Page 8 of Demon with Benefits
Meph’s phone rang. He saw Raum’s name on the screen and groaned inwardly. “Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Um...” Meph glanced around the familiar walls of the art studio. “Out.”
“Bel made breakfast.”
Meph glanced at the clock over the door and added three hours to account for the time difference between Jacqui’s place on Vancouver Island and Montreal. “It’s ten o’clock. You haven’t had breakfast yet?”
Raum’s grunt said,Duh, and yeah, that made sense. Meph was only on the early-bird schedule because Jacqui was. The woman sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn and spent all day in her studio. She barely remembered to eat unless he dragged her inside for a sandwich.
Jacqui had a few issues of her own, starting with one asshole angelic husband, who had tossed a consecrated blade into Meph’s chest the first time they met. She and Dan were currently separated, seeing as Dan had neglected to mention during their entire twenty-seven years of marriage that he was actually a Grigori—an angel who’d fallen from Heaven to live on Earth and comingle with humans. Which meant Eva, their daughter, was actually not a human, but an angel-human hybrid called a Nephilim who would be hunted by both Heaven and Hell for the magical properties in her blood.
Understandably, Jacqui had been pissed.
As much as Meph disliked the Grigori, he didn’t like seeing Jacqui sad. He didn’t like when she forgot to eat or worked herself into a stupor to avoid returning alone to her empty house. It was an uncomfortable feeling, and it made him hate Dan all the more for being the cause of it.
“How long till you get here?” Raum asked.
Meph considered his options. It would only be a matter of stepping into the hellgate drawn on Dan’s office floor, which led to a matching one in Meph’s room in Montreal. He and his brothers had an unwritten rule not to enter each other’s private spaces uninvited, so they didn’t know about the gate. He wasn’t comfortable with his brothers knowing what he was up to here.
“I’m not coming,” he said, deciding he’d rather work on his sculpture.
“I wasn’t asking. It’s Lily’s birthday, and she wants you here.”
Meph groaned. “But—”
“Iris is here too. You can flirt with her and be a dick. It’s your favorite hobby.”
Guess I need a new hobby, then.“Don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”
“Told you, you don’t have a choice. What else are you doing on a Sunday morning that’s so important?”
Meph said nothing. He wasn’t sure why he was suddenly keeping secrets from Raum. They were tight. He relied on his brother a lot to keep him in line, and that weak, un-demonic part of him was grateful for that steady presence. Since the day they’d met, Raum always had his back.
“Fine,” he said, giving in. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Ten.”
“Fifteen.”
“One minute late, and Mist will eat your face for breakfast instead of whatever Bel’s cooking.”
“Sounds kinky.”
“Everything sounds kinky to you.”
“That’s ’cause I’m more fun than you.”
“Or maybe you’re just stupider.”
“Or maybe you—” Meph lowered the phone and looked at it. “Damn it, he hung up on me.”
“Are you heading home?” Jacqui asked without looking away from her piece.
“Yeah. I’ll come back after though. I want to get this thing assembled today.”
She hummed in reply, but her attention remained on her work.
