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“Maximus,” I call toward the house, figuring the stray pup I picked up a few trips ago might help comfort my mate.
Theodopolis looks toward the manor as though expecting something much bigger than my dog to come barreling out of the front door. “Keep Hayden away from the portals inside,” he says ominously.
“Why? You demon royals are the only ones who can open them, and you won’t jeopardize your contract.”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment. “Something strange is happening lately.”
“Stranger than a reaper coming to a demon for a matchmaking contract?”
“You didn’t hear this,” he says in a low voice. “But portals are opening when they shouldn’t.”
Fuck. That could spell disaster for this and every other world. But I have my own problems. Win my mate. Vanquish the revenants. The demons can deal with the portals. “I’ll protect Hayden at all costs. If it means torching your ruin to the ground, so be it. You can find another house to use as a trap for whatever women you plan to lure here.”
He shoots me a suspicious look. “What do you know of my?—”
Happy barks cut him off. Maximus ghosts through the door and charges for the van, his three skeleton heads bouncing atop a tiny body with a wagging tail. The tallest of his ears comes to the demon’s shin.
“What the fuck is that?” Theodopolis asks.
“A hellhound.” With a shadow, I scoop Maximus into the van.
“That’s no hellho?—”
I silence the demon with a look. If Maximus wants to believe he’s a hellhound to escape whatever trauma the fuzzy chihuahua obviously went through in his last life, then he can be a fucking hellhound. My dog curls up in furry pup form next to Hayden.
Theodopolis rears back as if Maximus has offended him worse than peeing on his tail. “I would never allow such hairy vermin in my bed.”
“You will if it pleases your mate,” I tell him with the cockiness of a reaper who knows what makes my woman happy.
“You have one month. To win her and to end the revenants.” He vanishes before I can tell him to piss off and leave us in peace.
“Glad he’s gone,” I say to Maximus, closing the van door and wrapping all my shadows around Hayden except for the dog’s spot near her shoulder. “Take out the revenants. Win the girl. Yeah, this won’t be so hard.”
I hope.
Hayden
Paleearly light peeks over the mountains to the east, casting the house in a desolate grey. I wrap my sweater tighter, not wanting to know what makes fog constantly surround the place as I plunge through it on my way inside.
There’s a lot I’m ignoring this morning.
Like how I can’t remember pulling the camper van’s bed out last night or climbing into it or anything really after signing the non-disclosure agreement with the rep from Underworld. I couldn’t even read the contract completely.
I let the headache go too long, and the migraine aura messed with my vision. But I reviewed it in the emails the rep and I exchanged, and I’ve signed a ton of consulting agreements over the years. They’re all boilerplate, standard stuff. Other than the annoying clause he insisted on that keeps me from posting about my stay at the manor. No matter. It’s worth a month of radio silence for charity. I’ve already prepped content and tested satellite internet so I can keep my followers happy and the algorithms fed while I’m here.
Yesterday evening, I’d barely been able to stand, let alone negotiate. Still, I must not have embarrassed myself too much in front of the pretty boy rep since he didn’t toss me from the property.
That’s a win.
Also a victory? The text from my therapist’s office confirming my next telehealth visit won’t be for another month. It’ll give me a much needed break to process our last discussion of my abandonment issues from growing up an orphan, the awkwardness of being a trust fund baby who didn’t fit in at my posh schools, or flashbacks to the mugging that had my skull connecting with a curb.
But I won’t talk to my therapist about the ghosts.
Never the ghosts, or I’ll end up on antipsychotics again.
I certainly don’t mention Wren.
Not to anyone living.
