“Does time move quickly for you on Earth?”
Kas nods and sips her coffee. “It moves quickest here, but not super fast, why?”
“Sometimes it truly feels like a blur, like I’m confused.” She furrows her brows and looks at me suspiciously.
“Like how fast?”
I shrug, not knowing how to explain it. “Sometimes it feels like a month has gone by in a day.”
“That’s not normal.” She puts her hand on my face and shakes her head. “Maybe you’re missing Hell? I’m pretty sure most demons spend their first few decades in Hell before taking an outer realm assignment.” I sigh, the coin burning into my thigh, but my mouth doesn’t move. We can’t speak about it.
“Do you miss Hell?” I ask her, and she makes a noise in the back of her throat.
“Sometimes,” she says softly. “Do you?”
“Sometimes,” I parrot.
“You both are so fucking stubborn,” she says, shaking her head.
“Says the woman who locked her boyfriend in a different realm for a decade.”
She sighs, sipping her coffee. “Lucifer and I have more in common than you can imagine.”
“What does that mean?”
She gives me a soft smile and shrugs. “We have dumb as fuck ways to protect the people we care about.”
“You could talk about him, you know.”
“Asmodeus,” she sighs. “You’ve met him.”
“Yes, and?” I may live with Kas, and she might know all of me, but getting to the core of who she is, is a whole other story.
“It’s just for the best.”
“Kas,” I say her name in a warning tone, but she just shakes her head.
“Let’s go do something fun. I heard there’s an extra handsy frat boy at the local campus. I know they’re your favorite.” Catching the drift that this conversation is over, I nod my head before we finish our coffee, letting the distraction of killing boys shield us from the bullshit we refuse to work through.
While killing frat boys is always a blast, it just didn’t hit the spot. I lie on the couch while Kas is out doing—whatever it is that Kas does late at night. I feel like I confide in her more than she does me, but that’s fine. I, at least, don’t think any of her secrets involve me.
My cat hops up onto my chest, and I stroke his dark fur as his purr rumbles against my chest. “You don’t keep any secrets, do you, baby?” He makes a littlemeerosound, and I scratch under his chin as he makes biscuits on my chest. There really is nothing as soothing as a cat.
I’m not tired, but somehow I find myself falling asleep and dreaming… of Lucifer… again.
“Hello, love,” he says, smiling. We’re at the black lake again, and I don’t know why my dreams keep taking place here. Maybe because it’s one of my favorite places in Hell.
“I like the dreams where you’re naked better.”
He smirks and shakes his head. “When are you going to realize—”
I cut him off, asking, “Realize what? That I keep dreaming of a man who probably doesn’t think about me anymore?”
He shakes his head, lying down next to me and looking at the clouds. “I think of you every day. You consume me.”
I groan, plopping down and looking at the clouds too. “I wish I didn’t like dream you so much.”
“When are you going to realize that this isn’t a dream?”
