Rob burst out laughing. "You were house shopping? How cute."
"Hey, I can’t help it I take on the natural instincts of the creatures I become, dickhead. The chimera only seemed to care about two things: finding a tree fit for holding a nest and finding a female chimera fit for laying eggs."
Rob laughed even harder, and against all rational sense, my jealousaurus reared her ugly head. I placed both hands on my hips and narrowed my brows. "You were looking for a piece of ass this whole time?"
"Sweets," he groaned, holding his arms out to me. "It’s not like that. It was an instinct, not a deliberate choice."
My eyes narrowed further. "How many sloths did you fuck over these last six years?"
He rolled his amber eyes. "How many sloths did you see hanging out in Blackwood? I’ll give you a hint: I was the only one."
I pursed my lips. He had a point. He probably couldn’t even jack off as a sloth. Not only would his motions be far too slow to be productive, but he wouldn’t even want to think about touching his junk with those long claws. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t have. Sloths probably didn’t masturbate anyway.
Did they?
"Besides," Ash continued, taking a few steps closer to me, "I have a feeling that if my chimera even tried to... I don’t fucking know… mate with another chimera, a lightning bolt would tear from the sky and burn us both to a crisp."
I smiled despite myself and crossed my arms. "Good."
He grinned and shook his head. "You’re feisty right now, aren’t you?"
"She’s feisty all the time," Cal assured him with an exaggerated eye roll.
I turned to the Sky Prince. "Just because you’re bossy and I don’t like to do as you say does not mean that I’m feisty all the time. It means I’m a person with my own thoughts and ideas."
Again, Cal rolled his eyes, a small smile tucked into his lips.
"And you"—I pointed to Ash—"are getting my fiery attitude because you literally just admitted to wanting to fuck another woman."
"An animal!" he corrected me in a shout, and all the guys sniggered.
They knew how ridiculous I was being. Even I knew. I couldn’t hide the smile that crawled up onto my face at his outrage.
Ash glanced from face to face as we all chuckled. "You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?"
"I don’t know," I admitted. "I wasn’t at first, but then I realized how stupid I was being."
He shook his head, unwound my crossed arms, and pulled me into a tight embrace. "I love you, Sweets. You’re the only girl for me—human or animal alike."
My heart warmed at his use of the word love, but I still wasn’t ready to say it back. Of course, I still loved him; I’d never really stopped, even after all these years. I just didn’t want to make any waves for the other Storms. They’d welcomed him back to the group, but the situation was still so new. I couldn’t risk doing anything that might make them change their minds or regret their decision. That ultimately meant that things with Ash had to progress slowly—magical lust orgies aside.
"Good," I said again, kissing his cheek. I pulled away from his embrace and forced my eyes onto the imaginary path ahead of us, moving into a determined stroll. "Let’s find these demons and get that egg so we can get the hell out of here."
Turned out, finding the demons was far easier than I ever expected. We just kept walking forward, deeper and deeper into the misty gloom where the trees grew taller, blocking out most of the sky. And after a few hours, give or take—who could actually tell?—Speedy squawked and dove to the ground.
"Are the demons up ahead?" Cal asked him.
The chimera nodded and screeched again, prancing his feet impatiently as he waited on someone to deal him a fatal blow.
Cal sighed, knowing what needed to be done next but clearly not wanting to do it.
Rob held up both hands. "Sorry, bro, but you heard the man. I’m not allowed to."
Cal turned to Dan. "You’re best at it."
Dan blew an obnoxious raspberry that morphed into a sarcastic chuckle. "I’m best at it? What the fuck kind of a compliment is that?"
"I don’t know," Cal growled. "Just kill the damn thing so we can keep moving."
Some of us already had kept moving, though.
Rob left the cover of the trees and entered the little meadow where the demons had set up camp. There appeared to be five of them, each with shadowy humanoid forms that glowed red from their eyes, mouths, and joints as if there was actual fire inside of them. Three sat around a round table playing a game of cards, one was sprawled out on a log tossing a ball in the air, and the last one was roasting something that looked strangely like a human arm over a fire.
