Page 90 of Legacy of Temptation

“For what?”

“For accepting who I am.”

“Oh, Logan,” she breathed, cupping his cheek in her palm. “I—"

Suddenly, someone pounded on Logan’s door.

“Dammit, Logan!”

Eva squeaked in surprise and tugged the blanket up just as the door burst open, and Rade charged toward the bedroom.

“Why didn’t you tell me Lilith got—what the fuck?” He looked at Eva, shook his head, and took off, slamming the door closed again.

“Shit.” Logan kissed her, a quick peck, and then rolled out of bed and tugged on a pair of sweatpants. “Get some sleep. I’ll join you later.”

She was asleep before the door closed.

Son of a bitch.

Today had been one of the shittiest days of Logan’s life. But his time with Eva had at least dulled the edge of the knife currently carving out his chest. The one engraved with Noah’s and Shanea’s names being wielded by Draven and Lilith. Now real life had violently intruded on the brief piece of heaven he’d found with Eva.

And he was pissed.

He’d truly thought that sleeping with her would be a mistake, but it hadn’t been. They both needed to remember what they were fighting for. Life. Family. Love.

Yeah, he was supposed to be focusing on making sure the world didn’t burn before Satan was released, but he’d been so wrapped up in preventing Armageddon that he’d neglected his needs. He’d let old wounds fester, and for the first time in years, he felt like he finally found some relief.

Then Rade had to go and ruin everything.

Logan pounded on Rade’s door and then burst inside without waiting for an invite, just as Rade had done to him.

Rade pivoted from the fridge, kicked the door shut, and slammed his unopened bottle of iced coffee on the counter. “What the shit, man? You’re fucking the enemy?”

“She’s not the enemy, Rade.” Logan gave the door the fridge treatment with his foot.

“Well, she’s sure as hell not our friend.” He strode to the computer and waved Logan over. “I looked into your little fuck buddy after the interrogation. Have you seen her work?” He punched a button, and a clip of Eva during her time as a journalist in Houston popped up.

“Much-needed legislation regarding the rights of businesses to refuse service to known werewolves is being discussed a thousand miles away in the nation’s capital today,” Eva said from outside a courthouse in Houston. Behind her, scores of protestors held signs demanding First Amendment rights for business owners and calls to send all were-people to reservations. “This comes as those who succumb to moon fever three nights a month demand to be identified as human rather than werewolves, claiming the label, no matter how accurate, unfairly reduces them to a disease, and exposes them to harassment and discrimination.”

“Eva,” the guy at the news desk said, “do these people deny that their disease is contagious?”

“They acknowledge that the werewolf virus can be transmitted, but they claim it can only happen through a bite or a scratch while they are in their beast forms.”

The news guy nodded thoughtfully. “And yet they have no proof.”

“Some early studies have shown that the lycanthropy virus is dormant and non-contagious while the infected are in their human forms, but so far, there is no official declaration or recommendation by the World Council on Supernatural Governance about how to proceed with the treatment of werewolves in society.”

“Thank you, Eva,” the guy said. “What a world we live in. News Twelve will be back after these messages.”

Rade pressed a few more buttons as the newsfeed blinked away. “And check out these articles she wrote.Demon Neighbors: Protect Yourself with Household Items You Can Use as Weapons. She goes on about how demon-on-human crime has increased, and what humans can do about it.”

Logan frowned. “I remember that. A dude in Phoenix broke out of his werewolf containment unit and slaughtered a half-dozen people in his neighborhood. The next day, someter’taceokid went full demon on a group of kids who were bullying him.” That bloody event had ended with the ten-year-old boy being put down by The Aegis. “Humans changed a bunch of laws after those two incidents.”

Those years had been a tense time in human/demon coexistence. Things were still volatile, but the ceding of Australia to demons had relieved a lot of tension. The country had already been largely destroyed during the first near-apocalypse, and humans gave up trying to rebuild when Azagoth wiped out Sheoul-gra and set loose billions of demons. When it became clear that humans would never be able to send all demons back to Sheoul or destroy all vampires and were-creatures, a global coalition came together to address the problem. By officially relinquishing Australia to demons—with strict conditions—the temperature on the planet had dropped from boiling to a high simmer.

“Oh, and here’s a good one,” Rade said. “She’s talking to a demonology professor and asking if someone with as little as one percent DNA should be considered a demon when it comes to legislation. When he said nothing less than twenty-five percent should be subject to law applied to demons, she argued.” Rade swung around to Logan. “Dude, you’re twenty-five percent demon. So, tell me she’s not the enemy.”

Okay, yeah, that stung. But would she have slept with him if she still believed that shit? “Those were all from years ago—”

---