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Ky leaned in to brush his lips against my cheek and pushed back onto his feet. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on. I’ve read a fair bit about the portal in the records. If we can convince them to act right away, I should be able to help strategize. Unless you want us all to stay, Rose.”
“No,” I said, clearer now. “Do… what you can.”
He nodded briskly, his mouth twisting at my halting voice, and headed out. He tugged the door shut behind him to protect me from passing glances.
Damon eased me over and climbed onto the cot beside me, pulling me flush against him from chin to feet. “Is this okay, angel?”
“Good,” I murmured. My nerves were tingling again, the numbness seeping away. I managed to shift my arm to ease it around his back before the muscles released again. “Better.” My body tipped a little farther into his, my core coming to rest against his groin, and a flare of a different sensation shot through me. Hunger. Desire. It burned away some of that horrible helpless feeling.
I wasn’t completely helpless. I could ask for what I wanted, and trust the guys with me to offer nothing less.
My jaw clenched up for a second before I worked the next words out. “More. It helps.”
Damon tipped his head to meet my eyes, so close his nose grazed mine. I wet my lips, and my fingers traced gentle lines across his back. “What kind of more are you asking for?” he said, his voice gone husky.
I could shift my hips just enough to press against his groin, where he was already hardening. “Rose,” Damon murmured.
His lips found mine. He kissed me with more care than usual, as if he were afraid he might break me if he gave his hunger free rein. I found that was exactly what I needed. The warmth of his mouth washed over my skin, and the numbness ebbed even more. His hand eased up under my shirt, and I offered an encouraging noise.
Another hand came to rest on my hip. “How much more do you need?” Gabriel asked, so low the words sent an eager shiver through me.
“Yes, please,” I said, and he chuckled.
He lowered himself onto the cot behind me, just fitting onto the edge. Damon shot him a brief look, his eyelids hooded, but then something in him seemed to relax.
“Our consort,” he said, still watching Gabriel’s expression. There was a note of challenge in his tone, but only faintly.
“Our consort,” Gabriel agreed steadily. “To cherish and protect. Together.”
The corner of Damon’s mouth quirked upward. “We’ve always been better together, haven’t we?”
He dipped his head to kiss a path down my neck. Gabriel ran his hand over my thighs. Enveloped by their bodies, mine was flooded with heat of the best kind. If this was the fastest way through the effects of the baton, at least I could enjoy it while it lasted.
For all I knew, this might be the last moment we had before the end.
Chapter Twenty
Kyler
When I made it to the meeting room, the Northcotts were already leaving, other officials trickling out behind them. My feet jarred on the linoleum floor.
“Wait,” I said. “Have you come up with a plan for closing the portal already?”
Justin Brimsey, who’d just emerged from the room, crossed his arms over his burly chest. “I don’t think that matter should be your concern.”
“Of course it’s my concern,” I said. “That thing is coming this way, isn’t it? The other demons might too, if they all get out.”
A middle-aged woman with short fawn-brown hair came to a stop in the hall. “We can’t worry about the portal right now,” she said. “Believe me, we’re tackling this in the best way we know how.”
“Which is what?” I demanded. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have the best track record when it comes to handling problems in a way that actually gets them solved.”
“And you think you know better?” Brimsey asked with arched eyebrows.
I raised my chin. “Maybe I do. I’ve spent the last month going over those records from the Frankfords. I’ve got to know them better than anyone here does. I don’t think it’d necessarily be that difficult to close off the portal, based on the comments about how it was opened in the first—”
“Which will be wonderful, when we’re in a position to do that,” the woman I didn’t know said. “But we’re not. So leave it.”
“Why the hell not?” I asked. “It wouldn’t even have to take that much manpower. I can think of a couple ways—”
