Page 42 of Demon Kissed
I sit down on the stairs, suddenly grateful that my dad insisted on gaudy marble on the bannister and posts, because that makes me harder to see in the dark. I peer between the railings to watch Kastros sign at the other two.
“Don’t even go there! You stepped down, or you’d know!” Raz growls.
Zolroth’s bruised eyes narrow on Kastros’s huge form, and he crosses his arms. A gash in his lip weeps a little as he says, “Didn’t you get hurt around here? It was this town, right? She’s got to be here! She has to live here! Close by. Why the hell didn’t you find her and get rid of the problem?”
Kastros shakes his head without responding, glares at Raz, and then stomps out the front door without so much as a goodbye.
Zolroth’s eyes glow red, and for the first time, I see a scary demon rather than a posh, sophisticated man in his place. “He’s hiding something.”
“He doesn’t like feeling vulnerable. None of us do,” Raz says.
“Damn straight. You’d better scour the damn town for her, because we’re gonna find her and end this shit. I’m not having any damn Center mess things up for us.”
“I will. But I already told you, we should have refused this summons.”
“Couldn’t. It was our number,” Zolroth responds. “None of the other squadrons would have taken it anyway. Not with the big battle going on down South and a chance to put those cherubs in their place.”
“Staying here is stupid,” Raz retorts, getting heated. “With our Center around, we’re fucking vulnerable.”
“Yeah! I bloody well fucking know!” Zolroth points at his own eye, which is swollen. “I experienced it first-hand. But you know what happens if we back out on a summons and a chance toconvertsomeone.”
Convert someone?
To Jesus?
ToSatan?
What does that even mean?
There’s silence for a moment, and I use that time to try to process what I’m hearing. I can hardly follow their conversation. I mean, I can guess the battle with cherubs means angels, maybe that’s a derogatory term? But what the hell is a center? Is it my town? A place?
Zolroth’s voice is low as he announces, “If I find our Center, I’ll kill her.”
Oh. Question answered. A Center is a person. Well then, I’m on board. Let’s find this she-demon bitch and off her.
Zolroth and Raz whip around and stare at me. And I realize that my stupid mouth once again blurted things out and I’ve been caught spying on demons.
Insert face into palm.
14
When I curlup in bed, I have a hard time falling asleep because my mind is still whirling.
The guys laughed at me when they’d heard me spout off about killing demons. I’d started to get embarrassed, until Zolroth had scooped me up into his arms and called my violent tendencies “adorable.”
My mind keeps flickering over how I’d felt as I applied wound cream to Zolroth’s cuts and bruises. I’d had to bite down on my lip in order to keep silly, girlish smiles from constantly creeping over my lips as Zolroth complained that he wasn’t a child who needed a nursemaid. But somehow, despite his verbal protests, he kept unbuttoning his stained, collared shirt and finding new scratches for me to treat. My hands had gotten to slide over his abs.
Real man abs. Or demon abs, I guess, if you want to be technical about it.
I’d gotten to touch them. Not just ogle from afar, not just imagine them as I read a dirty book, buttouchthem.
And then after Zolroth, I’d gone to treat Akor. His eyes had burned a path from my heart right down to my panties as I’d gently taped gauze over his scratch.
I swallow hard and squeeze my eyes shut, my fingers clenching the covers tightly.
It’s not real, I tell myself.
I think about the lust that Van exudes and how it’s been making people at school go crazy. Four students were hauled out of the bathrooms earlier today for getting it on during school hours, because he saturates the very air with lust.
