“Why are you here? Have you lost the ability to count days now, Demon?” I say with practiced arrogance.
Diablos snorts thick plumes of smoke, his hands fisted and trembling. “Assemble your team.”
“Ooh, nice reference.”
Diablos grins at Lirin. “Can’t pass these opportunities up.”
I glance between them and then turn away. The round monster is on the island. I walk closer to it and prod it.
It wheezes and coughs a high whine before it dies again.
“You killed it. This was to keep the house clean. It eats dirt.”
“Does it?” I look at it curiously. “It can’t eat sand.”
Diablos growls. “I found a job for you. So, get ready, your holiday is over.”
Leaf walks in, sees Diablos, and walks straight up to him, lifting the bigger demon off his feet and hugging him until his bones creak.
“Good morn, fellow monster.”
I stare at him like he’s grown another head, in a way, it feels like he has. Since when did Leaf jump teams and join up with the infernal demon?
His presence is another itch begging to be scratched. Everything about him is a challenge to my dominance. I want to hold him down and bite him. Wait, what? I shake my head, dislodging those weird thoughts, and tear my eyes away from his rippling back muscles.
I just catch the look the dragon gives me. Sly, shifty. He’s up to something. I don’t even know if I want to bite. Dealing with him has been…exhausting, too.
Everything is a fight, everything is a battle. You want him to move an inch in any direction, he’s going to go the opposite way and smile as he watches you lose your freaking mind. Over the decades, we all got inklings of his intelligence. We were clearly dealing with a creature like us, but who knew he was learning from us while we were fighting him.
And his obsession with the Strega is all kinds of disturbing.
In a way, his obsession with her runs parallel to the way he’s treated us. Hunting us, interrupting everything we do, just being this giant pain in the ass. Like a bouncing puppy that I want so badly to plaster to the floor and teach a very hard lesson to. I bite off the growl that tries to escape, refusing to give him the satisfaction.
He sets the demon down and moves close to me, deliberately rubbing his chest against my shoulder. I lift an eyebrow but refuse to acknowledge him.
“Just being friendly, Siren, no need to get jealous.”
Jealous? My eyes widen in indignation. I turn to him, seeing the smirk on his face that I want to punch off.
He leans in, and I despise how tall he is. He always has to use the size of his damn body and rub it in my face. I snarl in reaction to him, and his pupils blow out, eating all the colour and making them appear depthless. I whirl and grab his throat, walking him backward until his back hits the wall.
He doesn’t stop grinning at me, not even when I kick his legs out, and he’s on his knees in front of me.
“Behave,” I growl.
Leaf bites his lower lip, his eyes sparkling as he stares up at me.
And for the first time, I get this image. This wildly inappropriate image of me feeding my cock into that smirking face, watching him choke on my girth, coming on his face, and destroying all that prettiness.
Almost as if he knows what I’m thinking, Leaf stands up, following me with a hungry expression as I step back.
Now, I’m running.
And I care, I really care.
Where the fuck did that come from? I don’t have time to think about it, Leaf is right there in my face. My temper explodes.
“Back off, or I’ll make you.”
