Page 44 of My Demon Manny

Nodding, I glanced at him, then remembered the sudden visitors I'd had today.

"Oh, your demon friends dropped by."

"You mean Nico and the others? Yeah, Star and Ryk helped us out," Lux said, then tilted his head to look at me better. "What did you think of them?"

"They seemed nice. Talking with Dakota was interesting." He'd given me his number too, in case I had any questions or demon-related worries.

"I was going to introduce you two at some point. I thought it might help to have a human friend who knows the truth about everything," Lux said, and I nodded. I wished I could tell Jerry and Kat about all of this, but I understood why I couldn't.

I could tell Lux was exhausted, if not physically, then mentally. "How about we go to our bedroom and I give you that cuddle I promised you?"

"Hmm…did you eat?"

My stomach answered with a growl before I could speak, and Lux chuckled softly.

"Dinner first, and then cuddles," he declared, making me smile.

"Whatever you say, sweetheart."

Nineteen

Lux

"How about you playon the floor for a while, hmm, Gungun? Your dad and I will make our dinner and be right back, okay?"

Gunner babbled away, completely uninterested in what I had to say, leaning up on his elbows to grab a toy. Since he'd started crawling recently, I'd covered most of the floor with playmats so he wouldn't hurt himself. With my magic, it was easy to remove the mats when he wasn't playing on the floor, and it was the best solution we'd found that wouldn't limit Gunner's play area.

My magic also made sure that nothing in the room would ever tip over and accidentally hurt Gunner. Archer seemed especially fond of this new fact because he could be a little clumsy sometimes. He was usually very well coordinated, but if he didn't have caffeine in his system, or if he'd had a long day at work? He was like an elephant in a grocery store. Or something like that.

"Okay, Gunner's doing some tummy-time on the floor. What can I help with?" I slid into the kitchen, and Archer glanced over at me, a slight tip to his lips.

"You don't need to help. You can just keep me company."

I narrowed my eyes at him and huffed. I wanted to help Archer cook the human way—which was very, very slow—but he seemed to think that just because I could do it with a snap of my fingers, I didn't want to learn to do it his way, which just wasn't true.

"Come on, I want to learn. What if your friends come over and I'm epically clueless? They'll get suspicious."

Archer gave me a considering look and then sighed. "All right. How about you prepare the veggies for me?"

"Yes! I'll do anything."

Archer showed me how he wanted me to chop onions, peppers, carrots, and some other veggies, and I copied him, chopping everything into evenly sized pieces.

"Is this okay?"

Archer glanced down at the spread in front of me, and his eyes widened. "Did you use magic?"

"No way. I told you I wouldn't."

"You did very well, then." He shook his head, a look of wonder on his face. "It looks like the work of a professional."

I preened at the compliment, and Archer's gaze flicked to me. Closing the distance between us, he wrapped a hand around my neck and pulled me into a kiss.

The knife clattered onto the cutting board as I dropped it, grabbing him around the waist to remove the gap between us. Ikissed him back, humming at the way his lips caressed mine, soft yet insistent.

It'd been a few days since the whole dark soul debacle, and I hadn't heard from Maximus again, but it had taken us a while to relax back into our normal life.

Being with Archer and Gunner was the best thing in my life, and I wasn't going to let anything take that away from me, especially not a few dark souls who belonged in the Burning Chasm.

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