Page 9 of How to Accidentally Become the Devil

Guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree.

Mom even hulks out like Luc, growing a foot and turning a deep shade of red as she seethes. Sadly, there’s no Bartleby to take the brunt of my mother’s anger, so when she lashes out, her favorite chair receives the full force of her fury and shatters into a million pieces as she strikes it repeatedly.

Shit! I need to calm her down!

“Mom! Mom!” I cry trying to get her attention. When that doesn’t work, I know it’s just like with Luc. She’s not going to calm down on her own. I have to take away some of her pain like I did Luc. As soon as the thought flits through my mind, my powers instinctively reach out to her, slowly draining her until she shrinks to her normal height, her skin returning to its pristine paleness.

She heaves for breath as the haze clears from her head. I fall to the couch as her emotions flood my system, overwhelming me with their intensity.

Fuck. This is worse than last night. Did I take too much this time?

“Madelyne!” It’s muffled, but I can hear the panic in her voice as I give in to the darkness threatening to consume me.

five

Zephyr

“If we’re going to go out tonight, we need to find Zar and fill him in on everything that happened last night,” Belz says once Maddy’s gone.

“Shit. You think he’s still out there looking for the hounds?” I jump out of bed and get dressed. When I pick up my pants, my phone falls out of my pocket. One look at the screen shows a hundred texts and over fifty missed calls with accompanying voicemails. I don’t bother listening to all of them, jumping to the last one left hours after we made it back to Maddy’s room last night.

“You know what? I’m done. I’ve been searching for Luc’s precious fucking hounds alone forhours. With the way I haven’t been able to get ahold of literally fuckinganyone, I can only assume you assclowns found the hounds and saved the day. Well good for you. Would it be too fucking much to ask you let me know I can stop fucking looking now? A-fucking-pparently. None of you dickheads will answer your damn phones and Luc won’t open his fucking door. You’re probably off celebrating with your dicks up each other’s asses as your mate watches. Obviously, you don’t give a fuck about me and what I’ve been through tonight. So I’m fucking done. I quit. Quit this job. Quit this so-called family. And I definitely quit being your fucking brother. Have a nice life in the fucking palace far the fuck away from me,” my twin seethes into the phone before ending the call.

Well, shit.

“That didn’t sound good,” Oz mutters from the bed, picking up on Zar’s tone if not his words from across the room.

“It’s not. He’spissed. I think he just quit… Or he tried to at least. Not sure that’s how it works but…” I shrug.

“Quit what? His job?”

“Everything, he said he quit everything.”

“Fuck. We don’t have time for him to be a moody asshole. Besides, that’smyjob. Ever since he got back from that super secret mission he’s been nothing but a dick,” Oz grumbles. “He’s not allowed to be a bigger dick than me.”

“You know he really has been putting your attitude to shame lately. I wonder what his fucking deal is. Belz? Any ideas?”

When I turn my head, I see him frozen like a statue.

Ooookay. He definitely knows something.

“He has his reasons,” Belz says flatly.

“Right. That’s not suspiciousat all.”

“It’s not my place to tell you, Zephyr,” he says, the use of my full name telling me just how serious this situation is.

“Well, now I have a better reason to go and find my dickhead brother,” I growl, storming out of Maddy’s room, leaving Belz and Oz still naked in bed. It’s about time my twin and I had a heart-to-heart. They don’t need to be there for that.

Not wasting any time, I head to the security room. After Oz complained about the walk to and from home for the millionth time, Luc installed a secret door only we could access that takes us from the security room directly to our living room. It’s damn convenient.

He’s not in the living room or the kitchen, so I head to his bedroom. I don’t bother knocking, his days of privacy from me are over. We didn’t used to be so at odds all the time. I mean, yeah, we’re brothers, we fought. But in the centuries we’ve been alive, we’ve been closer than two demons have a right to be. Until he came back from that damnmission. I don’t know why I never put the two together until Oz just complained about his attitude since he’s been back.

Something happened while he was gone. And it’s about damn time I find out what.

But he’s not in his room either. I do find a new series of locks and protection runes on the back of his door though.

What the fuck is all that about and where the fuck could he be?

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