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“So Castiel might just find your challenge ridiculous.”
Maddox gently tapped her piercing. “Yes.”
Frowning, she absentmindedly traced the grim reaper tattoo on his shoulder. “But aside from the one you released yesterday, you’ve killed every other halo-bearer he sent after you and your lair, right?”
“He could view that as weakness on their part rather than strength on mine.” Archangels could be incredibly arrogant and underestimated demons a great deal. That was their mistake.
“If he does consider you easy to kill, he might decide to take the matter into his own hands.”
“Oh, he will eventually if he hopes to make a statement to the higher-ups. But whether he’ll do it sooner rather than later is something I can’t be certain of. So, in the meantime, I want you close. You may be right; he may not choose to target you again. But do you really think I’ll ever take chances with your life?”
“Maddox—”
“If you couldn’t wield psychic hellfire, you might have died at Gunther’s hands last night.” The sight Maddox had found when he’d teleported into the mausoleum—her pale and injured and bitten—was one he’d never forget. “I noticed the amount of burns he had. You’d hit him with plenty of orbs of regular hellfire. I’ll bet none made him hesitate, did they? You could have retaliated with everything in you, but he wouldn’t have felt the pain. He wouldn’t have been able to think about anything other than draining you dry.”
She swallowed. “I know that. But I can wield psychic hellfire, so it didn’t happen. I’m not helpless.”
“No, you’re not. But the more often you use that ability, the more you risk others finding out about it.”
“So, what, you want me to not only temporarily quit my job but relocate here?”
He smoothed his hand up her stomach to loosely palm her breast. “Yes, that’s about it.”
“I might consider the first, purely because if the halo-bearers do return to the studio, my girls could get hurt—not to mention any innocent clients. But I won’t move here. I wouldn’t be safe.”
“I told you, halo-bearers can’t penetrate this building. Do you think I’d lie to you about that?”
“No, I don’t. But I do think you’re forgetting the none too small issue that your lair hasn’t accepted me all the way. I don’t know what that guy Euan’s problem is, but he definitely doesn’t want me here. Marcella would happily string me up by my own intestines.”
“Only in her head. She knows such a move would get her killed in real life.” And it would not be a quick death—Marcella would know that.
“And what if you’re wrong? What if she or Euan or someone else attacked me? You going to get pissed if I’m forced to use psychic hellfire to defend myself?”
“Yes, because it would rob me of the chance to punish them for hurting you.” His demon would want to get its licks in just the same.
“I wouldn’t feel safe here, Maddox. Or welcome, for that matter. I wouldn’t be able to settle. I’d be on edge all the time.”
“You’re so certain my lair doesn’t approve of you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He shook his head. “That’s never been the issue, Raini. They were nervous about having an outsider around. Their reservations were never personal to you.”
“They were in the case of Marcella, because she wants to be in this bed, doesn’t she?” Raini squinted, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Has she ever been in here?”
“No. I don’t shit where I eat.”
“In other words, you don’t sleep with your lair members?”
He thumbed her nipple. “It can bring complications.”
“And sleeping with your anchor can’t?”
“Nothing was going to keep me from having you. I knew that. I knew better than to fight it, so I didn’t try. I don’t see why it has to complicate things. Do they feel complicated?”
“Not right now, no.”
“Good.” He sucked her nipple into his mouth, liking her little gasp. He’d woken her not long after he put her to bed, needing her again. Needing to come inside her, since his demon had robbed him of that the first time round.
The feel of her psychic presence in his mind was more intimate than he would have expected. Perhaps because it felt like her; because it hummed with her strength, her sweetness, her spunk, her innate sensuality. And then there was her psychic taste. Vanilla, peaches, and cream.
At first, it had felt strange to be so connected with her, to feel their minds occasionally brush against each other on instinct, but he was becoming accustomed to it now. And he knew that, for all his power, he could never have stabilized his demon the way this bond did.
She flinched when he raked his teeth over her nipple. “Your demon didn’t take much of my blood last night. Is that normal?”
He lathed the taut bud with his tongue to soothe the sting. “Unless we’re taken by a haze, we don’t need to drink much.”
