“Please just go,” I said. Rysten nodded in understanding and followed the others out into the night. I closed the door behind them and leaned against it. My legs gave out under me as I slid to the floor and Bandit came running out of my bedroom, his pink elephant in tow, stopping on my thighs to hold out his treasured toy.
“I don’t think that’s going to solve my problems this time, boy,” I sighed. He kept pushing it towards me. I took the damn thing and held it while he climbed up my chest and wrapped his arms around my neck.
“Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you. They can think I’m destined to be Queen of the Underworld all they want. It doesn’t change anything.” I don’t know how much time passed until I dragged myself to bed, stripping off my blood-smudged clothes as I went.
**Laran**
If Julian thought he could intimidate me into staying away from her, he was wrong. I’d waited just as long as the rest of them, and unlike Rysten, who went to her because Allistair called on him behind our backs, I stuck to the plan and didn’t try to speak with her.
Until the plan changed.
I didn’t mean to touch her.
I just couldn’t think.
She was so close already, and she smelled so good. I’ve waited thousands of years to meet her, but the last twenty-three were the hardest.
The plan was to let Lola take her and not come back until it was time.
I waited. I paid my dues.
But she wanted nothing to do with us.
“Laran, you need to chill the fuck out, mate,” Rysten snapped. I looked up at him and snarled, but the bastard didn’t respond in kind. He rolled his eyes and continued sipping his wine, like he classy or some shit. Fucking mommy drink is what that was.
Humans were making him soft.
“She wants nothing to do with us. How can you be sitting there like a fucking—”
“You think I haven’t noticed? What did you expect, War? That we could come in here and usher her away? She doesn’t know who you are. Who I am. She doesn’t even know who she is. She only knows what earth has taught her.”
I turned my back on him, towards the fire. Maybe I couldn’t call the flames of Hell, but I could call on earth’s fire and wreak havoc like the world has never known.
“Why does it feel like they took her from us?” I asked softly into the flames, but they held no answers for me this night.
“Because she created a life,” Julian answered.
“This was what we wanted,” Rysten continued.
“No,” I said sharply. “This is what you three wanted. I wanted to keep her in Hell where—”
“Where she would have died with Lucifer,” Julian interrupted.
I bit my tongue from the denial that threatened to come pouring out. He was right, but that didn’t make this any easier.
“What are we supposed to do now?” I asked.
Silence spread between us, each lost to our own thoughts over the girl who was destined to be ours, but didn’t know it.
Rysten was the first to speak. “We give her time and get to know her.”
“I suggest we do this individually,” Allistair proposed.
“So you can fuck her?” I asked. My words were harsh, but I meant it.
“I wasn’t the one all over her tonight, War,” he snapped back.
“You don’t deny it.”
“Enough,” Julian declared. I turned away from the flames, toward my comrades. My brothers. We have stood together through everything. Fought and won for Hell itself. We have killed and laid destruction to so many in the name of the future. Of Ruby. Yet...this was different.
“Becoming her guards will be unlike any mission we have had before. It has already proven to have some challenges we hadn’t predicted, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we already feel a sense of entitlement to her,” Julian said.
He wasn’t wrong, and none of us corrected him.
“That being said, her well-being comes before anything we may want or feel. She’s not comfortable with us yet, so we limit the time spent with her as a unit. At least until word from Hell reaches here. We can’t postpone the inevitable. She must come with us, but we can give her time to adjust.”
My gaze darted to Rysten. The fucker was practically smirking to himself at Julian’s decree. He’d spent more time on earth than any of us over the last two decades, and while we all knew why, no one ever thought it might make a difference. We assumed she would want to come with us. That she would be happy to leave earth behind. We didn’t take into account that she would grow up, have her own life, and become a woman in her own right, with sinful curves and a sultry mouth.
We didn’t take her into account.
Just the idea of her.
All of us, but Rysten. The fucker was probably real happy right now, but he wasn’t the only one with cards up his sleeve.
I am War, and no one plays better games than me.
Chapter 7
Groggy and exhausted, I woke to Moira screaming down the house. Not literally, but she may as well have been. I rolled over in bed and groaned. Bandit chittered about, jumping from his hammock hanging over my head and onto the floor. He paced wildly back and forth, scratching at the door.
“Ugh…why me?” I moaned, unwrapping myself from my sheets. I’d slept like the dead last night and woken up in a sheen of perspiration. I was going to need a shower before I went into the shop today.
Throwing open my bedroom door, I dragged my mostly naked ass into the living room. “What in the devil’s name are you screaming about?” I asked, walking around the corner.
Rysten stood in the doorway with an extremely pissed off Moira. My best friend turned to respond, but lost the words once she saw me standing there in my underwear. I let out a frustrated growl and turned on my heel, ignoring the stark intensity that entered Rysten’s expression. I wasn’t a prude by any means, and took nudity in a pretty casual manner. Until you threw men into the mix. Bastards got a look of something they liked and never left me alone.
I dug through the never-folded pile of clean laundry sitting on the corner of my bed. At the very bottom was my black bathrobe. It was simple and cotton, definitely nothing sexy, and it would do the trick. I pulled on the robe and tied the sash at my waist as I walked back into the living room.
“Why is this asshole on our doorstep?” Moira demanded, like I was the one at fault.
“You think if I knew that I would’ve come around in my underwear?” I snapped back. She tilted her head to the side, narrowing her eyes as she considered that little detail for a moment before turning her anger back to him.
“What are you doing here, boy?” she asked him, not at all hiding her disdain at his presence. I nearly choked on the laugh that threatened to come out. Moira didn’t know that Rysten was Pestilence. She didn’t know he was a demon at all.
“I’m here to take Ruby to work,” he said, not hiding his smirk.
“No, you’re not,” Moira answered for me.
“Hey,” I protested. “I can answer for myself.” Moira narrowed her eyes at me. What’s gotten into her lately?
“Do you want him to take you to work?” she asked pointedly.
“Of course she does,” Rysten responded before I could get a word in. I swung my glare in his direction. “Don’t you, love?”
“No, I can’t say that I do,” I said hotly, stuffing my tongue in my cheek. I had mixed feelings where he and the others were concerned. It was my nature to want to play with fire, and four sexy and unbelievably powerful demons were just that. But. They also wanted to cart me off to Hell where I would probably die a terrible death once they realized they’d made a mistake.
“Now, love, I know this isn’t easy on you, but—”
Rysten was still speaking when Moira slammed the door in his face.
“Why is he following you, Ruby?” she asked me, turning her back on the door. Rysten had gone quiet, but not for a second did I think he was actually gone. Not if they really believed what they told me, and given their behavior, I had no reason to think otherwise.
My eyes strayed to Moira and I gave her a non-committal shrug. “You know how men are.”
“I do,” she said narrowing her eyes. “But he’s not human, is he?”
Well, shit. Maybe she did know a thing or two.
“No,” I said grimly. “He’s not.”