I was herded to the couch and sat. I pulled him down toward me, but he didn’t shift from his standing sentry position.
“Introductions, perhaps?” Bathin said.
“Jame Wolfe, this is Bathin, the demon who possessed my father’s soul in trade to keep demons out of Ordinary, which he was only relatively successful at doing.”
Bathin’s mouth quirked. “So much attitude.”
“Just telling the truth.”
“Hush,” Jame said. “Don’t speak. Either of you. We wait.”
Bathin’s eyebrows lifted, but he remained silent, leaning on the mantle as if he had all the time in the world to waste here in Jame’s living room.
“We might want—”
“No.”
Okay, then. Jame wasn’t having any of it. Fine. I was tired, but also weirdly full of energy, like that second wind you get in the middle of pulling an all-nighter. I tapped my fingers on my thighs, and then decided a few calming breaths would be good.
So I breathed calmly, thought calm thoughts, and rolled the kinks out of my shoulders and neck.
Jame was a solid wall of not-having-it, and Bathin seemed smug and satisfied and content to watch the two of us like some weird uncle at the dinner table who’d just been introduced to relations he’d never met before.
The knock on the door was followed by the door opening. It was fully dark out, which meant I might have lost some time, but it wasn’t dawn yet.
That was good. That was positive. I hadn’t lost too much time dealing with the demon.
“Hey, Myra.” I should have guessed that’s who he’d call. “And Rossi. Come on in. We have coffee.”
Myra entered the room, her gun in her hands currently pointed at the demon by the fireplace. “Give her back her soul. Now.”
“Mymy,” I said. “There’s more to it. You need to listen.”
“Now.” One clipped word.
I glanced over at Bathin and was surprised at what I saw. He was still a thousand gigawatts of gorgeous, but his lips had parted slightly, his eyes softened, but also sort of intense.
He looked like someone had just stopped his world and sent it spinning too fast and upside down. Totally gobsmacked.
I glanced back at what he was looking at. The furiously dark and sleek vampire?
Nope.
Just my sister, her pale skin showing off a few of her seasonal freckles now that we’d actually gotten some sun, her dark hair a thick wedge of black over her startlingly light blue eyes, her lips which I knew were fuller than mine and looked good in pale lipsticks, pressed in a unforgiving line as she faced down what she thought was a threat to someone she loved.
A threat to me.
“No, Myra don’t. Don’t shoot him, don’t make any deals with him.”
“You be quiet, Delaney,” she said with more anger than I’d expect from her. “You don’t get a say in how this goes down now. Not anymore.”
Rossi hadn’t moved yet, but I knew him. I knew how fast a fanger could close the distance between him and the demon.
This was about to become a bloodbath.
“He can find Ben!” I blurted. “He’s going to get Ben. He’s going to bring him back before midnight, right to you, Jame. Whole and alive and sane and with no other bindings on him. He promised. That’s what I did. That’s what I sold….” I swallowed, couldn’t say it as shame filled me so hard and fast I lost my breath for a second before that shame was washed away on a numbing, cool breeze.
“That’s what I made the deal for.” I looked at Myra wondering if she understood. Wondering if the words that came out of my mouth made sense or if she was looking at me like that because I was suddenly talking in some language she’d never heard before.
