Page 94 of Bad Demon

Beyond that, this was hopeless. There was only one way our next conversation could go.

I slid to the side so he could get up, and I watched him quickly dress, locking every second of our time together in my mind.

He planted one hand on the mattress and leaned over me. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

Relic kissed me, deep and hard and hungry, before finishing with one sweet, soft brush of his lips. He swiped his thumb over my cheek, and then he walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.

ChapterTwenty-Four

RELIC

“Smells the same,”Loth said. “Like chemicals and fear.”

“Some other shit as well.” I shoved open the boiler room door. The darkness was like a dense cloud. The scent of the foul magic that had been done in here sat heavy in the air. “He was spelling in here.” There was a sigil or glyph of some kind drawn in the soot on the floor. “I can smell blood as well.”

Lothar had gone back to the building we’d found Fern in and picked up another scent. It was ancient. Demon. And it had led us here, to this vacant house.

“Faron?”

Jag narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but something else as well. I’ve smelled it before, a long time ago. There are echoes of it in the back of my mind, but I can’t pinpoint it.”

Lothar tilted his head back, scenting the air again, and nodded. “Yeah, it’s the same for me.”

Both were a lot older than me. They’d lived many, many lifetimes, which meant that, sometimes, things that weren’t important were pushed to the depths of their memories.

I planted my hands on my hips. “That could’ve been our last chance to get ahold of that fucker. He knows we’re looking for him now. Whatever he did in here with that blood, he was making sure we wouldn’t find him again.”

He’d be stupid if he weren’t long gone by now.

“We’re not giving up,” Lothar said. “We’re not letting that sick fuck get away with what he did to your female.”

No, I wasn’t giving up. I’d never give up.

We left the building and headed for our bikes.

“You mate her yet?” Jag asked.

They could smell her on me, of course, and that knowledge filled me with possessiveness and pride.

“After what happened to her, I’m not pushing her into anything she’s not ready for. I’ll wait until she is.”

Loth nodded, approval on his face.

I’d never much cared what Lothar thought about the shit I did. He was my sire, yes, but that hadn’t meant anything. Now, though, for some reason, his approval felt … really fucking good. I studied him, and, yeah, I’d noticed our resemblances before—his eyes and hair were the same color as mine, and when he was thinking hard about something, he tilted his head to the side like I did. But, no, he didn’t feel the type of connection a father usually did for his son because it had never been that way for us. I wasn’t the result of loving mates bringing a pup into the world, like War and Wills, so Lothar hadn’t developed the ability to feel. His emotions were still as stunted as they’d ever been. I was Lucifer’s experiment, one he’d decided never to repeat. Loth and I, we’d always been tight, but something felt different now—for me anyway—and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Loth swung his leg over his bike. “You need to bring her home. Your den’s the safest place for her.”

Jag nodded in agreement. “Mate her, brother, as soon as you can. Get a pup in her. She’ll want to stay close to home then.” He grunted, “Safe.”

I crossed my arms and shook my head. “If it were that fucking easy, I’d be going home to her now.”

“You’re her male,” Jagger said. “Lay down the law. It’s for her own good.”

I was starting to see why War shook his head at us all the damn time now. He saw things differently since he’d found Willow and gotten the full spectrum of emotions, and I guessed now so had I. I actually laughed, because for being so fucking old, we seriously had no clue.

“Fern would hate me if I snatched her from her place and locked her in my room. It would also scare the fuck out of her.”

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