouble,” as he adjusted himself in his sweatpants. “That’s not what I was asking, but gods, that was hot.”

“What exactly did you want to know? Clearly I’m an open book for you,” I sarcastically responded.

He hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head left and right as he held up a lacy red bodysuit. “He was being weirdly protective of you while you were out. I wanted to make sure you guys talked about that, but now I just want to see the full-length movie of your night.”

“Sorry, you’ll have to wait for that.” I tugged the scrap of cloth from his hands, tucking it back into the drawer. “I need to go find Lucy and Papi. We have some planning to do.”

Novak covered his mouth with the tips of his fingers. “Lucifer is in the kitchen.”

I stared at my vampire with wide eyes. “How long has he been there?”

“Mmm, about an hour, maybe more. How long do you think we’ve been in here?” He shrugged, indifferent to his own question, and I gave him an are you fucking kidding? expression. “I actually came in here to get you. That’s why I was in the bathroom to begin with.”

“Fuck. I hope he didn’t hear anything. I don’t think his hearing is that good, but…”

The grin on Novak’s face was devious and sinful as he murmured, “I heard it.”

Gods-fucking-dammit.

21

Sloane

Saturday Morning

When I finally made it to the kitchen, I realized that they’d moved to the dining room. And by they, I meant everyone. Lucy was ready to talk and plan, so he’d brought the whole lot of them into one room.

Lucy was sitting at the head of the table, Lil on his right and Papi on his left. Dad was sitting beside Papi with Jack on the other side of him. Grim sat on Jack’s left while Hyde was giggling with Lil on the other side of the table.

My guys and Dolyn were all silent as they ate, and they’d left two seats at the end of the table for Novak and me. Franklin hovered by the window, a glass of bourbon in his hand as he gazed at the view.

My grandfather raised a blonde eyebrow at me, clearly disgruntled by my tardiness to a meeting that I didn’t even know was happening. “Are we all here now?”

“Yes, Lucy,” I grumbled as I sat across from him.

He clapped his hands together, steepling his index fingers while folding the rest. “Great. We need to talk about what I’ve been hearing.”

Novak coughed, wrapping his hand around his mouth to smother the grin that I knew he was wearing. I wanted to choke him. It wasn’t funny.

I was pretty close to being mortified as I cautiously asked, “What did you hear?”

“Nothing good,” Lucy muttered, looking thoroughly disgusted.

“Oh gods,” I whispered to myself, my face heating with embarrassment at the thought of how not quiet I’d been.

Novak fucking cackled at me, his laughter rolling through my mind instead of out loud for the room to hear.

“O,” Lil spoke up, and I held my breath. “You and Stone are going to have to show the demons some serious firepower if you want to keep more of them from rebelling. Satan has doubled down on his recruiting since your ascension.”

Okay, so maybe they hadn’t heard me — us — and I was having a mini heart attack over nothing. Note to self: do not loudly scream your mate’s name if there’s a chance that your parents could be around. Or grandparents.

“It’s only been a few days, I know,” Lucy stated when he saw my eyebrows furrow. He’d misjudged my expression, and I wasn’t going to correct him.

“But their numbers have grown. They were averaging a single recruit a month, but he’s brought in fifty or so in the last month, at least twenty of them in the past few days. I’m not certain that they want to be there, but they are, and I’d really hate to assume in this situation.”

“So,” Hyde began, her mind spinning as she glanced at everyone. “We need to kill Satan. It all stems from him, and even if a new leader stepped into his place, they wouldn’t be as difficult to hunt as he’s been.”

Jack nodded slowly. “And Hannibal. He needs to be wiped from the board as well.”