Page 35 of Legendary

Beetee turned around reaching into a cabinet above her head, pulling out a muffin. The top was covered in sugar. “Marissa encased the Hearth in noise magic.” She pointed to a brunette girl who was seated at the table in the dining room.

“Noise magic?”

She placed the muffin on a plate and slid it over to me. “After a certain time of night, the hostel will cancel out the noise. You’ll hear small sounds here and there, but nothing too loud or alarming. I wanted my patrons to be able to get a good night's sleep, but I also want my late-night patrons to not feel like they have to walk on eggshells.”

I picked at the muffin, feeling her lilac eyes watching me. “And what about if something happens? An attack? Or hell, I don’t know anything bad.”

“I’m not worried. There are plenty of regular creatures that come herewho never really sleep. Too much trauma or dark memories from Lilith and even Lucifer. They are the alarms and patrol I didn’t ask for, but they’re here.”

I popped a sugary piece of the pastry in my mouth, swallowing before I spoke again. “What about you? No encounter with Lilith to speak about?” My curiosity was peaking this morning.

She picked off a piece of my muffin and popped it into her mouth. “Nope. I’ve lived a Lilith free life. I just deal with the consequences of her actions from my patrons. That’s enough for me.” She gave me a sympathetic smile.

I heard a door close and the sound of a highly familiar deep voice, along with another male voice. Beetee and I both craned our necks around the corner of the dining room to see Nicholas and the Enchanter from yesterday, Blake. They were walking side by side and the male Enchanter let out a small laugh as Nicholas lightly punched his shoulder in a friendly gesture. It was an immediate change from the way he looked yesterday. Some of the others around the dining table gave them both nods and small waves as if they were now best buddies or legitimately cordial on purpose. They both came into the kitchen, noticing us.

“Will he live, Blake?” Beetee asked.

He gave Nicholas a once over and nodded. “Yeah, everything is healing nicely.”

I took the chance to look at my raven-haired angel whose cheek was nearly fully healed, the small remnants of a scar left in place of the open gash that was there, complimenting the scar under his eye. The sleeves of the t-shirt he wore wrapped around his biceps in this perfect way that was truly unfair. His hair was tousled, which told me he hadn’t done much to it, but maybe took one pass of his hand.

“You guys seem close now.” I pointed out, tucking one of the stray pieces of hair that didn’t make it into my ponytail behind my ear.

Nicholas looked from Blake to me and shrugged. “I thought we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. I’d rather be on good terms and the same page.” A demon walked past him and gave him a nod as if they were friends.

What the hell was going on.

“Making yourself at home in Purgatory, huh. New friends and all.” I let my eyes follow the demon he was friendly towards and lifted my leg up, placing my foot on the stool next to me. My shorts started to ride up my thigh a little more and his eyes immediately went to the exposed skin before he collected himself.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I got up a little early and just started having conversations, it’s amazing how much people just want to talk. It’snot much, but I’mtrying.” He flicked his eyes to mine as if he was trying to tell me something else entirely. He was trying to show me he could be an angel and be just the way he was with these creatures around us. He wasn’t showing prejudice against them; he accepted them. I was impressed that he was getting comfortable here. I had honestly thought he would squirm more and it would take days to get him to loosen up. Beetee’s little piece of Purgatory wasn’t the real thing though and he would find that out soon enough.

“I can see that,” I answered, giving him the amount of eye contact that usually made people look away. All he did was blink and try to dig those brown eyes further into my soul.

“He is quite adorable.” A female voice rang out next to me. I looked to my left to see one of the demon females who had been sitting on the couch, now leaning over the breakfast bar. Her breasts were practically spilling out of her top. It was a classic move, and I would have laughed in an amicable type of way if she had been directing her sexual energy at anyone else.

The female smiled, sharp teeth on display. She had high cheekbones and a mole right at the top of her lip. A tattoo of cascading stars lined the left side of her face. I peeked over at Nicholas who was looking at her, but not in a way that showed any interest, but like he didn’t want to be rude and not give her any attention whatsoever. I would rather him be fucking rude. “I’m Rae and this is Eva.” She pointed to her friend who was getting up from the couch.

“You must be very, very brave to be working with the Soul Seether.” The other demon, Eva, walked up next to her friend, her voice letting off that same sexual energy. Eva was slightly shorter, but she had more legs than torso and they went on for miles. The orange tinted light from outside made her hooped eyebrow piercing twinkle. Neither one of them seemed scared of me, which told me they either had nothing to lose or they were just as dumb as they looked.

“Brave, sure. She is a difficult one to keep up with. I guess you can say it’s an honor and I like a challenge,” he said with the kind of confidence that made my lips quirk up into a small smile.

The females both looked at each other and then back at him. The Enchanter, Blake, let out a small cough as he turned to leave and Beetee turned around, making herself busy doing whatever she could find to steal her attention away. Rae giggled and responded, “We can always teach you how to keep up with a demon, if you ever find yourself in need of some help.” I watched her eyes travel up and down his body as if he was the tastiest snack. Ihadtasted him, and I could tell her honestly, hewas.

I felt my shadows start to seam together. I felt the darkness as it started to rise inside of myself. Nicholas could be flirted with; he was attractive enough to warrant the attention. And if any of them knew what he was like in bed,fuck, he would have demons fighting over him in an instant. I didn’t pin myself as the jealous type, I’d never really cared about anyone I’d slept with, but things were different now. My shadows wanted to claim ownership of him and that was odd. Very odd.

If he was interested, he could come to her but for now she could get thefuckout of my peripheral vision. I never had to say much to other demons to get my points across and if they happened to wake up with my dagger in their throats, well sucks to suck. Lessons are taught the hard way down here.

Nicholas cleared his throat and licked his lips, furrowing his brow. “Thanks, but I think there is only one demon I want to focus on.”

Both demons pouted and I laughed under my breath at his obvious show of loyalty, but not before catching Beetee’s eye as she leaned against the counter opposite the bar. I felt that warmth of light creep into my subconscious and it nearly shot up my spine. I couldn’t help liking the way he spoke about me, if only he could figure out the words I wanted to hear, but of course he wanted to go about this the hard way.

Stomping came from the stairs as both Reese and Elise were nearly shoving each other as they came down.

“Fuck, you can either go in front of me or not,” Reese shouted, letting out a heavy sigh.

“If you wanted me to go in front ofyou, why are you trying to go in front of me? I will legit shove you down these stairs, I swear to fuck,” Elise shouted back, pushing past him and stopping when she saw all of us.

I noticed the female demons twirling their shiny black hair with their fingers as they eyed Reese as well. “Oh, another one.”

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