"How’s it going, guys?" Rob asked.
They recognized their prince immediately, and as the demons scrambled to their knees and bowed down before Rob, Dan sliced his blade across Speedy’s throat. Blood gushed out like a crimson waterfall, turning my stomach in an instant.
Gods, I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the gurgling sound of death.
"Prince Robert! Thank hades!" the demons shouted in the background. "We’re saved!"
"I don’t know about saved." Rob chuckled. "But you are lucky we found you. Is... is that a human arm on a stick?"
The demon that was spinning the limb rotisserie-style above the fire paused and looked up. "Um..."
Rob crossed his burly, tatted arms. "How many times have we been over this? You can’t eat humans. It’s socially unacceptable."
"But there was nothing else to eat!" the first card player complained, gathering their finished game into a big pile to be collected.
"Yeah, we would have starved!" the second card player chimed in, not helping the first guy clean up whatsoever.
Rob cocked a brow and pointed skyward. "Birds."
"Oh, gross," the third demon spat. "You try eating a bug instead of a chicken."
Rob sighed. "Humans are not equivalent to chickens."
"They taste like them," the demon by the fire added nonchalantly.
Ash had apparently finished turning back into a human, because he chose that moment to place his hand on my shoulder, startling the hell out of me. I gasped and clutched at my throat, accidentally drawing the curious gazes of all five demons.
"Who’s over there?" one of them asked, craning his neck to see above the bushes.
"Have you brought us dinner?" another questioned excitedly.
"Absolutely not," Rob growled. "That’s Jewels."
"Jewels?" the demons groaned. "Like shiny rocks? That’s all you brought us to eat?"
"No, Jewels is a person—one you can’t eat."
While they moaned and groaned, Dan shot us a cocky grin and emerged from the bushes with a swagger in his step. "Untrue," he said to Rob and the demons. "I have, in fact, eaten Jewels already. Three times, actually."
Oh. My. Gods. I was going to kill him.
As Rob’s features morphed into a deadly glare, I popped from the bushes and interrupted the shitshow before it could happen. Cal, Ben, and Ash followed me.
"Hi!" I said with an overly enthusiastic wave. "I’m Alexis, the one your dickhead prince likes to call Jewels. I’d appreciate it if no one talked about eating me in any way, shape, or form." I leaned in and whispered, "It makes me a bit uncomfortable."
"No, right, of course," the first demon said, pocketing his cards once he’d stuffed them back into their box. "I wouldn’t appreciate being discussed as a dessert right in front of my face either."
"I wouldn’t want to be a dessert at all," another demon added, scratching his charcoal-colored hair. "Could you imagine how burnt and disgusting I’d taste?"
They all muttered their agreement.
Dan stole the ball from the demon lying on the log and initiated a lazy game of catch. "How’d you guys get stuck out here anyway?"
They all glanced at one another. "Well, we heard scrambled chimera eggs were even better than scrambled human brai—"
"Okay!" Rob sho
uted, cutting them off before I gagged. "You mean to tell me, you travelled all the way from southern Blackwood up to the fucking Lunaley on a wild goose chase to find an egg?"
It sounded absurd, yet there we were, doing the exact same thing.
The third demon slapped a hand to his face and dragged it down his shadowy skin. "No, Your Highness, not a goose egg, a chimera egg. Weren’t you listening?"
"Hades give me strength," Rob muttered to the sky above his head. "Were you at least successful?"
"Yeah, we found an egg," the fifth demon said as he continued roasting the arm. "But it was not nearly as delicious as—"
"Right, we know," Rob said. "Where exactly did you find this egg?"
They pointed ominously into the ever-darkening trees. Great.
Rob sighed. "Well, pack up, boys. You’re going to take us to that chimera nest."
A loud round of complaining and arguing broke out, but Rob silenced them quickly. "Do you want to get the hell out of here or not?"
They nodded eagerly and laced their sharpened fingers into a stereotypical begging pose, complete with a lip pout. It was almost cute.
"Then you have to take us to the chimera nest first. We need an egg too, and we’re not leaving until we get one. So, you better get your asses moving."
