Page 16 of Demon Loved
I grin. “Because this is the most ridiculous dream ever. I mean, where did I even come up with shit monsters?”
“Katrina…” Ziel’s brow lowers. “I know you’re asleep, but you know this realm is real… Don’t you? I’m really here.”
“What?” I ask, my mind not quite processing. He can’t really be here in this cloud desert. He’s imaginary.
Suddenly, Ziel tucks me in tighter and shoots backwards so that we dodge another excrement missile.
My silly giggles come back as my stomach drops and we soar off, and I can’t help but compare the sensation to a wild roller coaster. Sometimes, my mind is ridiculous. Ziel shakes his head but smiles fondly down at me. I reach up, my braver dream-self ready to kiss him. But I don’t even get the opportunity to lean up and give his luscious lips a thank you because something grabs my arm.
I turn, worried a shit hand has grabbed me. But nothing’s there. The yanking continues. Harder. More insistent.
And then a tiny voice breaks through my dream. Adam says, “Katty.”
Ziel immediately disappears, and the dark shadows of the hotel room loom over me, deep blue and black like a bruise. Going from dream to reality feels like I’ve been punched, and I stare at Adam, disoriented and half-awake for a moment.
“Katty, I had a nightmare,” Adam tells me, his eyes wide. I can see they’re red-rimmed from crying.
“Oh, bud.” I lean down and kiss his unruly bedhead. I give a long yawn. “Let me get you a glass of water, and I’ll tell you a story, okay?”
He nods and sniffles.
I shuck off the covers and go over to the bathroom, flicking on the faucet to get him a drink. I scrub a hand over my face. This is his third nightmare in less than a week.
As I make my way back to bed and help him get a sip of water, then flick on the side light and start telling him about the time his sister got chased through the school by a poop monster (yeah, I’m not super creative at midnight, and poop is always good for a four-year-old giggle), I can’t help but wonder if what I’m doing, keeping Adam away from Mom and Dad, is the right thing.
Is he having all these nightmares because our family is broken?
Guilt rubs my insides like sandpaper, leaving me raw and aching. If he is…then it’s all my fault.
6
Raz
She disappeared.She was in my arms, and she just disappeared. Right as I was about to pour my fucking heart out and tell her everything.
But what would make Katrina leave? What would steal her from sleep?
Visions of that fucker who showed up in the gym at Lakewood Prep flash before my eyes. Akor breaking every bone in that bastard’s body with pain magic wasn’t enough of a punishment. Especially not when we’d had to hustle Zolroth out of there so that he wouldn’t bleed out.
We hadn’t bothered to skin the angel, hadn’t stopped to take him prisoner. We’d been more concerned about our own murder. I hadn’t done more than stomp his face for good measure as we’d hurried Katrina and Zolroth out, on high alert for any other attackers.
Had that been a mistake?
Had the fucker not taken the hint and come back?
The idea that that asshole might have found my girl makes a growl rip from my throat.
We should have chained the bastard and dragged him through the realms, right to Hell. We should have put him in the killing pit, the deep canyon in the clouds that’s the color of sunset. The beautiful place is home to the worst atrocities of all…because Lucillania doesn’t believe in tempering impulses.
Those fuckers are given every weapon imaginable and allowed to go at one another again and again for as long as their soul resides in Hell.
I occasionally visit in order to get food for thought for my own magic, because those assholes can be creative bastards.
But that’s irrelevant right now. Everything’s irrelevant, other than ensuring that Katrina is safe.
I growl, irritated, sending a bolt of orange lightning at the snarling shitheads beneath me as my black wings explode from my back and unfurl, shooting me up into the sky. When I’m high enough, I let my hand morph into a claw, and then I rip through the veil that separates the realms, flying from the divine realm right into the human one.
The night sky on Earth blasts me with autumnal cold, one of the few obnoxious things about the human realm. The seasons never get this bitter in Hell. Or maybe all the random lightning fires there keep me from noticing.
