by Ivy Asher
I jerk it back out of his reach. His eyes narrow. “That’s kind of you, but I got it, thank you,” I tell him with a smile. I’ve never had a servant or anythin’ before, so this exchange is weird. I’d let him help if he hadn’t already proven that he has no idea what I like to eat and will serve me things my ass will literally regret later.
“I insist,” he counters, steppin’ closer to me, and I can’t help but feel the action is just a little too aggressive.
“No, really. I’m good, but thank you,” I offer, my smile stretchin’ wider, hopin’ he’ll back off, but he just looks even more put out.
“If you’ll just take a seat...” he starts, once again reachin’ for the plate in my hands.
What is this guy’s problem?
I’ve been polite and accommodatin’ as much as I can, but he’s gonna bring on a tribulation if he ain’t careful. There’s hangry, and then there’s demon scythe-wieldin’ hangry. Then again...maybe I won’t have any more episodes now that I’m my angel demon self. Somethin’ to consider. Later, when I’m not starved out of my good mood.
“Listen, buddy, I’m hungry and not in the mood to be pecked at today,” I start, my voice low and menacin’. “So how about you back off and let me dish up somethin’ I can actually eat? I’m sure you mean well, but if you reach for my plate one more time, I might just backhand you with it,” I warn, surprised by the ferocity of my own threat.
Guess I’m more hangry than I thought.
Strut’s eyes flare with anger, but I don’t look away as I try to establish my dominance. The room is silent, and I can feel all eyes watchin’ our exchange. Finally, with one last glare, Strut huffs out a breath and then storms out of the room.
I watch him go, tryin’ to calm the adrenaline that just surged through me at the prospect of a potential fight, and then exhale my own breath of annoyance before turnin’ to the food in the middle of the table.
“Holy shit. You’re my hero,” Delta announces, breakin’ up the weighted silence in the room. Someone snickers.
I give her a sheepish smile, glad that she’s not mad that I just threatened her butler man.
“Is he always so...insistent?” I ask, pluckin’ a new gravy-free cinnamon roll for my plate.
“Yeah, he’s always a prick,” Delta offers with a lift of her brows. “I can’t tell you what it did for my heart to watch you threaten to smack him with a plate, though,” she tells me with a dreamy sigh.
I can’t help but smile at the look on her face. “Will he be alright?”
“Oh, definitely. You should watch your back and never trust anything he ever hands you again, but he’ll be fine,” Delta tells me matter-of-factly. I pause as I dish up food on my plate and turn to her and her demons to see if she’s serious. They all sorta just shrug, like what Delta is sayin’ is an inevitable fact.
Well, shoot.
I make a mental note to host all future get-togethers at our place in Georgia instead, but then I freeze at that thought. Is Flint and Alder’s house now officially mine too? I mean, we are mates, and they don’t seem keen on lettin’ me out of bed too much, but it’s not like they officially asked me to move in, right? Well, they did when the whole Ophidian thing happened, but that’s not the same. That was for protection. Not to move our relationship forward.
When I look over at Flint and Alder, I catch them both lookin’ at my ass. A wide smile stretches over my face, and I shrug my questions off. I think we’ll be just fine.
I turn to Delta. “So, what’s with these weird pants? You a Hell’s Angel or somethin’?”
“Technically, yes,” Tazreel answers before takin’ a prim sip from a tea cup.
I chuckle. “I meant the biker gang,” I correct, but he just raises one eyebrow at me.
I’m not really sure what to make of him. Judgin’ by what I heard him sayin’ to Nefta, he didn’t know he had children—or progeny as he likes to call us. I feel bad for him in that sense, but he doesn’t seem paternal in the slightest, and I can’t help but wonder if his seemingly self-absorbed nature is the reason Nefta kept me and my sisters hidden.
They explained to me how Delta met her demons and discovered what Ring we’re from and who our birth parents are, but I can’t help but feel like I’m missin’ somethin’. Like they left a sliver of the backstory out. I’m not sure if my instincts are right on that, but somethin’ about this whole we were hidden thing is scratchin’ at me. Is it really as simple as Nefta didn’t want to raise us or give us to Taz either? Somethin’ tells me no. I think there’s more to it.