"But those chimeras are dangerous!" the laziest demon shouted. "There were ten of us at the beginning of this journey."
Rob glanced at us then back to the demon, his arms still crossed. "Half of you died trying to get the egg?"
"Well, not exactly," said the demon who’d pocketed the cards. I was pretty sure he was the leader of their little crew. "Two of them died before we ever even reached the Ley. Got sidetracked, tried to possess a couple bodies.... Let’s just say there were crosses and holy water involved, and it was not pretty."
Rob rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide his grin.
"And then one of them died in the crossfire of the fighting," the demon by the fire added. He removed the arm from the blaze and blew wildly at a finger that had accidentally gone up in flames.
My stomach twisted, threatening to spill what little contents it had in there, and I covered my mouth. "Please tell me you’re not going to eat that."
The demon in question glanced between me and Rob, back and forth, until finally sighing and tossing the whole limb into the blaze as if it were a damn shame to waste it.
"What happened to the other two?" Rob asked.
This time the demon playing ball with Dan spoke up. "They killed each other. Got into a fight over who could burn who the hottest. Both of ’em went up in flames. They were nothing more than piles of ash by the end of it."
"Gross," I accidentally grumbled out loud.
Rob ignored me. "So, no one actually died in the procuring of the egg?"
"No," the leader admitted. "But chimeras are dangerous."
"See!" the lazy one shouted, glad to finally have some support. If anyone would bother calling that support.
"We’re just lucky we caught the chimeras when they were fighting each other," the lead demon informed us. "Too busy to notice us when they were ripping each other’s throats out, eh, boys?"
The other four demons muttered words of agreement.
Rob turned to Ash and grinned, his brows waggling wickedly. "You know what that means, don’t you?"
Ash shook his head, his lips curling up at the corners. "Looks like I’m going to be our diversion."
"That’s right," Rob agreed. "While you’re fighting the chimera, one of us will sneak in and grab an egg."
Cal frowned. "And what happens to Ash once we steal the egg and run? I won’t leave him behind. What if he dies and turns back into a man?"
Rob shrugged. "Then he’ll just have to turn back into a chimera and try again."
Cal’s blue-eyed gaze narrowed. "I thought we agreed to never again put Ash’s life in danger like we did at the canyons?"
Asher chuckled darkly. "I wasn’t in danger at Dryroot, and I won’t be in danger here. Honestly, I don’t even know if the word danger means a damn thing anymore."
Cal looked like he wanted to argue, but Rob didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.
"Demons!" the Spirit Prince shouted. "I told you to get your asses moving."
They snapped into action as if Rob had cracked a whip, disassembling their tents and tables, grabbing pots, pans, clothes, and blankets, and shoving it all into a few oversized rucksacks. All in all, I was quite impressed with their speed. Though, to be fair, I had no idea how fast a demon usually moved.
"Ready, Your Highness," the leader announced with a salute.
Rob gestured to the darkened woods before us. "After you."
And we all disappeared into the trees once more.
Chapter 16
"So, what are your names, anyway?" Dan asked the demons after we’d already been following them through the woods for hours, or so I guessed; it was hard to see the sky beyond the dense canopy above. Even through the leaves and the clouds, the sun didn’t appear to move much, so it was difficult to tell how much time might’ve passed.
The lead demon spoke up first. "I’m Hugh. That over there’s Kel." He pointed to the demon who’d been tossing the ball to himself.
"I’m Bob," the lazy demon chimed in.
"Larry," one of the ex-card players said, lifting his hand into the air.
And then finally the demon who’d been roasting the arm spoke up. "Sue."
"What the fuck?" Dan asked, clearly amused. "You’re all guys, right? Why do two of you have girl names?"
Hugh, the leader, turned around and glared at him. "Did you choose your name upon birth?"
"Well, no," Dan conceded, "but if I’d been named Sue, you can bet your ass I’d be changing it as soon as I could."
Sue merely shrugged. "I like my name. It’s unassuming. I can get really close to people before they realize I’m a demon."
"And by really close," Cal asked, "you mean...?"
