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Nova stepped over the pile and retrieved a handkerchief from his pocket before wiping my face like I was a child and not a grown-ass woman. To my unending chagrin, the dude didn’t get covered like I did. He was a much prettier eater, and I secretly envied him for it.
Stealing the cloth from his hand, I cleaned my own face and tossed it onto the pile o’ Rift. With the zippo in my pocket, I torched the bloody cloth with the rest of the demon we killed. Strong demon ashes were apparently very flammable because the entire pile was covered in furious flames a half second later, and the crackle of our fallen enemy was the only sound for minutes.
“Are you very angry with me?” Nova asked with a smug grin.
Oh, baby boy wants to play? Well, far be it from me to ignore a desperate plea for violence…
“Now that you’re asking, this is far from how I saw the night going…” I sunk my fist into his stomach, and the demon actually reacted like he hadn’t expected that if you messed with the bull, you’d get the horns. “But I’m starting to feel much better now, thanks,” I responded sassily, replacing his smirk with my own.
Nova coughed away the assault and then fixed his posture, clearly still recovering from the blow. “The easiest way to ensure you could consume enough of his blood was to do it this way. But you’re right. I should have warned you prior to coming here. However, you were still primarily what killed him in the name of your fallen comrades, seeing how it was your actions that weakened him the greatest.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I sassed, waving him off with a hand.
I’d never let him know how the statement dredged up the feelings of guilt and regret, knowing it was over my friend’s dead body I’d done so.
For a heartbeat, I remembered Aidan’s gentle, welcoming smile when I’d return to his condo after a mission. I could almost feel his strong arms around my shoulders, hugging me without permission.
To my horror, something broke inside of me. A mournful tear fled my eye and scorched a traitorous path down my face.
Nova didn’t speak. He simply brought me into his chest and held me tightly. I wanted to beat his annoyingly strong pecs with my fists and tell the presumptuous asshole to get his arms off of me, but for some reason, I pressed my face into his scent and cried harder instead.
16
Not Today, Satan!
REESE SAT ACROSS THE TABLE from me, legs kicked up and arms bent behind her head. “How often do you get them to cry? Like, really bawl their eyes out, plead for their miserable man lives kind of crying?”
I chewed my creamy bagel slowly, trying for minutes not to smile. Reese, I was quickly finding, was far from subtle with her questions, and they always came out of left field. The master marksman was a very curious little creature, but maybe that was the entire reason I couldn’t ignore her.
“Demons or humans?”
The blue-haired menace laughed to herself, lips tilted.
Today, Reese was dressed in a casual pair of time-worn black jeans and a “Not Today, Satan!” t-shirt. Her blue hair was styled around her pixie-cute face in a sort of “Fuck you and your sister, too” kind of way, and everything about the other woman screamed rebel child.
You could argue our outfits matched, even though I wore a simple tank top with a pair of shorts over fishnets. The two of us presented like we were a duo of punk chicks in a band of misfits, and I hated how much I enjoyed the fact that we did.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” the she-demon mused with a sneaky smile. “I didn’t even think demons would plead you, but I guess in that case, both.”
“Depends on how slowly I draw it out and how much they know about me beforehand. Human men are really quick to cry and shamelessly plead for their lives, but demons take a little more convincing. Unless, of course, they’ve already heard of me.” I finished my little breakfast snack and licked cream off my fingers.
Reese’s eyes followed my mouth and tongue, and she readjusted on her seat, clearly going through some stuff.
It didn’t take long to figure out that Reese preferred ladies to men, and it took even less time for her sideways glances and constant presence to suggest she had a little thing for me. But it was something that oddly endeared her to me. I couldn’t help how eager I was to answer her questions and spend time with the blue-haired spitfire, when I wasn’t already engaged with Nova.
The rest of the team I met one by one, but I only really seemed to hit it off with Reese and Gus, who was an oversized teddy bear and nothing like any other demon I’d met.
The terrifying troll of a man was surprisingly shy, soft-spoken, and genuine. But I’d seen him fight the night we killed Rift, and he was anything but shy on the battlefield. The man shed nearly his entire personality the second a weapon was in his hand. And his hand-to-hand combat was like watching an action movie starring Vin Diesel. The dude was powerful and quick, despite what his size might suggest.
His hair was trimmed short and sculpted around his head, and the giant had beautiful dark brown skin, which was complemented by equally dark brown eyes. Probably most entertaining was that Gus didn’t seem to know how to find clothes that truly fit his muscly girth. Still, I had mad respect for the dude. Truth be told, Gus reminded me of Ty without the unfortunate crass asshole part of his personality.
It was usually him and Reese who bothered to come say hi to me and, oddly, Reese was the stronger presence of the two despite Gus being over six-foot-seven.
Today, a portion of the team was out of the office to chase down some new leads. We hadn’t been able to track down the other two of the Sworn Three just yet, but Nova promised that it was only a matter of time before they crossed over to come after us. And it was his opinion that the more time we had to train my new strength and abilities, the better.
From what Nova told me about the last two of the three Lucifer minions, they had an army of hellhounds and pestilence on their side, and I’d need to get better with not only my physical response time but my mental one as well. So, this usually impatient chick had to cool it for a minute while we waited for our demon guests to take a hint and get their asses over to the mortal world—where their powers suffered and mine didn’t.
Luckily, I had other activities to distract an active mind and voracious appetite for violence.
