Page 11 of Run Like the Devil

“I don’t know how to act around you,” she admitted softly.

“You never cared about that before.”

“Before it was clear. You were the Demon Lord and I was owned by you.”

I snorted softly. “You never behaved as if I were your master, no matter how much easier on us both that might have been.” Even as I said that, I knew I never wished for her to behave in that way. I had never wanted her to be a slave, even if I had worked so hard to force her to accept her place. “We are equals now. This”—I waved my hands to indicate not just this room but the entire residence—“is yours. You gained it rightfully.”

“I feel like I stole it, like I don’t deserve any of it. Fuck, I don’t really want it.”

“Too bad. I don’t want it back, and I couldn’t take it back even if I did. Unless I wished to take a demon form again, I would be unable to truly rule here. Besides, you don’t need me anymore. You have grown into your own, have learned to rule it in your own way.”

She blew out a sharp breath, then sat on the couch. “So what now?”

“Now?”

“You’re back, but what does that even mean?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted and sat beside her. “I am not a man used to uncertainty, yet you make me uncertain. We have a plan on how to proceed, but I don’t know what that means between you and I.”

“So I guess we’re both in it together, huh? Both lost as fuck.”

I reached out slowly, my gaze forward, unwilling to look directly at her. She felt like the sun, something too bright for me to stare at, something that would destroy me if I forced myself to do so. Instead, I set my hand on top of hers and squeezed. “I am not used to being lost, but if I have to be, I think being lost with you doesn’t bother me so much.”

She turned her hand and laced her fingers with me, returning my touch by squeezing my hand back. The touch was hesitant, yet reached deep into me.

It wasn’t a clear answer, but I’d take it. It was certainly more than I thought I could ever have.

Chapter Three

I never figured having Yazmor by my side would make me feel better. He wasn’t exactly what I’d call a comforting presence most of the time.

In fact, thinking back on everything that had happened, I was pretty sure he usually made things far worse. The memory of our trip to the pharmacist’s house came back to me, when he’d chased a cat while I’d fought off a pantsless pervert.

Still, walking through the dark toward the cavern where I needed to take Kylie’s necklace made me admit—I miss him.

If nothing else, he gave me something to focus on other than the sound of my own steps echoing off the stone.

However, I was supposedly a Demon Lord, so I should have been brave enough to do shit on my own. It meant I’d tucked the innocuous-looking necklace into my pocket and headed for the Forgotten Caves all by my lonesome.

The trip felt as if it took longer than it had before, probably because each little noise made me jump. I hadn’t seen anything the last time—such as cave spiders or bullshit like that—but that didn’t mean they weren’t here.

Maybe they saw Yazmor as one of their own and had left us alone, but with me by myself now, they were more than willing to take a chunk out of me.

Stop freaking yourself out!

The Chasm was scary enough without me needing to come up with new things to fear.

According to Kylie, all I had to do was toss this thing into the right cave and everything would go back to the way it had been before. Of course, that wasn’t quite as easy as I’d hoped, since the Caves weren’t exactly easy to figure out. It seemed that wherever a person wanted to go would appear—eventually.

What a shitty system. Why couldn’t the doorway appear right when I entered the Caves instead of making me wander around like a religious nut job for hours first?

At least I knew I wouldn’t miss it, though. It seemed that only the places I wanted to go would light up, giving me access to them.

Finally, a familiar light glow caught my attention up ahead.

About time.

I jogged the short distance, then crossed the threshold as I had before. The same strangely colored sun, the same weird grass all told me I’d found the right place.

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