Page 9 of Demon Demands

“It’s so hard not to roll my eyes at you right now,” Stone countered, releasing an audible sigh. “If you’d use your ‘superior sense of smell’ then you’d be able to tell that there’s a succubus down here somewhere,” he chided.

“Don’t mock my senses. And how the fuck am I supposed to know what a succubus smells like? This whole godsdamn room smells like ashes and gunpowder and… I don’t even know what the rest is. I don’t want to know either.” I side-eyed the fuck out of Stone, but the asshole was just as blank-faced as ever.

Grim stepped behind the unnamed male, opening the door he’d previously come out of, and closing it quietly behind him. We all followed Sam to the next room, and unease slithered down my spine at what we were about to witness.

How different were interrogations in the Underworld? All I could think of was fire and torture mixing together into a gruesome cocktail of charred demons.

“I’m Dolyn, by the way. Probably should have started with that.” The male, Dolyn, rubbed a large hand across his neck as he extended the other to shake our hands.

We exchanged names and took seats or leaned against the wall in the smaller room, some of us being more hostile than others.

Briggs. He definitely growled at the incubus again.

“Where is Sloane?” York asked, his accent thickening with his ire. “You said she was in there.”

“Oh, she is.” Lucy chuckled, lifting a finger to point at one of the shadowed corners in the room. “She’ll come out if and when she needs to. Hyland can handle herself, and Grim will back her up.”

“He’s only in there to mask Sloane’s power now that Dolyn has left the room. She doesn’t want the male to know she’s lurking behind him,” Charlie supplied, eyes never leaving the… traitor? Captive? I wasn’t really sure who he was or why he was in there.

“Who is that?” I questioned no one in particular, trying not to let my imagination run too wild. It looked like they were having a pretty basic interview. The whole setting was straight out of a movie.

Very anticlimactic.

“Max something,” Dolyn answered, aggravation deepening his voice. “I didn’t catch his last name, but he’s been recruiting for Satan and Hannibal. Hyland has been dating him for a couple of months. She followed him this morning, thought she would catch him cheating, but instead caught him actively recruiting at the training yard. We’ve been trying to get him to crack for hours, hoping he knows more than he’s letting on.”

Hyland must be the tiny demon in the room with her back turned to us. She was so much smaller than Trouble with long, pin straight, raven black hair, but her voice sounded just as fierce as the hidden beauty watching from the shadows.

Her coaxing tone filtered from their room into ours, sickly sweet to disguise the poison. “I’m getting really bored with you, Max. Tell me what I want to know so we can have some fun.”

“I told you everything I know,” Max growled to Hyland.

She clicked her tongue at him as a small yellow butterfly landed on her outstretched hand. A butterfly that I’d seen before, but he was a gigantic hellhound when I last saw him stepping into the portal.

“My little friend here says that’s a lie, babe. Try again,” she pleaded.

“I knew you were a dense slut, but I didn’t realize just how stupid you really are,” he seethed.

The shadows in the room fucking twitched, and I immediately knew he was creeping up on a very dangerous path.

“A few quick fucks with a half-breed succubus wasn’t worth all this shit. Let me go, Hyland. We both know you don’t have the guts to kill me.”

I whistled low under my breath as I watched the scene slowly play out with rapt fascination. Hyland turned to Grim sitting on her right side, her profile smiling as his skin began to pull away. Within seconds he sat in a black robe with his scythe standing tall in his right hand.

“That just proves my point.” Max sneered, pointing his index finger at Grim. “You brought a reaper in to do your dirty work. Trying to scare me into submission? Is that what you’re playing at, Hyland? Tired of gagging on my dick to get your answers, so you brought in reinforcements.”

I had a feeling he wasn’t done talking, but Sloane was behind him before his mouth could spew any more shit. She slammed his face into the tabletop, and then wrenched his head back by his hair.

She held him firmly while he screamed profanities through the blood pouring from his nose, giving me a moment to soak in her demonic form.

Trouble’s skin was a little paler than her usual tanned ivory color, but still as flawless as porcelain. Eyes like a midnight thunderstorm were focused entirely on Hyland.

I’d seen her horns and tail before, but with her full form on display, they didn’t look as out of place as they had on her human body.

Her nails were no longer the vivid red they were before we’d left for the Underworld. They matched her skin tone perfectly and had to be three inches long.

Her bony tail lashed like a whip through the air, flicking every few seconds as she became more agitated.

Her wings weren’t opened, but the tops peaked over her shoulders, all bones and no flesh, exactly how she’d described them to me.