“You’re just saying that so they pay you back in sexual favors.”
“Guilty.”
I laughed and glanced at Shem, who shrugged.
“We came by to see how you’re all doing,” Gabe said, leaning his chin on Shem’s shoulder.
“We’re heading back to Hell soon and wanted to see if you needed anything before we left?”
“That’s… suspiciously nice of you to ask.” I narrowed my eyes at Shem, who met my gaze dead-on. He was still smiling at me, but his green eyes were serious.
“I owe you. I will always owe you for what you did for Gabriel,” he said softly. “Call, and I will always come running, Hec. You have an ally for life.”
Considering we were immortal, this was quite the promise to make, and I didn’t take it lightly.
I frowned at him, toying with my straw.
“Thanks, Hazai… I hope you both know that goes both ways. If you ever need my help, I’ll come running, too. That’s what friends are for.”
“I’ll never understand you immortals.” Luna sighed. “They tied you up and fucked you in a basement. And now you all are acting like you’re besties.”
“What? Never heard of fuck buddies?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“They kidnapped you!”
“It was part of a game!”
“But you didn’tknowthat!”
“Not at the time… but the length of the game far outweighed the length of time I didn’tknowabout the game…” I mused, confused as to why my human friend was struggling to understand the concept.
Willow was giggling, shaking her head.
“I think it gets boring if you live forever, Luna. They need to spice things up somehow. What seems insane and unforgivable to us is probably the equivalent of going to a baby shower for demons and gods that live for millennia.”
“I guess…” Luna said skeptically, though she was still giving Shem the stank eye, and he was, in turn, giving her his best, wide-eyed, innocent kitty-cat face.
“But to answer your question,” I said, glancing around at the busy square, smiling at all the happy locals and tourists going about their days, “I think we’re good now.”
After a few weeks of being fed the healing draught I’d made with the coven, the townspeople had recovered.
Some of them had puked up some very questionable shit, but no one who survived the battle had died from any negative long-lasting side effects.
We’d buried those who didn’t make it, doing what we could to help out families who had lost loved ones in the final stand against Raziel.
I was sad to lose most of them. However, I wasn’t so sad that Tammy and Sophie had beenaccidentallymauled by Sköll and Fenrir… Oopsie.
Willow had been having amuchbetter time at her new job now that those two twats weren’t around to bully her all the time.
Small blessings.
Thankfully, Salem was in no shortage of graveyards, and Gabe and Shem were best friends with Lilith, the Goddess of Death and Decay, and her reaper, Ramel.
They assured us that anyone who had passed due to unnatural circumstances would be prioritized and reincarnated into lives that had a high probability of success and a low likelihood of excessive trauma.
“Even Stanton?” I’d asked hopefully. Gabe had grumbled, but Shem had taken his hand, giving his partner an amused smirk.
“Yes, even Stanton,” Shem had assured me, which had helped assuage much of the guilt I felt around not having been able to protect him that day in the tunnels.