“Apparently, those pants are the official uniform for all female Hellgate Guardians,” Delta announces. “Although, they’d never had females before us, so why they’d even have a uniform ready just in case seems suspect,” she declares, sendin’ her demons a look that says she’s not buyin’ their story. “Anyway, I felt like you should also get to wear the official uniform and reap all the benefits of it.”
I chuckle at the cheeky look Delta gives me as she says that, and I make my way back to my chair with a now edible plate of delicious smellin’ food.
“They’re very...noisy,” I tell Delta, movin my hips just right so the pants give a shrill squeak of protest.
Delta and all her demons laugh. “Just be glad you didn’t have to try the shirt on that came with it. I spared you that much,” she tells me, and I become instantly curious.
She answers my unspoken question. “I was almost squeezed to death, and then when I tried to get out of it, the top fought me. It was a close one.”
For some reason, I can just picture Delta rollin’ on the ground, wrestlin’ with a leather shirt. The image makes my lips curl up.
Between Flint and Alder, I dig into my food while the others finish up. It’s not until I’ve polished off my plate and fed the beast that I sit back and look around at everyone. “So, elephant in the room...those demons attacked us yesterday and nearly got us. Possibly under Morax’s orders.”
My eyes are on Delta, but I see everyone look over at me from my peripheral. “Yeah,” she says with a stiff nod. “And his fucking minions damaged my house,” she grits out, her gray eyes glitterin’ with anger.
I see her mate Echo send over a shadow to curl around her shoulders in comfort. “We’ll fix your house,” he promises her, and she shoots him a grateful look.
“Did y’all come up with a plan?” I ask, movin’ my gaze to our birth parents. It’s strange to think of them like that. I mean...aside from seein’ similarities in their faces, they’re strangers. And not just strangers...but strange too.
With Delta, it’s different. She feels familiar. Maybe it’s the sister sharin’ a womb thing, or that we were both raised human, but it’s very clear that Taz and Nefta are not like us. Everythin’ about them screams different, like they don’t look at the world the way I do. Plus, they have some serious demon and angel vibes goin’ on.
“I asked the same thing just before you came down,” Delta tells me before flashin’ our birth parents an annoyed look. “These two couldn’t give me a straight answer without bickering. So I’m still waiting on that.”
“I do not bicker,” Nefta puts in, tossin’ her long purple braid behind her wings. She’s dressed in full armored gear, lookin’ just as fierce as before, swords and all. “I am the Colonel of the Angelic Legion. Bickering is beneath me, and I do not lower myself to such base things.”
Taz cocks an arrogant brow. “Strange, since I remember you lowering yourself beneath me when I was fuc—”
“No!” Delta cuts in, snappin’ her fingers together like she’s tryin’ to get the attention of an errant puppy about to have an accident on the carpet. “Don’t start.”
Tazreel gives her a churlish look.
I see what Delta means about the bickerin’. I don’t know how in the world these two managed to stand each other long enough to procreate, but it’s clear they have some serious issues with one another.
Nefta tips her chin up. “Anyway, I�
��ve already handled the issue.”
Taz narrows his eyes on her, while Delta and her mates share a look.
“What do you mean you’ve handled it?” Tazreel demands. “You can’t have handled it, because I’m fucking handling it!”
Nefta gets to her feet, shovin’ her chair back so she can prop her fists on the table, leanin’ in toward him. “No, you’re not. This is Legion business.”
“The hell it is!” he snaps, already on his feet and leanin’ in toward her too. “Your Legion keeps fucking losing him!”
“Good Lord,” I grumble to myself.
“Yep,” Delta says to me from across the table. “This is what I’ve been dealing with. Our birth parents are assholes.”
“Hey!” They both say, turnin’ their fierce gazes on her.
Delta doesn’t even seem troubled at gainin’ their ire. “What? It’s true.”
“This is a task for the angels,” Nefta argues, her gaze once more swingin’ to Tazreel. “You have an errant demon who attempted to create his own realm and fill it with mindless followers to do his bidding.”
