I gave him a dry look.
“Maybe this will help.” He was kissing me before I even realized he had moved. Thank goodness I had already used mouthwash. Leaning into the kiss, I let our tangled emotions, and tongues, consume me. It was better medicine than those two little pills I had taken.
When he ended the kiss, I felt halfway human again. Pure bliss.
“Hmm,” I purred. “I needed that.”
“I thought so.” He had on his signature Chase smirk.
Leaning a hip on the bathroom counter, I tried not to be swept off my feet by his sinful good looks, by the devilish look in his eyes, and by the darkness that surrounded him. Then he smacked me on the butt, and, just like that, the impression vanished.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going to be late for school.”
I groaned, but he was right. “Then, you will have to leave,” I said, pushing him out the door with my palm on his chest.
He pouted, but in a cute way that made me want to pull him back in, lock the door behind us, and make us very, very late for school. Sadly, I didn’t give in to that overwhelming urge. Instead, I ran a brush through my choppy hair and tossed on a pair of jeans and a pullover. Voila, a masterpiece. No doubt Lexi would have been aghast at my thrown together ensemble.
The day went without a hiccup, pretty mundane and uneventful. It was both weird and nice for a change. I only thought about Alastair a few hundred times, but it was to be expected. It was the after school special that reminded me that I lived in a parallel universe, one that involved demons. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I would be part of a supernatural club.
Once again I found myself smack dab in the middle of a demon powwow. Chase thought it would be a smart decision to let everyone know that there was a higher-demon stalking Spring Valley. Let the family reunion commence.
Everyone was loud.
Everyone was edgy, and rightly so.
Hell was in Spring Valley, and no one knew what he was going to do next. But we could all agree it was going to be a shit storm.
There were a dozen half-eaten pizzas lining the kitchen, scattered soda cans everywhere, not that this group needed the extra caffeine, and a body in all available seats. Of course, any demon-meetings wouldn’t be complete without Sierra mentally stabbing me from the other side of the room. Now that Emma was not trying to slice and dice us, Sierra was back to hating my guts, though I think she had given up on trying to steal my boyfriend.
It was sort of a helpless cause considering…
Sierra tapped her six-inch heeled boot on the coffee table. “So what’s trying to kill your needy girlfriend now?” the hoodrat asked in her snippiest tone.
Lexi nudged her in the side, and Emma snickered.
What a friendly bunch.
Chase looked around the room, meeting everyone in the eye, including his uncle Devin. “Honestly, I’m not sure what he wants, but we all need to be on guard.” Then he dropped the bomb. “I was summoned last night.”
A unified gasp spread across the room, followed by mutters of…
“Christ.”
“Oh God.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
The usual responses of disbelief combined with fear, and the room filled with tension.
“A higher-demon?” Lexi inquired just to make sure. “And you’re just now telling me?”
He ran a hand through his dark, ruffled hair. “It’s been a long 24 hours, Lex.”
“Was it him?” Craig asked, from his sprawled out position on the sofa. He took up over half of the space with his beefy body, dwarfing the couch. There was frightening intrigue to his tone that made me think he wouldn’t mind meeting a higher-demon.
Chase nodded, stretching out his long legs on the loveseat beside me.
Devin couldn’t sit still. He paced the room with a scowl on his lips and deep lines of worry on his unshaven face. He sort of had that sexy rugged appeal, if you were into that, like my mom I guess. Stroking his scratchy chin, he asked, “You are sure?”
“Positive,” Chase answered without question. “I was powerless to resist his call. Angel witnessed the entire thing. It was him—Alastair.”
Devin sucked in a breath, and then I remembered that Alastair was responsible for his sister’s death, Chase’s mother. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then the politics started.
That’s when I checked out.
I stared into space, entertaining a vividly steamy scenario in which Chase had me pinned up against the wall, doing wild and wicked things with his tongue. I think I had seen it once on a cover of one of those dirty romances Mom was always reading.
You think after staring a demon in the face, the last thing I would be thinking about was having sex with Chase, but like the dreams that kept coming, I couldn’t seem to stop.
“Angel.”