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She wasn’t going to argue with him about demons. Mainly because she was on shaky ground there. But the other thing—his lust thing—she was clear on that. “It sounds like you’re making excuses for your crappy behavior to me and Lillian.” And whoever else he’d done that thing to.
“I wasn’t thinking about how it would affect you.” He grimaced. “That’s not strictly true. I knew how it would affect you, and I chose to continue because I needed healing. I didn’t think beyond my needs in the situation.”
“What’s changed?” Not that she didn’t appreciate the apology—sorry, the acknowledgement that she was right.
“I have already vowed it will not happen again.” Shade took a left turn and got walking again. “And I mean that. But I also wanted you to know that I understand why it shouldn’t happen again, and I agree with your reasoning.” That last bit was said so fast Eddie had to trot to hear it.
She drew even with him, but he kept his fast pace going.
“There is another thing,” he said.
She couldn’t wait to hear it. He was full of surprises today. “Oh, yes.”
“Your reaction to me.” He flicked his fingers between them. “That is extraordinary.”
“In what way?”
Xerxes and Cronus both growled.
The bushes around them rustled, and demons emerged.
Shade stilled, his face hard.
Eddie was getting a bad feeling. “They aren’t yours?”
“No,” he snarled.
“Asmodeus.” A demon with an oversize bald head stepped forward. “We have been looking for you.”
Eddie didn’t know how Cronus and Xerxes hadn’t picked up their presence.
“They were masked,” Cronus said, his gaze moving from one demon to the other. “These are higher level demons. You should run and hide. We will find you.”
More rustling undergrowth and more demons surrounded them. And because the fuckery wasn’t done with them yet, another bunch added to the first. There must be close to forty bodies surrounding them, and all those bodies were armed. As much as running and hiding sounded like the best option, it was now off the table.
Shade swelled, and a strange glow turned his skin to molten gold. His low rasp made the hair on her nape stand on end. “Stand aside.”
“Now, Asmodeus.” The demon spread his hands like he was ready to give them a sweet deal on the rust bucket parked in the back of the lot. “We have been instructed to find you and bring you to our master. We can’t leave here without you.”
“And who is this master?” Shade sneered. “Because you are of Mammon’s horde.” He pointed to another. “And you reek of Belphegor.”
Another mixed horde. Eddie reached for the dagger that was no longer there. Adrenalin dumped into her system, swelling through her muscles and speeding up her heart rate.
“You miss the point,” the first demon said. “But we grow weary of all the chatting.”
Shade nodded. “So be it.”
His wings whooshed out of his back in a gleaming black and gold sweep. Blue light danced off the filaments like a crow’s wing as Shade launched into the air.
“Dammit.” The bald demon shook his head. “I thought he might do that.” He turned silver eyes on Eddie. “And now he has forced my hand.”
Cronus leapt in front of her, and Xerxes went for the demon, but faster than she could blink, the demon was behind her. Something icy pressed against her neck.
“Don’t,” the demon said. “Or I’ll slit her throat.”
Shade paused, midair, his eyes frigid.
“And that goes for you fuckers, too.” A massive demon with a canine snout dropped to all fours and sunk arm-length fangs in Xerxes’s shoulder.