“Exactly. He’s a demon,” Taz stresses, “which means we will handle him ourselves.”
Nefta scoffs. “Oh, please. Your Pride army is small. You’re too damn picky and arrogant to build it up properly. Only the ‘best of the best’ for Tazreel, right? But sometimes, numbers are numbers regardless of the level of experience.”
Taz stiffens, the muscles of his shoulders tense. “My army is the best out of all the Seven Sins. As you put it yourself, they’re the best of the best. One of my soldiers is worth ten—no, twenty—of your Legion pip-squeaks.”
Her purple eyes flash. “The Legion is the best army in all the realms,” Nefta fires back.
“Oh, I don’t fucking—”
“Pardon me.”
At the abrupt interruption, everyone’s heads snap over to Strut where he’s standin’ in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back. Pleased at havin’ gained the room’s attention and forced Nefta and Taz to shut it, he turns to look at Rafferty. “You have armored visitors on the lawn, sir.”
The blue horned demon blinks at him with confusion. “Armored visitors?”
Strut inclines his pasty head. “On the lawn,” he repeats. “And they seem to be on the verge of a fight.”
Nefta and Taz glare at each other. Delta groans. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, did you guys invite your damn armies to our house?”
They don’t reply, which I guess is answer enough, because Delta and all of her mates jump from their seats and start hurryin’ out of the room, followed closely by Nefta and Taz, who start bickerin’ again. They even both try to shove through the doorway at the same time, not wantin’ the other one to go through first. They end up crackin’ the doorframe as their wedged shoulders and wings shove through the damn thing.
I blink at the space, hearin’ the stampede of their steps as they rush outside. I shake my head. “Those two have their noses so high in the air they could drown in a rainstorm.”
Flint and Alder chuckle and get to their feet, and I stand up too, reachin’ forward to pluck a peach slice from the fruit platter. I bite into it, givin’ Flint a wink as I slurp up the juices.
“Alright, we better go on out there,” I say as I snag both Flint’s and Alder’s arms. “And then after, I need to call my parents. My mama is gonna lose her mind when she hears we had demon and angel armies in the front yard.”
“She’d probably insist on cooking for them all,” Flint teases as the three of us walk out.
“You’re not wrong, Countertop,” I tell him solemnly. “You’re not wrong at all.”
29
Alder, Flint and I walk out of the mansion, headin’ to the front door where the others filed out. I’m expectin’ some kind of brawl to be goin’ down on the manicured lawn of the Perdition Estate, but when we make it out the front door, I stop on the steps, my mouth hangin’ open at the sight.
Just like Strut said, there are indeed armored visitors all over the damn lawn on the other side of the gravel driveway. I make a low whistle under my breath as I take in the sight of the glares and sneers bein’ lobbed back and forth between the dozen or so soldiers that Tazreel apparently summoned, and the same number of Legion that Nefta called.
I can immediately tell which side is which, because the armies match either the armor that Nefta or Taz is wearin’. Gleamin’ silver armor for the Legion, and black armor for the demons, their swords like obsidian stone.
“Pretty impressive,” I mutter under my breath.
Nefta’s Legion soldiers remind me of the angels I saw in the club the first time I had a run-in with Morax. They’re all beautiful, polished, and winged, and there’s a distinct glow that just sort of sits under their skin.
Tazreel’s army is just as good lookin’, armored and pristine, but instead of a glow, they almost seem to suck the light from around them. They’re somewhat shrouded in a dark veil, and I wonder if I look the same way? Delta said we were half demon, half angel, so does our glowy half cancel out the light suckin’ half?
I look over at her and where she stands in the middle of her mates. She looks pretty normal to me, minus the bright purple wings and hair.
“You don’t even know who you’re looking for,” Nefta argues against somethin’ Tazreel said.
“And whose fault is that?” he counters. “If I had known about any of my progeny when I should have been informed, we wouldn’t even be in this mess,” Tazreel accuses.
