Page 50 of Malice
“Good,” I said, and it was true. Christian had become quite an asset here. I didn’t want to lose him.
“Here, Red. Come sit and have a drink.” Chaos gestured to the spot beside him on the sofa.
Merri padded over, her expression distant as she flopped gracelessly into the seat Chaos had indicated. “What a morning,” she groaned, accepting the glass he handed her. Before taking a sip, she let out a humorless laugh and shook her head. “I thought the biggest thing I’d do today was shut down my site. But the apocalypse wanted to one-up me, I guess. So it basically took out the western half of the US and then decided that wasn’t enough chaos?—”
War cleared his throat.
“Sorry,” she murmured, offering him a smile as she continued with her rant. “I already had a weird déjà vu moment with the guy on that video being in my dream a few nights ago, but then Christian almost dying? I don’t know how much more I can handle in a day. It’s not even lunchtime.”
“Wait, hang on a second,” Sin said. “I’m glad you brought that up. You said you saw Asher in your dream, that you recognized him. You knew some of the others he’s with, but you’ve never seen him before?”
She took a swallow of her drink, grimaced, and then shook her head. “Never. I thought he was just a weird figment of my imagination. I’ve made up plenty of people to hang out with while sleeping.”
Chaos’s free hand balled into a fist. “Another coincidence. Have I told you lately that I don’t believe in coincidences?”
“Why not?” Merri asked, grimacing again as she took another sip of her drink.
“Coincidences take a lot of planning.”
“He’s part of the resistance. There’s no way the connection isn’t part of something bigger.”
“According to Hades, we’re connected to him and everyone with him,” Grim reminded us.
“So you’re saying fate put him in my dream?” Merri asked.
Chaos shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Who’s to say you wouldn’t find yourself in one of the key player’s dreams? Dreamwalking is rapidly becoming your forte.”
“It wasn’t that kind of dream,” she insisted.
“Even so. Maybe that’s how we’re supposed to find them. Especially now that the grid is down. We can’t exactly call Hades up and ask where they are. Maybe your dreams are what will lead us to them? Or them to us?”
She heaved a sigh. “How am I supposed to feed, find our allies, and get knocked up all in a night’s work?”
“Start taking naps?” Sin offered.
Merri gave him a droll look. “Maybe I should just ask Malice to put me in a coma, and then I can work around the clock.”
“I mean . . .”
Merri narrowed her eyes at Sin, effectively cutting him off.
Grim stood, his shadows spreading, betraying his frustration. “We cannot worry about finding them, not right now. We have a very specific task we need to focus on. If fate is at work, then we’ll be brought together when the time is right. Whether we want it or not.”
“So until then,” Merri started.
Grim met and held Merri’s stare, a bolt of lust bursting through the room and obliterating any lingering tension. “Until then, we stay the course.”
“And by stay the course, you mean . . .”
Grim’s lips twitched in what had to be his version of a playful smile. “I mean, we fuck our succubus.”
Chapter
Thirteen
MERRI
Itold myself there was nothing wrong with walking past Christian’s door on my way downstairs. As far as I knew, he’d yet to come to after his freak accident yesterday. Malice had checked on him multiple times in the night, and Grim assured me he’d be able to sense if his death was imminent. All of that should have kept the niggling worm of guilt from poking at my mind, but it didn’t. There was nothing I could do to help. I knew that. It didn’t change the fact Christian was the closest thing to a friend I had here, horsemen excluded.
