Page 33 of Demon Loved
“So we’re on a first name basis with the demons now, are we?” Gage snarks, pure vitriol spewing from his eyes.
“Shut it, Gagiel,” Raphael says tiredly.
“And you already know my name, snookums,” Nakir says to me with a wink, ignoring the daggers hurled at him from my men’s eyes, perhaps even enjoying them. I wonder if his skin is as indestructible as the metal it looks like. I hope so, for his sake.
“So what are you going to do to us?” I ask with a bravado I don’t feel. Because to be honest, I’m terrified. Like, piss my pants and then curl into a corner to cry, type of terrified.
“We’re not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re thinking, Miss…” Raphael lifts a brow at me, waiting, but I stubbornly remain silent. Names hold power, and I’m not going to give him anymore over me if I can help it. He nods as if he understands, as if he even respects that. “Very well.”
“My men,” I say around the proverbial hands squeezing my throat. “What are you going to do with them?”
“Why, let them go, of course,” Raphael says, giving up on removing the stain from the couch and straightening.
“Let them go?” I repeat dubiously. My eyes instinctively flit to Raz, whose mouth is agape in shock.
“Why would you do that?” he asks hoarsely, struggling to pull himself into a sitting position. When it fails, he flops back onto the ground with a growl.
“How do you know he’s telling the truth?” I pipe in anxiously. Because isn’t that Super Villain 101? Make us think they’re letting us go, but then gouge out our eyeballs and feed them to their pet snakes that they keep in the basement to feast on decayed corpses.
Yeah, I watch too many horror movies with Zolroth.
“Angels can’t lie,” Van grits out.
“It’s what makes us the superior species,” Raphael throws in casually, brushing imaginary lint off his shoulder. Ugh. He’s so annoyingly smug, I can see why my guys hate angels. I kind of want to rip that stick from his ass and then shove it through his skull.
“But we know the truth about you guys,” Nakir adds, leaning forward to sniff my hair. I shy away from him, and his grin merely widens. “You’re their Center.”
“I-I don’t know what you mean,” I protest weakly.
“You know exactly what I mean,” he counters with a pointed look.
“And I suppose since we know your secret, it’s only fair that you know ours.” Raphael begins to fidget with his cufflink in earnest, violet eyes flicking from face to face. “We’re here for a specific reason, and we have no intention of leaving anytime soon—”
Gage releases a disgruntled snort.
“—but we do not wish for things to become violent between us. We’ll stay in our town; you stay in yours. We call for a truce, of sorts,” Raphael finishes.
“After you attacked us? No chance in Hell, you winged fucker!” Akor bellows…still facedown on the ground, his voice muffled by the rug.
“Attacked you?” Diniel interrupts, taking a step forward. “None of us have ever attacked you.”
“We haven’t even left this shitty town,” Gage mumbles in irritation, “and they don’t even have their own ice cream shop here.”
“Then why are you here,” Van demands, “if it’s not to attack us?”
“That doesn’t concern you,” Raphael huffs. “But since you know that we can’t lie, you know that we weren’t behind the attacks on you and your…murder.” He shudders slightly at the final word, but I know he’s being sincere.
If this angel flock didn’t attack us, if they actually want a truce, then whodid?
And why?
13
Katrina
“Eep!”I cry out as we go over yet another bump in the road, and Akor’s hand slides from my back up to the top of my head, cradling it to prevent me from smashing into the van’s ceiling like it did on the prior two potholes.
He insisted I sit on his lap for the drive back home, and the demon doesn’t believe in seatbelts. He never had to sit through a million of his mother and father’s breakfast safety lectures as they talked about lawsuits over coffee and soggy, store-bought muffins.
