Page 34 of Run Like the Devil

Still, I pretended it was just the two of us telling bedtime stories, that we got this sort of simple fun that normal couples got. We weren’t Demon Lords, weren’t trying to take on God, weren’t stuck in some weird fucking between where something in the fog wanted to eat us.

Nope, we were just two stupid kids telling each other stories by a campfire.

The universe would force us to wake up soon enough—might as well enjoy the fantasy while we could. Besides, I couldn’t exactly deny just how much I enjoyed running my fingers through Yazmor’s violet hair or the quirk of his lips at the touch, the way he arched into it, begging for more.

Fuck knew I’d spent sleepless nights in a lot worse ways in the past.

Chapter Nine

Gorrin

I couldn’t pay attention to anything specifically. The conversations behind me, the steps of Loch and the Lords, they only pulled the smallest bit of my focus.

Instead, I allowed my gaze to dart over the horizon as I listened for any sign of attack. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something followed us.

I couldn’t hear it, hadn’t seen it, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it moving about in the fog.

“Keep thinking that hard and you’ll burst a blood vessel.” Loch fell into step beside me, her hands tucked into the front pocket of her large hoodie sweater.

“I can’t help it.” I stopped myself before I said anything more. There was no good reason to worry her, to tell her what I knew. Between the five of us, we had enough manpower to deal with any threats, thus informing her that we had something following us through the fog wouldn’t make us any safer. “Being here makes me uneasy,” I hedged. “This place might not react to me as it does to you, but something inside me tells me I should not be here.”

“And here I thought you were listening for the creature in the fog.”

I turned toward her, my eyes narrowed to slits. “There is no way that was just a lucky guess.”

“Yazmor and I read from the book he brought, written about a damned who came here. It talked about something in the fog, and Yazmor said he could sense it, too. Given the way you’ve been staring off, I figured you could, too.”

“Don’t you think that is vital information you should have shared?”

“Maybe we should start having a breakfast meeting to go over all the new stuff.” She paused, then shook her head. “Or maybe not. Hale would just talk about whatever dirty dream he had and Yazmor would tell us facts no one cares about.”

I nearly laughed at how correct she was with that guess. In fact, her words had me imagining that exact thing. She truly did seem to understand the four of us, which was a rather impressive feat.

I doubted any person had really understood any of us, let alone all of us.

“That is a risk we might have to take. At the very least, please tell me anything you find in that book. I know little about this place and every bit of information could end up being the difference between survival and death here. Was there anything else useful?”

She shook her head, the action causing the green of her hair to fall into her face. “Nothing much. The book talked about a specific damned who was interviewed when they came back.”

She went on, telling me about Hector and the experiments he’d been holding in secret.

I could hardly blame him for keeping them secret. If I’d known, I’d have probably orchestrated his immediate removal and helped put someone more easily controlled in his place. While Demon Lords had never directly killed one another because it would throw off the balance between us too much, I had never been above orchestrating for one to fall if they caused problems.

I had created my position in the Chasm to bring order to it, to try to make it a better place. The last thing I wanted was to see it delve into chaos due to poor leadership, and I had always been willing to do what needed to be done to stop that.

I doubted Loch would feel comfortable with that fact, so I kept it to myself. “Hector had always been rather eccentric. It doesn’t surprise me that he’d do that, though him keeping it quiet does.”

“I figured you knew everything.”

“I try, but I am only one man.”

“Angel.”

I turned my head to look down at her, finding her smirking as if her response was the best joke she’d ever made. That sort of joy from her both drew me in and pushed me away. I’d never met someone so able to embrace life—even the bad parts of it.

Looking around proved that point. We were somewhere extraordinarily dangerous, headed for a battle we had little chance of surviving, after Loch had suffered terribly over and over again, but she still managed to find things to laugh about.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She reached up and touched her face as if checking for something.

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