Page 66 of The Devil and His Goddess

“You’ve not said much today,” he pointed out as he narrowed his dark eyes. “This is also the first time you’ve smiled.”

“You keep up with how much he smiles?” Dante asked with a quirk of his brow.

Xander shot him an obvious look. “He’s my best friend. Of course, I notice that shit.”

“Favoritism,” Zagan commented in mock offense.

“Shut up,” Xander fired back. “You know you and Dante are closest, just like Pers and I are.”

Dante and Zagan looked sideways at each other and snickered at the same time. They couldn’t deny the truth in those statements. Xander and I went way,wayback, just like the two of them did. We were all friends, but we shamelessly had one we were slightly closer to.

Except Coldin.

He wasn’t close to any of us.

I glanced at the Letum demon where he sat against the kitchen cabinets, twirling a drumstick through his fingers. His expression never changed, nor did he comment. I wasn’t even sure he was listening to us.

“Back to what’s wrong,” Xander said pointedly.

Every pair of eyes except one zeroed in on me. Uncomfortable by the attention, I leaned my forearms on the kitchen island and fiddled with the large gargoyle ring on my pointer finger.

“You guys know Harper,” I hedged.

Zagan’s pierced lips widened into a knowing grin. Thankfully, he didn’t comment.

“Sure, sure,” Xander answered.

“Your prized ballerina,” Dante confirmed with a nod of his head.

“Yeah,” I replied, moving on to the signet ring on my middle finger. I spun it around and around as I continued, “A guy broke into her place on Friday. I made it there before he did anything, but I got … distracted. He got away.”

“Isn’t she out with your wife, Zagan?” Xander asked our leader with a teasing smirk.

Zagan’s jaw ticked, but he ignored the guitarist’s comment. “She’s okay, right?”

“She’s shaken up, but yeah.” I stopped toying with my ring in favor of raking my hand through my long hair. “I just hate that I let him get away. Though, I don’t anticipate him returning. What human would want to face a monster like us?”

“He saw you?” Xander asked.

I nodded, knowing he meant in my demonic form rather than my human one.

“She’ll probably be safe then, dude,” Xander agreed, pulling his hands out of his hoodie to pat my shoulder. “Humans are pussies. If he knows what you are, there’s no way he’d try to come near her again.”

I blew out a stressed breath, but I agreed. Most humans understood where they fell on the power scale. There was nothing he could do against someone like me, so with me there to protect her, he was powerless.

Dante stepped toward the island and matched my pose to lean closer. “Are you planning on dealing with him?”

“As soon as I find him.”

Dante rubbed at the dark stubble on his brown chin. “Too bad you don’t have a connection to track him by.”

The connection he referred to allowed demons to shadow-walk straight to a particular person. Traveling to a physical place, like I’d done to find Harper at her house that first night, was easy and required no real relationship to it. Humans were a different story. Depending on the demon, there were different ways to form connections that provided that easy access to the mortal. For Incubi, connections were formed via sex or tasting their sexual essence through blood, saliva, cum, or sweat. With that, we could find that person—anywhere, anytime.

“I wouldn’t want a connection with that fucker,” I growled through gritted teeth. I let out a heavy sigh and hung my head. “I didn’t mean to unload this on you guys. It isn’t your problem.”

“Is ityours?” Dante shot back with another raise of his brows.

I opened my mouth, only to have my words get caught in my throat. I wanted to yell that of course it was, but admitting to that fact would be like admitting so much more in the process.

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