Not to mention all her soft, curly brown hair he always wanted to bury his face in …
No doubt about it. He would always be a fool where his Kody was concerned.
And he was willing to die to keep her safe. Whatever it took. Running into burning buildings. Dodging traffic and irate Madre phone calls. Even facing ticked off demons, and the Apocalypse, with nothing more than his meager wits as weapons.
“I’ve got to do this,cher. It’s a moral imperative.”
“It’s a grand stupidity!”
He touched her chin and grinned roguishly. “Nah! It’s a matter of honor.”
Rolling her eyes, she let out a long-suffering sigh that probably had to do with the fact that she’d been hanging with him all afternoon without a break— he couldn’t blame her there as a lot of people made that exasperated sound around him whenever they spent this much time in his presence. Especially his maternal unit and his ancient Greek boss, Kyrian Hunter.
And no one more so than the Dark-Hunter Acheron, and Nick’s demon bodyguard, Caleb. They both swore he could test the patience of Job and Ghandi.
Kody growled at him. “Fine. Go on and do it, you stubborn Cajun beast. Not like anyone can ever talk you out of anything so stupid once you’ve set your mind to it, anyway. But when you get a bellyache, I don’t want to hear it. So don’t come crying to me for Pepto Bismol later. I don’t care how cute and sexy you are. I will not allow you to wear me down foranysympathy this time. Not over something you know better than to do. You can just suffer in silence. Alone.” She stepped aside, clearing the way for him. “If you really think you can out-eat a Charonte demon … go for it.”
Nick tsked as he stepped around her to slide into the empty folding chair, and inclined his head to Simi who was already waiting with a dozen plates of beignets for each of them. “Oh, I’m ready. You ready, Ms. Simi?”
Decked out in her black leather corset and purple ruffled skirt, the Goth demon grinned. “I’s born ready, half-demon boy! The Simi done gots her barbecue sauce dugged out and is rearing to go. Less do this!”
Nick adjusted a plate and a glass of milk. “A’ight! And dang be he who first cries halt! Enough! I plan to eat till I snap the button off my jeans and make it a deadly weapon!” He popped his knuckles in preparation.
Off to the side of their table, Kody continued to growl at both of them. It was quite the impressive noise.
“What’s going on?” Caleb asked as he came up to stand behind Kody on the sidewalk that looked out toward Jackson Square from the Café Du Monde where Nick sat with Simi, who’d already jumped the gun and started chowing down.
Kody gestured at them. “They’re actually having an eat-off. Can you believe this?”
Caleb laughed. “He’s an idiot if he thinks for one yoctosecond he can compete against a Charonte.”
“Don’t I know?”
“And yet you’re dating him? Good job, woman. Way to raise those expectations. Yesterday, or in your case, years in the future, you were a demigod warrior, saving mankind from the demonic hoard out to annihilate them. From that to baby Malachai sitter. You didn’t just fall off your high-and-mighty pedestal, Highness, you hit the ground and splintered to pieces, like Humpty Dumpty.”
“Yeah … thanks.”
Caleb held his hands up. “Hey, I don’t judge. I fell just as far. Besides, I found a woman willing to actually marry my cantankerous demonic hide. After that, I will question no one’s intelligence for the man in their life. Ever. My Lil really got the short end of it all.”
Nick swallowed his beignet whole before he glared at his demon bodyguard, who was alsosupposedto be his best friend. At least that was what Caleb claimed and how the theory went. Though on days like this, he definitely wondered.
At well over six feet, Caleb Malphas had hair as dark as Simi’s and skin the same color of caramel as Kody’s.
Yet the one thing that irritated Nick about his running-mate—aside from Caleb’s rather caustic and biting barbs he never kept to himself and that were usually directed at Nick—were those Hollywood good looks that always left Nick feeling extremely inadequate. ’Course that was just a front. While Caleb might appear tall, dark, handsome and composed, his natural state of being was as an orange-fleshed, fanged demon.
Yeah, he was a total freak when he didn’t have his human disguise up.
“Don’t you have something better to do like raze a village? Haunt a house? Torment the damned? And I don’t meanme. ThisisNew Orleans, you know? There’s a lot more condemned folks here than just my little Cajun hide. Look around. I’m sure you can find a lot more worthy target for your venom. Surely?”
“Yeah, but it’s so much more fun to scare a little boy who’s afraid of clowns.” Caleb flashed an evil grin at him.
Nick shifted indignantly as he knew exactly what Caleb was referring to and he didn’t appreciate it in the least. “Hey now, that thing ain’t no clown I’m afraid of … it’s a Mardi Gras jester. Get your terms straight, old man. Your senility’s showing again. Besides, it’s evil and talks under the light of your magic. And you know it. So don’t you be hassling me over a well-founded fear about Mr. Creepy and his little head on a stick. That thing’s nasty and whoever put it in the middle of a tourist district where they got little kids walking by it all the time ought to be tied naked to a Mardi Gras float on a cold rainy day and left there to be mocked. Just saying. It’s all kinds of wrong.”
And it wasn’t like Nick was the only person alive with coulrophobia. That fear was quite common and normal. Maybe not for a Malachai demon who could tear a clown apart, but still …
Nick hadn’t known he was the Malachai until many years after he’d developed his coulro-jester-phobia … on a stick. By then, his fear had become second nature.
Caleb made a rude dismissive noise before he passed a snide stare to Kody. “You know he’s still having nightmares about that night?”
