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“Fuck her too if she doesn’t!” She sighed heavily, her mama bear slowly calming. “But I get it. I get it. This will stay between us unless you’re ready to tell anyone else. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
We chatted for a few more minutes before I hung up. The relief of having Inaya know that Jeremiah couldn’t be trusted—even if she only knew a small part ofwhy—lifted a massive weight off my back. I ate a little more enthusiastically once I was off the phone, shoveling forkfuls of crispy hash browns into my mouth.
Finally satiated, I hobbled back to the bed, crawled up onto the mattress, and pressed myself against Leon’s bare chest. With my face buried against him, I let myself melt into his heat for a moment before I said, “What are we going to do?”
We. I wouldn’t have even dared to think of it a few days ago. Even now, with him having snatched me away and hidden me...somewhere...I still felt a pang of anxiety to dare saywe. What even were we in all this? Just a possessive protector and his pet? Friends or...or lovers?
A summoner and her demon?
“I can tell you what I’m going to do, and what you’re going to do,” he said, his arm around my shoulders so I was held against him. “I’m going to keep you safe. And you’re going to listen to me, so that I can protect you properly.”
I raised my head, grinning mischievously. “I’ll listen. Doesn’t mean I’ll obey.”
He snorted, squeezing my arm. “Henceforth, the consequences for endangering your life will be severe, Rae. Think twice before you decide to be a brat.”
“Henceforth?” I giggled. “Your 17th century came out there a bit.”
“Back in my day…” He put on a gravelly old man voice, and easily rolled me onto my back, following after me so that he straddled me as I lay there. “Humans had a much more proper fear of demons than to be teasing them, baby girl.” He snapped his teeth, all sharp and wicked, and said softly. “Still feel like teasing?”
The playfulness in his eyes made my heart skip. I traced my fingers along his chest, finding the smooth pale lines of his scars and following them. Torture scars, battle scars, stories of pain that lingered on this absurdly strong, immortal body. He watched my fingers move, suddenly still as stone, and I wondered if it was because he was trying not to flinch away, like he had the first time I’d touched him gently.
“Are we safe here?” I whispered. Strong as he was, I didn’t want to see him fight again. I didn’t want to see him have to turn into an animal to survive or to ensureIsurvived.
“For now. We’ll stay here for a while...then move on if the Hadleighs or any of the beasts get wind of where you are.”
“I can’t hide forever.”
“I know. And you won’t. Just until it’s safe.”
“I know there are other Gollums, besides the one last night.” I gulped. “I saw them.”
He frowned. “When?”
“When you were gone.”
His frown intensified, and he stood up from the bed. I sat up, hands knotting nervously in the blankets as he picked up a black long-sleeved shirt from the floor and pulled it on. “You should get dressed,” he said. “There’s some clothes in the bags near the door. I need to do some scouting today, make sure no one’s on our trail. And I need you occupied while I’m gone so you don’t go wandering off.”
I was about to remind him that I wasn’t a puppy who would go running off without a leash, but stopped myself before I lied. I was a wanderer, and he was absolutely right to worry what I’d do if I got bored.Iworried what I’d do if I was bored. The plastic bags near the door had an assortment of clothing in them, mostly in black, brown, and dark blue.
“How do you know my size?” I said, holding up a long blue plaid skirt to my waist in front of the mirror. “And my style...this is cute…”
“I’ve been observing you for months,” he said, lacing up his boots. “How could Inotknow those things?”
He’d even gotten the right size in a pair of chunky boots. With a black turtleneck and gray denim jacket atop the skirt, I turned away from the mirror and found him watching me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his joggers.
My ex had once said that my style was like, “if Janis Joplin had a lovechild with Sisters of Mercy.” It was more weird than sexy, which wasn’t something I thought about most of the time—except when a supernaturally sexy demon was staring me down like he was considering eating me again.
“Why are you blushing?” He took my face in his hands, which made my blush far worse, considering I couldn’t look away from him. “I thought I’d fucked all the shame out of you already?” He kissed my forehead, and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Apparently I need to corrupt you a bit more, baby girl.”
I didn’t know what to expect when Leon said he was going to keep me “occupied”—but leaving me at the hotel’s spa for several hours hadn’t even been on my radar as a possibility. Getting my nails done and my back massaged after soaking in a mud bath was a bizarre contrast to the past few weeks; it felt too normal, toosafe.
Not that it had ever been exactly normal for me to have a spa day. That wasn’t something that typically fit in my college-student broke-vlogger budget.
I couldn’t fathom where Leon had gotten the money for this, either. Did demons have money? Did they have credit cards?
“You’re carrying a lot of tension in your shoulders.” The woman massaging my back was blonde, pretty, a few years older than me, with a voice so soft she probably could make a fortune off recording ASMR videos. “Slow, deep breath…I’m going to work out the knots here.”
They’d given me wine, and after a glass I found it pretty funny that she probably thought all that tension was from stress at work or school, rather than being hunted by monsters and a death cult.
