Page 60 of Demons of Eden

“You are no longer my favourite,” Ash announces as he paces a hole into the floor of our living room. I can almost feel the destructive energy radiating from him while he glares daggers at Rio.

“Like I give a shit,” Rio hisses back, but I can tell by the hint of pink in his cheeks that Ash’s words have struck a nerve.

I don’t think he actually cares what the demon thinks of him, but I know he’s feeling guilty about Eden. He might not think of her the way Daion and I do, but he takes the responsibility of his job seriously. It’s clear he knows that he’s fucked up by letting his emotions get in the way. It was a rookie mistake letting her leave the warded car without him, and now it’s going to weigh on him until he makes it right.

Now isn’t the time for pointing fingers, though.

“No fighting,” I grumble, not in the mood for listening to either of them.

“He fucking started it,” Rio snarls, uncrossing his arms so he can wave them around aggressively. I sigh, letting my eyes fall shut. I’m planning to ignore his outburst, but Daion speaks forthe first time in several hours, and I open them again to look up at him.

“He’s not the one who allowed Eden to be taken.” Dai’s words land their intended blow, causing Rio to flinch as if he’s been hit. As much as Rio may act like an only child at times, he’s always been more sensitive to criticism from our older brother. Mine is…taken a little less seriously. I know he values me just as much, but it’s always been in a different way. Closer to an equal than as someone to look up to.

“I’ve decided; I now like you the best.” Ash nods to Daion, then resumes his pacing. “You haven’t fucked her since my return, and you also didn’t allow,” Ash spins sharply to face Rio directly, his anger rising along with his voice, “one of the most powerful demons in existence to fucking kidnap her!”

I move quickly, placing myself between Rio and the raging demon. I set one hand on the hilt of a weapon capable of killing demons and the other out in front of me, making it extremely clear that I’m not fucking around.

“It was a mistake. Don’t raise your voice to him again,” I say carefully, tilting my head as I watch the demon. For Eden’s sake, I don’t want to hurt him, but I won’t allow him to harm my little brother either.

“I’m fine, Torrin,” Rio grumbles behind me.

“I didn’t ask.” I keep my eyes fixed on the demon as he shakes with anger.

“He has my child,” Ash whispers, his shoulders dropping as he deflates, gaze dropping to the floor. “He has the little witch. They’re both in danger.”

“We’re going to find her. Nothing will happen to either of them, I swear it,” Daion steps up to say, placing his hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. They stand there like that for a long moment, until Ash tilts his head as he observes Dai.

The demon frowns, his lips parting, but Dai spins away before he can say whatever was on his mind.

“Let's go.”

I can’t help replaying the events of yesterday and last night in my head as we walk to the car. As if worrying about the coven isn’t bad enough, now Eden has been kidnapped by a fucking demon. When Rio called us saying he’d taken Eden, we’d all lost our shit. We spent the night looking for her, using what little Ash knew of Paimon’s reputation to try and find where he might have taken her. We had no luck. Not even a single fucking lead.

In the early hours of the morning, I reached out to Eli for any information he might have. I hadn’t wanted to involve him after seeing his reaction to the other demon in his store, so obviously afraid of the iracae. I won’t let Eden be harmed, though, not even to spare a friend from involvement. Thankfully, he’d understood. Eli had almost immediately asked us to come meet him at his shop, which is where we’re finally headed now.

I drive, not saying anything as Rio gets into the passenger seat. I do see that Ash deliberately slides across to sit behind me while Daion doesn’t seem to notice at all. It’s unusual for him to appear so unaware; normally he’s the more hypervigilant one. Everyone deals with stress differently, though, and we’re all struggling with Eden being taken for our own reasons. Well, only slightly different reasons for some of us.

Rio is disappointed in himself that he wasn’t able to protect her. Ash obviously wants his unborn child to remain unharmed, while Daion and I…well, I think we just want Eden back. In such a short amount of time, she’s managed to worm her way into making a place for herself in our lives. There’s never been a case where a client has become so involved in our world and us in theirs. Most of the time I forget that she’s supposed to be one. It’s become far more personal to me now than professional.

Ineedher to be okay. Not because it’s my job or even that I was raised to see protecting people from the worst of demonkind as my duty, but because I care about her. She’s important to me. She has to be okay; I don’t know what I’ll do if she isn’t. That goes for her baby, too. If there’s one thing I’ve figured out over the last few weeks with Eden, it’s that she loves her unborn child in the primal way mothers do. She’ll die before allowing anything to happen to them, and I’m desperate to prevent that outcome.

If—no—whenwe get her back, I’m cuffing her to myself and Daion. Tying ropes around her fucking waist so she can’t move more than two feet away from me at all times, if that’s what it takes to keep her safe. It feels like a failure not just on Rio’s part, but on all of us for letting this happen. For not taking the possible dangers seriously enough.

I knew I should have planted a magical tracker on her when I had the chance…

“Let me do the talking,” I say with a sigh as we park outside of Eli’s antique shop and all of them throw their doors open before I’ve even cut the engine.

“Fuck that,” Ash grunts in reply, jumping out of the car and not bothering to wait for the rest of us.

Within a second, Rio is hot on his heels, leaving Dai and me to quickly catch up as Ash enters the store. Eligos greets us immediately, locking the front door and ushering us all into the back. We pass by the freaky mirror, the one that sometimes reflects two of you when you look at it. One time when coming here, my second reflection had fucking waved at me. I almost tripped over my own two feet from the shock.

Eligos shushes Ash when he attempts to speak, giving him an irritated look, then resumes his obvious attempt to gather himself before explaining why we’re all here. Well, it’s as irritated as Eli ever looks at someone anyway, which is prettytame. I’ve never met another demon who makes it so easy to forget what they are; even the other praeresi I’ve met were nothing like him.

While I’ve encountered other demons over the years who were clearly not the threat our people believe them all to be, he’s the only one I would consider my friend.

“I’ve been thinking since you called, Torrin, and I believe that I have a way to draw Paimon out. There’s an object I’ve been hiding from him for…a while now. I know he’ll find it too tempting to resist,” Eligos explains as he paces back and forth in front of us.

We’re all standing shoulder to shoulder as we watch him working through his obvious nervous energy, something that sets Rio on edge when he realises he’s beside Ash. It’s much closer than he’s typically comfortable with being to those of his particular group of demons. Normally, I’d step in, but I don’t have time to regulate Rio right now, so I focus on Eli, hoping that they’ll prioritise helping Eden over their current beef.

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