Page 17 of Demon Hunter

“How sickening,” Marc observes dryly, shattering the moment. “Are you telling me that Ian doesn’t know?Youkept something secret fromhim? How is the world still turning?”

“Hey, don’t make it sound weird. He didn’t tell me when you guys hooked up.”

“But you knew anyway,” he points out.

“Maybe Ian’s guessed, then,” Dylan says, patting my hand. “Maybe he’s just waiting for you to tell him, like you waited until he was ready to tell you.”

“He doesn’t know,” Marc says flatly. “If you didn’t tell him and ask him to keep it from me, then he doesn’t know.”

Dylan rolls his eyes. “Because you tell each other everything? Dude, you’re getting all human and sappy.”

Marc narrows his eyes, and the window shade snaps up, flooding the room with early sunlight and blinding me and Dylan. He laughs mockingly as we curse him.

“One thing I will say about Earth,” he muses. “There’s a certain pleasure to be found in inflicting small torments on your humans.”

“I’m so telling Ian on you,” I mutter, squinting as my eyes take their sweet time to adjust. “Go wait in the hall so I can talk to Dylan in private.”

He sighs. “You do know I’ll still be able to hear you perfectly?”

“Okay, go wait in the hall so I can talk to Dylan with the illusion of privacy.”

“You’re extremely lucky Ian is fond of you,” he informs me, then leaves the room. I’m kinda surprised by that—I really didn’t think he would.

“He cansmellus on each other?” Dylan shakes his head. “That dude is fucking weird.”

“We knew that. It’s why we have a whole project to make him seem more normal. Though I still can’t believe we were so good at it that Ian believed the bullshit he helped us make up and fell in love with the asshole.”

“I’m right with you on that. Though we should probably be nicer to him, since Ian loves him… and he saved your life.” He looks away for a second. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”

Ugh. True. I sigh grudgingly. “I won’t be rude to him anymore, but nice is probably stretching it. We both know he only saved me to make Ian happy.”

Proving that Marc is, in fact, eavesdropping, my pain comes back. “Ow! All right, you fucker, you’re a good human.”

The pain disappears, but Marc opens the door and sticks his head in, an appalled expression on his face.

“Take that back.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re a goodbeing.”

“No.”

Dylan and I exchange glances. What the fuck does he want?

“You’re a tolerable being?” Dylan suggests.

Marc huffs. “Better.” The door closes firmly behind him.

“God forbid we should suggest he’s human,” I mutter, then brace myself for the pain, but it doesn’t come. I guess he’s okay with low-key sniping.

Good. I really don’t think I could stop. He’s justthatannoying.

“So,” Dyl says, tracing his fingers around the bruises on my hand, his eyes glued to them. Thankfully, the bones in my hands were among the few that survived unscathed. My feet, not so much. “While we were waiting for Marc to work his miracle, I did a lot of thinking.” His gaze lifts to mine, and the raw vulnerability there makes me wish I could wrap him in my arms without my casts doing some serious damage. “I’m scared, Matt. I know your family. Iloveyour family. And I know that if you tell them we’re together, they’ll welcome me like I’m their brother too.” He swallows hard. “I don’t think I can lose another family.”

I take a second to think about my answer. We’ve talked about this before, and I’m not going to belittle how he feels—fuck knows, it was hard to process what my parents did and how we lost them, and we weren’t close. But…

“I can’t promise nothing will happen to us. We both grew up knowing what reality is. If you want a risk assessment, I’m the one most likely to get hurt these days—the others are all in administrative roles. If somethingdidhappen to me, you wouldn’t be alone. They’d be there for you, always. And I’ll say it again, Dyl—anytime you want me to quit and move to a different job, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for you. Just say the word.”

His smile is sad. “You love your job, Matt. I’m not going to be the reason you have to give it up. I knew what I was getting when we hooked up.” He takes a deep breath. “But I’m never going through this again. I want your family to be there for me if I need them. So… tell them.”

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