Page 54 of Beauty's Monstrous Demons

“I remember what I said,” she says softly, shifting.

“Are you slicking all over my pants?” I ask, amused.

“God, I think I may be. I’m so sorry,” she says, hiding her face, mortified.

“Don’t be,” I say with a chuckle. “You’re adorable. It’s probably dangerous for you to be sitting on my lap without panties.”

“Why is that?” she asks, peeking up at me.

“Because it tests my ability to be a gentleman,” I grumble, enjoying her smile. “Do you understand anything you said to me? It sounded very prophetic.”

“It did,” she says. “It’s possible that it’s the rest of the tarot card reading I ran out of on my eighteenth birthday. It scared me. I was just getting out of the system, starting my life, and now there’s this huge cloud over my head. There still is.”

“You’re missing a scent match I hear,” I say. “You’ve got me, but you were calling out for another.”

“It sounds crazy. I have mates that actually want me, and here I am, being ungrateful,” she grumbles.

“That’s not how I see it at all,” I reply. “Prophecy says that you need us all. It doesn’t say why. Let’s go on the knowledge that there are four of us. I don’t think that there will be more, because the number four is balanced. While I’ll fuck with a lot of things, the universe is vast. The tarot card reading and this prophecy is meant to protect you.”

“From falling asleep for a hundred years,” she confirms. “I’ve been traveling from school to school trying to find you all. And now…”

“You’ve found us,” I say. “Whoever this monster is, they may need a little prodding to come into the light. I know I did.”

Lorelei nods, breathing me in, and I wait to see what she says. I’ve been told that I smell like different things to different people.

“You smell like caramel,” she murmurs, rubbing her face against me without thinking. My chest puffs out with pride that she’s scent marking me.

I can smell the scent of food being made in the kitchen, and I know I’m going to have to lose this time with her so she can eat.

“Would you like to know why I hide my scent?”

I ask her.

“Is it because you smell so yummy?” she asks, her eyes hooding. “I want to eat you.”

“That’s part of it,” I say, smirking. “The other part is that it tends to make people do things they wouldn’t typically do.”

“I don’t want to do anything except lick you,” she purrs.

“Fuck, you’re so damn cute,” I mutter, dropping my head to kiss her lips. There’s a puff of air that shows she’s surprised, but then she’s kissing me back.

I know that I’ve been jerking her around, giving her mixed signals.

“I’m sorry I was an asshole,” I say against her lips. “I’ll try to be better for you. That doesn’t mean I won’t still stumble.”

“If I try to catch you, you’ll squish me,” she teases me. Grinning down at her, I kiss her again until she’s out of breath.

“That’s fair. I’m graced with the knowledge that you exist and I’ll protect that with my life,” I say.

Her lips purse as she remembers what she said during the prophecy. “I always thought my parents gave me up because they didn’t want me,” she says. “Madam Sera said that they died of broken hearts after I was adopted.”

Or they could have been killed.What they did was risky.

“If they went so far as to make sure you exist at all, that doesn’t sound like the actions of someone who was heartless,” I remind her. “I’m going to be forever grateful to them, because they gave me you.”

Standing with her in my arms, I walk her to the kitchen.

“Good, we were just going to come tell you breakfast is ready,” Samael says. There’s piles of food ready, making my eyes widen because I know he doesn’t eat. “I figured you’d be staying.”

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