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“Semantics.” Shade tried to suppress a wince, but she caught it anyway.
“Do you need a shoulder to lean on?”
Shade jerked his head at Xerxes. “I have one.” A smolder sparked into life in his storm-cloud eyes. “What I need from you, Eddie, is entirely different.”
She couldn’t believe this guy. “Are you flirting with me? Now?”
“Lust.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s how I heal.”
“Right. Well.” Eddie had had her fill of lust for one day. Given the way her body had taken over near the seal, she’d probably incinerated her way through an entire lifetime of lust. “You’ll have to make do with Xerxes.” She studied Xerxes for any sign of strain. “Only don’t hurt him.”
Shade huffed and shook his head. “Rejected for my hound.”
“I thought you said they were my hounds.”
“Our hounds.” Shade kept on giving her bedroom eyes. “Look at us. We’re co-parenting already.”
Eddie snorted to let him know what she thought about that.
“Sooo.” Yesterday scuttled along beside her. “What is your plan?”
Given he’d stolen the blade in the first place, Eddie didn’t trust him. Not to mention what Wrath had said about him. Then again, he’d given her the blade when she needed it most. The jury was out on Yesterday, and she didn’t have a plan. When she’d hit Wrath over the head, she’d only been thinking about stopping him from tearing the world apart, and Shade with it. Also, the fate of life as she knew it had played into her actions, but not on a conscious level. Truthfully, she hadn’t been thinking at all.
“I assume Wrath’s demons will come after him?”
Shade chuckled. “You can bet your sweet ass they will.”
“Stop flirting.” He seemed to have a thing about her ass, and truthfully, she wasn’t mad at that. “Okay.” She forced her stage manager brain into action. “This is the situation as I see it. One, the lust seal is breaking and that’s really, really bad.”
“Correct.” Shade pursed his lips. “And I’ve been thinking that Wrath’s behavior might indicate he is having trouble with his seal as well.”
“Really?” Eddie tucked that information into her calculations. “Isn’t he always…well…wrathful?”
“Yeah.” Shade stopped and grimaced before shambling forward again. “He’s a temperamental son of a whore, but it’s out of control lately.” He gave her a slow and thorough eye sweep. “Rather like my lust.”
This guy took objectification to the next level. He didn’t even like her. She was just a convenient supply of lust for him. Rather like an all he could consume red light district. “I’m not going to warn you about the flirting again.” She could face down divas in full tantrum with the stare she gave him. “I have a heaven blade and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Shade grinned.
“So.” Eddie went back into planning mode. “We know we have one seal in trouble, and a strong possibility of a second.” A thought occurred to her. “Could the possible weakening of the wrath seal have anything to do with my loss of control?”
Shade thought that over and then nodded. “Possibly. But, like I said before, you’re Nephilim, so it’s all guesswork.”
“Right.” She tucked that in her mental Unknowns column. “Let’s stick with the verified facts. The lust seal is breaking. Wrath wants to end you.” Wrath’s arms and feet dragged on the ground on either side of Cronus. He didn’t look like he could swat a fly, but Eddie wouldn’t forget seeing him in action in a hurry. “We have Wrath, and as long as we do, his demons will have to be careful.” She motioned the heaven blade sticking out of Wrath’s back. “In case I end him.”
“Partially.” Shade stopped again and caught his breath before taking what looked like a painful step. “Like if you end me, you end our hounds. If you end Wrath, you end his demon horde.” Shade took another careful step. “But also because they are created to protect their hell prince. It’s their reason for being.”
“Oh. That’s a neat system. Protect yourself by protecting your hell prince?”
Shade nodded, sweat trickling down his face.
He shouldn’t be moving if he was injured. “Shouldn’t we find somewhere for you to rest and recover?”
“No time.” Shade shook his head. “And I’ll slit my own throat with that blade if you even suggest I ride Xerxes.”
Kind of made Eddie wonder what pride was like if lust had a chip this big on his shoulder. She hoped she never found out what pride was like. But then curiosity got the better of her. “Who is pride?”
Shade blinked at her subject change and shrugged as if it were obvious. “Lucifer.”