Sue waggled his brows and licked his shadowy lips.
My nose curled as my stomach flipped. Dear gods, these things were disgusting when they talked about eating people.
"Besides," Bob argued, pointing at Asher, "you have a guy with a girl’s name in your group, too. Ash. That’s short for Ashley."
Ash glared at him. "Yeah, or Asher."
Suddenly, a loud screech tore through the air, rendering us all silent.
Hugh tucked his shoulders in and glanced wearily overhead. "The nest is close."
Bob, the lazy demon, latched onto Hugh’s arm and shrank down even lower. "That’s the sound she made last time we got too close."
Ben nodded, taking in the few bits of important information they’d divulged. "A warning call," he decided.
Then all at once, everyone turned to Asher.
He took a deep breath and shrugged. "Guess that’s my cue."
I strode over to him and pulled him into a tight hug. "Be careful."
He chuckled, the sound rumbling into my ear that was pressed to his chest. "No worries, Sweets. I’ll be fine. Just like last time."
I kissed his lips and let him go, hating the feeling that every time I kissed him might be my last.
Ash turned to the others. "I’ll circle the nest when I see it, so it’ll be easier for you to find."
Cal put a hand on Ash’s shoulder. "We’ll get the egg as fast as possible. And as soon as we do, you get the hell out of there, okay?"
Ash nodded.
Hugh crossed his shadowy arms and raised a brow. "That’s the big plan?"
Rob cut in. "You have something better? What was your plan when you got your egg?"
"Our plan was simple," Larry said with a half shrug. "Get the egg."
"So why is our plan any less acceptable?" Rob asked, glancing between Larry and Hugh.
Bob rolled his glowing red eyes and sighed. "Let’s just get on with it."
"Right," Ash agreed, quickly morphing into Speedy in a cloud of swirling gold dust. He
pushed off the ground and took to the air in one swift motion, scanning the horizon for the nest.
Ben looked around, biting his lip as his brows furrowed. I could tell he was studying something, so I glanced around too. The forest was teeming with those pink-and-purple-striped trees, the ones with the blue crescent leaves that twinkled musically in the breeze. Only, here, deeper into the forest, they grew taller, as if the magic of the Ley grew stronger in the center. Or, you know, as if the tree simply needed to grow taller in order to reach the sunlight and survive. Whichever.
"Those trees are significant, aren’t they?" I asked him.
Ben nodded. "We just need to figure out why."
Suddenly, a second earsplitting screech echoed through the trees from high above, followed by another, slightly deeper one that I assumed belonged to Ash. Mama chimera must’ve noticed him.
It was time to move.
I tore off into a run, and everyone else did the same—well, everyone but the demons. They dragged their feet and pretended to jog, in no apparent hurry to meet the frightening beasts a second time. It was ironic to me that the humans thought they were the fierce beasts, while the demons were scared of a beast that the humans didn’t fear at all.
I couldn’t see Ash above me, so I had no clue if he was circling a nest or not, but I could certainly hear them screaming at each other, so I just did my best to follow the noise through the woods.
The screams and screeches grew louder, along with the sound of flapping wings and clashing claws. They were clearly getting into a fight above the clouds. I didn’t know how difficult it’d be for Ash to hold off a mother chimera hell-bent on protecting her eggs, but it couldn’t be an easy endeavor. We needed to get there as fast as humanly possible.
Ahead, the nest came into view—a dark blue thing, largely made up of the crescent-shaped leaves of that strange tree. There were also twigs, feathers, and random pieces of grass and vines intertwined, but the nest itself was positioned in the wide bowl of that striped tree. I wondered if all chimera nests were built in those trees or if all nests used those leaves. That would certainly explain their significance.
The eggs were the size of ripe watermelons, with white shells and pale brown spots. There were three tucked safely into the nest, waiting on their mother to return and keep them warm. I had a sudden pang of sadness, and guilt gripped me. If Ash killed their mother, they would die. But I sure as hell didn’t want the alternative. Hopefully they could just battle it out and one could retreat without their dignity but with their life intact.
Stormy Nights (Storms of Blackwood Book 2) Page 14
