The curtain whipped open. What must have been the little ones’ mother stepped inside, her clawed feet scraping the floor.
“Apologies, doctor,” she growled through fangs the length of Tayla’s index finger. Her gaze shifted sharply to Tayla. “Is that . . . human?” Her large, catlike eyes went even wider, revealing a silver rim that glowed. “Slayer. I heard the whispers.”
Still holding Tayla’s phone, Eidolon addressed the demon, a subterranean species that came aboveground around Halloween. “Gather your young, flitta. This is not your concern.”
The flitta, whatever that meant, didn’t seem to hear, instead took a step toward Tayla. Drool dripped from her fangs. “You,” she hissed. “You should die.”
Shade moved up behind her, watched with ill-concealed amusement.
“You killed my hatchlings.”
Tayla frowned at the little demons hopping around beneath her, and the mother roared. “Not them! My nest before this. All of them. In pieces, smashed as they came out of their shells. You slaughtered my babies.”
“It wasn’t me,” Tay said lamely, because it could have been. How many demon nests had she destroyed? Too many to count—or even remember.
“It was an Aegi butcher, same as you.”
One of the babies leaped toward Tay’s arms, but Eidolon caught it in midair, tickled it behind its pointy ear, and handed it to the angry mother.
“Flitta, it wasn’t this Aegi. Gather your brood and go. Bring the flossa back next week and I’ll remove her cast.”
That was when Tay noticed a quiet baby in the corner, one leg wrapped and dragging behind it. Gently, Shade picked it up and tucked it against his chest. Tayla nearly fell over as he began to make soft cooing noises that had all of the youngsters following him out of the room. The mother speared Tayla with a glare of pure murder before sauntering off after Shade and the babies.
“Wow, she was a little worked up.”
Eidolon swept the curtain closed again. “An Aegi murdered her young.”
“Because that species comes out at Halloween and eats—”
“Vegetables.”
“What?”
“Her particular breed. They’re vegetarians. They mainly raid farmers’ fields in the fall because they like gourds.” Still holding her phone in one hand, he dumped his tray of bloodied tools into a nearby container with the other. “Your Aegis buddies slaughtered innocent younglings that would have grown up to do nothing worse than suck the guts out of a few pumpkins.”
Nausea swirled in her stomach. “How did the little one get hurt?”
“Stepped on by an adult. If it weren’t for the hospital, she would have died. Fractured bones are a death sentence for that species.”
Tay seriously wanted to throw up. Things had gone wrong, so wrong. In a matter of days, her world had been flipped upside down. Everything she thought she’d known about demons was wrong. Vegetarian demons? Demons who cured instead of killed? Her simple black-and-white world had gone about a million shades of gray.
“Tayla? Are you okay?”
She blinked out of her gray world and back to the strange, dark one that was Underworld General. A hospital whose very existence should be impossible. A hospital The Aegis wanted to bring down. She couldn’t do it. Right now she was too vulnerable, too unsure of her feelings to commit to the destruction of UG.
“Can I have my phone, please?”
“If you’re thinking of calling for help, you might as well know that you can’t get a signal here.”
“No extended network, huh?” She stood there as he closed the distance between them, his tall, solid body drawing her as if it had its own gravitational pull, and without thinking, she took a step to meet him. He held out the phone, but when she reached for it, his hand captured her wrist.
“Why do you want the phone?”
She swallowed dryly, unsure what to say, not because she couldn’t lie, but because suddenly, she didn’t want to. Not when the gold flecks in his eyes had begun to glitter again. She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
He pulled her close, suspicion and something darker swirling in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep licking your lips. Are you nervous?”
“They’re just dry.”
The darkness in his gaze intensified as he watched her, and then he dipped his head until their lips nearly touched and she could feel the softest draft of air in the span of distance between them. “I can help with that.”
She moaned and wished he’d just kiss her already. He seemed to be waiting for permission, which was ridiculous. Before, he’d taken what he wanted. Why did he want her assent now?
“Do you want me to help?”
“No,” she said, but she tipped her face up so their lips touched.
His tongue flicked over her lips in a kiss that wasn’t quite a kiss, but was enough to heat her blood. “Are you sure?”
“No.” She opened her lips, nearly panting.