“You’re right,” Nefta agrees. “If you had been in charge of them, Morax would have taken all three by now, and he’d probably be the God of this world because of it,” she snarks, and I frown, still tryin’ to understand why the hell he wants us so badly.
Tazreel takes a menacin’ step toward Nefta, and all the Legion soldiers tense, which then makes the Hell soldiers tense too. I can feel that we’re on the cusp of chaos, but I have no idea what to do about it. I rush down the steps to catch up anyway, my demons quick to follow after me.
“You know,” I call as I hurry over. “Right or wrong, I want you to know that you both make a very crappy first impression,” I tell them.
Nefta and Tazreel both turn to look to me, which I have to admit is a little intimidatin’. But dammit, Delta shouldn’t be the only one responsible for tryin’ to rein in their ridiculous behavior.
“I have yet to learn why you separated me from my sisters and left me to be raised as a human in the first place. And yeah, maybe you checked in on me from time to time, but it couldn’t have been that often since you lost one of us when we were three,” I point out to Nefta.
Tazreel shoots her a smug look, but I turn to him next. “I get that you didn’t know about us and you feel all kinds of offended by that. But for someone who seems to be really upset that we were kept from you, you’ve actually made no effort to talk to me at all. You don’t know a thing about me other than I’m related to you. So maybe it’s time for both of you to climb down from your high horses and focus on what really matters,” I lecture, takin’ them both in, and suddenly feelin’ an awful lot like how my mama must feel when she lectures me.
Nefta and Tazreel both stare at me. They don’t voice their frustrated skepticism, but I can see in their eyes that they’re not quite with me in what really matters.
Delta makes her way over to me and nods in agreement. “Yep. All that really matters right now is figuring out where Sable is and finding Morax so he can be stopped once and for all,” she announces.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a case of where you find one, you find the other,” Jerif declares.
Delta and I share a worried look.
“You think this Morax guy already took our sister?” I ask worriedly.
Delta’s blue demon tilts his head in thought as he shares a look with Jerif. “If Morax somehow found out about Medley, would discovering Sable really be out of the realm of possibility?”
Delta curses under her br
eath, and dread fills my stomach. Just the thought of that hurts me. It’s one thing for Morax to try to come after me, I already knew I was a demon at that point—just barely, but still. What if he tricked Sable, and now he has her, without her even knowin’ who or what she really is?
“Maybe finding Sable and Morax isn’t a job for just Heaven or Hell, but something that would best be suited by both sides using their expertise to track them down,” Alder says beside me.
I nod. “My mama always said two heads are better than one,” I announce, probably a little too optimistically, but I ate two cinnamon rolls, so I’m gonna blame the sugar rush for what just slipped out of my mouth like I’m a captain of the cheer squad.
Torrance and the Toros can eat their heart out.
Flint snickers a little to my right, and I can’t really blame him. I’ve been a ward-less demon-angel hybrid for less than twenty-four hours, and I have no idea what I’m doin’.
Instead of respondin’, Tazreel just turns to his soldiers and straightens his back like he just slipped into a General suit and he’s zippin’ it up to check its fit.
“I want to hear all strategies for tracking down my progeny and catching the Ophidian,” he barks out sternly. “Once that’s done, we’ll hear other options from the Legion and whichever side has the best plan of action will lead the search,” Tazreel declares.
Delta’s eyes widen in surprise, like she didn’t expect our little speeches to actually work. I’ve known Tazreel and Nefta for way less time, and I’ll be honest, I’m a little taken aback myself.
Maybe I’m not as bad at this hybrid thing as I thought.
We all listen to the ideas that get traded around, not so much in a let’s take turns and work together kind of fashion, but definitely in a competitive, I’m gonna one-up you sorta way.
“What we need is bait,” a handsome demon with dark gray wings calls out, and surprise ripples through me when both Tazreel’s army and the Legion shout out their agreement.
“Bait? What kind of bait?” I ask, perplexed.
Over two dozen demon and angel eyes swing over to me and Delta, and realization drips over me like a raw egg bein’ cracked over my head and slippin’ down my back. It’s not a nice feelin’.
