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They were still in my pocket, my personal trophy.
I’d left my marks on her neck, but scrubbing myself down with her soap was going to mark me too. How the hell was I supposed to handle that without craving her? She’d infested my mind. She had me desperate to possess her.
That was what we demons wanted, in the end. To possess, to own. We liked to leave our marks: some temporary, some more permanent. The silver hoop with the green jewel in my left ear had been pierced and threaded through by Zane, and I’d put a needle through his tongue in return. A mark was a bond, a claim. Even demons that hadn’t been lovers in years kept each other’s marks.
But bonds were weaknesses, they were vulnerabilities. As I could already painfully feel, they only led to one getting hurt, particularly when it came to humans. The very nature of human delicacy made them appealing: it wasn’t easy to keep them. They died, they broke, they faded away. Trying to keep a human alive could drive one mad.
I shook my head, growling in the water. Rae refused to listen to my warnings, the petulant brat. She’d thought she’d fight off the Eld with a kitchen knife and baseball bat—it was shocking she hadn’t brought her camera along too, to record the evidence of her encounter. She was going to get herself killed, running into trouble like that.
I’d left the bathroom door open as I showered. I couldn’t see her through the fogged glass of the sliding door, but I could sense her eyes on me. She was seated out there somewhere, in the living room likely, pretending to be disinterested.
If she was going to tempt me, then I was going to tempt her too. Tempt her until she broke again.
The drive to claim her, protect her,keepher, was so deeply rooted in my mind that there was no shaking it. Here I was slaying monsters for a human. Worrying over a human. Risking life and limb for a human.
I still needed to find the grimoire. I didn’t know what the hell Everly planned to use it for, or even where she was, but if she decided she wanted to summon me herself, there would be nothing I could do. I’d go back into servitude once more.
I turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower just in time to catch Rae quickly turn back around, head down as she sat on the couch. I grinned at the back of her head, and the floor creaked under my feet as I approached.
“Should I sit?”
She glanced over at me, then quickly looked away again, a blush rising on her cheeks. There was no point in putting back on my clothes if she wanted to tend to my wounds, and seeing her try desperately not to stare made it even better. She got up abruptly from the couch, motioning to it.
“Yeah, uh...sit. Sit down.” Her attempts to avert her eyes from my cock was cute, and ultimately futile. Funny how she could still blush when she already knew what it felt like inside her. But then the sight of my injuries, oozing blood again from the shower, distracted her. “Jesus, Leon! You need stitches!”
“Not necessary.” I settled on the couch, stretching my arms over the back of it, and its firm softness immediately awakened an odd pang of nostalgia. I did have a home back in Hell—I hadn’t set foot in it in over a century, but it was still there, waiting for me. There were some comforts one could only associate with home, with a place that was familiar and safe.
Fuck, what did safety feel like?
Rae threw up her hands, walking away as she grumbled, “So your magical super demon powers grant you the ability to fight off gangrene? Or create new skin? Your shoulder is infected!” She returned, arms full with a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a damp washcloth. Her eyes fell on the gash running from my thigh down across my knee, and she winced as she set her supplies down.
“God, what the hell would you do without me?” she said it playfully, but there was a note of real concern in her voice. It made me frown, and I shrugged.
“Likely go to Zane’s place and sleep it off,” I said. “A few days of solid sleep can heal almost anything. Although, under Kent’s control, I’d justhopefor a few days of sleep when I was injured. He never quite grasped that even demons need time to heal.”
She frowned now as she knelt with the cloth and carefully dabbed at the edges of the wound. She still didn’t believe me about Kent—or didn’t want to. But I liked how she looked on her knees.
“Zane is a demon too, isn’t he?” she said. I nodded. “Are there others? In Abelaum?”
“Could be. I haven’t met them. But everywhere there are humans, there are demons. We’re drawn to the brightness: human lives burn so brightly but so briefly. An explosion, a roaring fire in the night. We demons…are more like smoldering coals. Burning on and on. Dulling and flaring. We’re always seeking more. We’re driven toward that light, to take it, own it.”
“Why?”
I chuckled at her curiosity. “Why do humans breathe air or drink water? It’s necessary. It’s irresistible.”
I don’t think my answer satisfied her, but she quieted for a bit.
“You and Zane,” she said slowly. “You’re lovers?”
I snorted. “Once upon a time. We’re companions who share similar pleasurable tastes.”
She laughed, dabbing a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide along my leg. “Companions, right, okay. Way to not give an inch on any emotions there.” She shook her head. “Are all demons like you?”
“Bisexual? Yes, but we don’t have a need to label our attractions like you humans do.”
She laughed again. “No, that’s—that’s not what I meant. I meant, like, are all of you so...closed up. You just replace emotions with anger or sarcasm. Are you all like that?”
I glared down at her. “Years of torture and solitude will have you learn that anger is the safest emotion. It’s the strongest. It’s a fire that will keep you going in the dark.”
