“Not really. When’s the last time your mom came for a visit, Zav?” Ryke asks with a totally serious expression that deepens Zaviar’s scowl more than I’ve ever seen before.
I guess even angels—demons?—demonic angels have a wicked streak.
My fingers brush over my swollen lips, and for a few minutes, I listen to the three men pass shitty retorts back and forth until I’m too tired to stand it any longer.
Without a word, I slip out, sneaking upstairs, and finding comfort in that netted nest that I hated so much the first day I came here.
It’s strange how things change sometimes.
17
Danger
Ryke
Long black feathers tipped in silver cover her smooth skin like a blanket, wrapping her up in deep slumber. Her lips are still red and plump from our kiss, and I’ve never found comfort in hurting someone with a single kiss until today.
The three of us stand on the wooden platform and stare down on our little crow in her nest.
I like her here. I like her fucking chaotic life, and all the mess she brings with her.
Zaviar doesn’t exactly feel the same way, but I can tell he doesn’t hate her like he once did. And that’s an improvement for someone like him.
Damien, Damien would have adopted her like a pet the moment he laid eyes on her.
He’s a fool like that.
“I heard her brother tonight. He’s going to get the thing that’s inside Aries and send it back to the Voren Empire to stop demons from being welcome in the fae realm,” Zaviar says quietly.
The wind ripples through the night and breezes through his pink feathers, but he hasn’t bitched about them the way he did earlier today.
He’s worried about her.
I bet he’s worried about his brother, too. What will happen to fallen angels if demons are sent away from this place to live with their own kind?
The two of them have their own secrets I can tell. I don’t know what they’re hiding between the two of them, but they are hiding something.
It’s just none of my damn business.
“What do you think he’ll do to her?” Damien asks, focusing on her instead of himself. His wings are fully formed, large with impressive flawlessness to the leather-like flesh extending from his shoulders. He’ll be sore for days but it doesn’t seem like his pain is even a thought in his mind.
My arms fold hard over my chest as too many possibilities slam through my mind. None of them good.
“Isn’t it obvious?” a voice says with a tone like a child’s lullaby.
The three of us turn at once, our boots stomping hard to ward off whoever’s invaded our home.
That fucking incubus smiles with a mouthful of glittering white teeth that shine in the moonlight.
“Miss me?” he asks with a wink that makes me want to knock it right off his face.
“You’re not welcome here. Not even by Aries if I remember right.” My words are meant to sting, and even though his manic smile never falters, I know it hurts him.
“You know what her brother is planning?” Damien asks, stepping forward as if he wants to hear what this demon has to say more than anything else.
Krave tilts his head, his inky hair sweeping over the metal piercing his brow.
“I’m the castle pet. Of course I know what her brother is planning. If you three had half a functioning brain between you, you would figure it out as well.” He doesn’t speak maliciously. He says that shitty remark casually as though he’s speaking about the weather.
Everything about him sets my nerves running wild through my body. DANGER. DANGER. DANGER, my instincts scream.
And yet, I stand here patiently watching the performance he puts on with the slow gait of his steps, the sparkling magic he emits from his fingertips, the glittering flecks floating around him like he’s stepped right out of the galaxy above to send us a message.
“Have you fucked her?” he asks instead, his smile carving, but his black eyes narrowing on me.
Krave isn’t dangerous because he’s powerful.
He’s dangerous because he loves someone who may never love him back.
And history itself will tell you that a loveless man will make nothing but a destructive future for himself as well as everyone around him.
“That’s really none of your business,” I say with nothing but chivalry. Never kiss and tell and all that. But . . . I’m more of a chivalrous bastard really. “I’ll just say it doesn’t take an incubus to make Aries cum.” I pass him that same obnoxious wink he gave me, and Zaviar’s chuckle is the last thing I hear.
Black glittering wings lash out from the incubus’s back, and he swoops through the air like a shadow in the night. His boots settle on my chest, and instead of kicking me backward, his long, glittering fingers wrap around my throat. He perches there, looming over me with a crazed glint in his big black eyes. The inky depths of them seem to bleed across his skin, leaving lines like spiderwebs cracking across his pale features.
My mind demands that I fight him off. My fingers fist at my sides. But all I feel is euphoric pleasure where his fingers claw into my throat.
His mouth parts. Mine does the same. He leans in. I do, too.
And then hypnotic silvery light drinks in the space between us. Black glitter dances between our lips. It pulls from deep inside me like my heart’s breaking off a piece to gift to the man strangling me. He swallows the peculiar gleaming hue between our mouths with a groan.
He feels . . . really fucking good.
A chaos of shouts clatter around us. My body shoves this way and that from hands that grip and pull at the incubus above me, but I can’t make sense of it.
Nor do I want to.
My palms come up and caress the sharp angles of his face, his smile carving even harder into his attractive features.
He is attractive.
Aries should give him a chance. He’s a fine fellow.
“Krave, no!” Thin fingers wrap over his strained bicep, and he’s torn off of me like a leech ripped from bruised and bloody skin. “You know better!” Aries scolds him like a puppy who just chewed up her favorite panties.
Krave doesn’t seem to have the good sense of a puppy to appear ashamed. He’s on his back, and she’s straddled over him, and he looks like he’s on a high he’ll never come down from right now.
I note that he keeps his hands at his sides, though. He doesn’t so much as run a shimmering finger over her smooth thighs.
He’s a patient fucker, that’s for sure.
“What, are you jealous?” he asks, amusement lighting up his features like fucking explosive fireworks.
“Why—no. I’m not jealous!” She shoves her hands through long silver hair but stops abruptly when she hits her new black horns.
I can’t take my eyes off the two of them; his piranha-like smile, her low-pulled frown.
I almost want to ask her how it feels to meet someone who frustrates the hell out of her just like she frustrates the hell out of us.
But I don’t, of course.
“Why are you even here?” she finally asks with a tired breath.
The wind blows an ominous howl as Krave opens his mouth.
A thundering boom cracks through whatever he was about to say. Metal clattering along floorboards and boots storming hard shake through the house from several floors below. The thumping of flipped furniture shakes the high nest we stand on, and within seconds, I can tell the intruders are climbing higher and higher into our home.