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"I just came in my pants," he hissed, raking a hand over his face. He'd burned straight through the metal railing I noticed with glee. "My damn eyes rolled back."
I kissed the back of his neck. "Good. Call that a thank you for coming back. But if you do it again, I'll tie you to a bed and suck your horns for hours."
His whole body shuddered. "You'd ruin me."
"Yup."
"Deadly, beautiful menace," he whispered, a smaller shudder shaking him. "There's nowhere to clean up here; I'll have to walk around like this."
"Good. You won't forget the consequences of you getting hurt."
"Keep talking in that voice and I'm going to get hard again."
"That'll serve you right, too. You can put me down now; I'll walk the rest of the way."
"I put you down, and I'll be buried in your pussy in two damn seconds."
Holy shit.
"Piggyback it is," I agreed, holding on as he took the steps two at a time, his breathing still harsh. "Question. Shouldn't we be jumping through that ominous water portal up there?"
"That's what Eidolon expects."
"But we don't know where he is," I pointed out.
"His signature is all over this tower." I knew; I could feel it covering me like an oily sheen of poison. "We can follow it to its end destination."
"No need," Ark cut in, and I lifted my head to see we were at the bottom of the staircase, my mates and our army of dogs waiting for us. "I recognise the ley line attached to the pool. It's the same one on our property in Orchid Vale."
I sucked in a sharp breath. "So we're going back?"
There was a certain poetry to it. Everything had started there. Not me murdering Christian, but everything with Eidolon and my circle and my failure of a mental health retreat.
"And this time we set arealtrap," Taj growled. "When he walks into it, we'll rip him to shreds."
That did sound nice.
Maybe Orchid Vale would be good for my mental health after all.
34
Dev didn't have one army. He hadseven,even discounting the traitors who turned against him. One of the armies was my Band of Umber buddies,1one was Arkan's wraith family—turned out they weren't trying to kill Dev, they were just assholes and I was paranoid—and then the Company of Murkyr, the castle guard, the Thenawist demons (they took orders from me and only me, much to Dev's amusement), plus a group of sea monster demons who moved into the lake at the heart of Orchid Vale.
The last was a group of tall, unnaturally thin demons with pale, translucent skin, freakishly long fingers, screaming mouths, and black pits where their eyes should be. They stood scarily still across the bluff near the Isle of Deysi where Dev had gathered everyone.
My breathing raced out of control at the sight of them, and not just because they were terrifying.
"Av?" X breathed, linking his fingers with mine. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," I replied automatically, and then remembered what Dev said about having people to take care of me. "No. I … I killed a lot of people. Those people," I whispered.
X slid his arm across my back, pulling me into his side. Layers of leather armour separated us, but it was still comforting as hell to be pressed against him.
"Remember what you told me yesterday? If you're a bad person, we all are. We're the same."
I carefully controlled my emotions, not letting any of them show as I nodded, covering X’s hand where it rested on my hip. "I don't like to think about that night."
"What night?" Taj asked, appearing behind us and making me jump. Ark and Joseph were with him, our circle complete.
