Page 34 of Demon with Benefits
“It’s fine, Lil. Don’t worry about me. You’re more important to me than the coven.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. We can start our own coven, how about that? You can show me how you do your nightlight trick.”
When Lily’s power manifested, her entire body glowed with a sort of supernatural bioluminescence. She had hid it for years when she’d been trying to deny her witch heritage, but when they’d gone to Hell to rescue Mist from his evil former mistress, it had ended up saving her life. While they didn’t yet understand everything that power could do, Iris had seen Lily fight with Paimon, fall a long way down into a huge pit of monsters, and come out without a single scratch on her.
Lily made a face. “If I knew how to control it, I would. I’ve only managed to call on it at will once, and it barely lasted a minute. All the other times have been involuntary.”
“You’ll learn with time, and in the meantime, you can trust that it will manifest whenever you need it. Don’t pressure yourself. You defeated a Queen of Hell, and you should be proud.”
“Wedefeated a Queen of Hell,” Lily said firmly. “Well, technically, the giant monster ate her, and we were just there for the show. But you do realize that I wasn’t able to activate that locked hellgate until you were touching me and our energies were linked?”
Iris scoffed, that stupid self-doubt rearing its ugly head. She remembered the moment clearly, and she still felt she hadn’t really done anything. Mist had put a lock on the hellgate sigil so they couldn’t follow him on his stupid suicide mission, but Lily had been determined to save him. She’d shut her eyes and gone into a sort of trance, and her entire body had started glowing brightly. Concerned, Iris had called out to her and grabbed her shoulders, trying to get her attention.
The next thing she knew, they were both standing on the other side of the hellgate—in Paimon’s lair in Hell. It should have been impossible to reactivate a locked gate like that, and yet, Lily had done it. Without her magic, Mist would be dead.
Iris shuddered at the memory of Hell and being terrified for their lives. It wasn’t something she liked to relive. “It was mostly you, though,” she reminded her twin. “Otherwise I would have been glowing too.”
“I’m not convinced. You’re more powerful than you think.”
Iris shrugged. She was starting to accept her role as the book-smart twin with no power. She was the supporting character in a movie. Lily was the lead. Yeah, it sucked, but Lily deserved the spotlight for once.
The birth of blood-born witches was rare, and blood-born twins were even rarer. Centuries ago, a seer had foretold Iris and Lily’s birth, claiming that the twins would be immortal, wield great power, and bring about the downfall of a King of Hell.
Either the seer had gotten a few things wrong, or their original predictions had been thoroughly mixed up as time passed, because the “King of Hell” they’d defeated had definitely been a Queen, and as far as Iris could tell, Lily was the only one with a remarkable power. And last she’d checked, they were both very mortal.
Valefor hadn’t cared about the finer details of the prophecy, however. His only objective had been to find them and steal their supposed great power for himself through whatever horrific black magic ritual he could dream up. Sheolic magic was capable of some very alarming things.
“It doesn’t matter,” Iris said. “The point is, we can start meeting and practicing together. We don’t need the coven.”
Lily beamed at her. “I would like that. I want to get back into this stuff, I really do, I’ve just never felt that comfortable at Le Repaire. Suyin is, well, I know she’s your best friend, but she...”
“Freaks you out?”
Lily snorted. “Kinda, yeah. She’s just really intense. Does she ever relax?”
“Not really.” Iris chuckled. “I’ve seen grown-ass men cower beneath her stare. She’s a badass. But I know what you mean. She’s not for everyone.”
Iris’s phone rang the second she stepped in the door. Conveniently timed to increase the stress of taking off her snow boots and a parka with a hyper puppy stuffed in it, all while crammed in a four-by-four-foot entryway.
As Faust practically flung himself out of her arms and went scrambling down the hall in search of the cat, Iris whipped her phone out of her pocket. The call display told her it was Meph, and she answered before she could convince herself not to.
“I thought you were coming over,” he said.
“I’m not coming over. What gave you that impression?”
“Hm, maybe it was the part where you said, ‘I’ll be there soon.’”
“That was afakeconversation.” She kicked her boot off with a dramatic flourish, and it went flying into the wall and showered everything in snow. After repeating the maneuver with the other foot, she closed the inside door to the entryway, leaving the snow to melt in peace and protecting her shoes from Faust’s raging chew addiction.
“Not for me it wasn’t. And frankly, it hurts that you think so.”
“I’m way too tired for this right now, Meph.”
“Fine. How about this? I want to make you come some more. First time with my fingers. Second time with my mouth. Third time with my cock. And the fourth and all times thereafter with a combination of the three.”
She stopped dead in her tracks, and silence reigned for several moments.
