I’d thought the yearning was bad before, but now that he was close again? It was fucking brutal. Like an itch just out of reach. You know the one. In the middle of your back with no hope of relief. Except I could ease it right now if I just went to him.
Instead I was sat here with three of the four horsemen staring at me, waiting for some kind of explanation. But I wasn’t sure where to start, so I stared right back, hoping for one of them to put me out of my misery. It was the worst kind of Canadian standoff. One where none of the parties were being polite so much as waiting for their executioner to pull the trigger.
So not a Canadian standoff at all, really.
“Merri, we need to talk,” Grim said, his voice uncharacteristically strained.
Everything about my stern plant daddy was off. He was tense in a way I’d never witnessed before. Caspian had mentioned pixie dust before all hell broke loose, something I hadn’t runinto in person. I’d always thought it was more of an aphrodisiac, but now I realized it was affecting Grim the same way Molly did humans. He was high as a kite and trying so hard to stay grounded.
Probably not the best time to attempt a Very Serious Conversation.
Then again . . .
“You’re right. But honestly, I don’t know that you are going to like what I have to say.”
“Hellcat, I already despise what you said earlier. There’s not much more you could add to that particular disaster.” Malice’s eyes narrowed as he focused on me.
“Would it help if I said I didn’t mean for it to happen?”
“What?” Grim snarled, hands balling into fists as his shadow self manifested beside him.
“No, no, not like that.”
Thank God Chaos wasn’t here. If he’d have jumped to the same conclusion Grim just had, we’d be in a world of trouble. As if I had summoned him by thought alone, the door cracked open and Chaos slid inside.
“Book club?” he asked with a curious lift of his brow.
“Merri was just telling us how Lucifer became her newest mate,” Sin corrected, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression more guarded than usual.
“Hmph,” was all Chaos said. Just a grunt of... frustration maybe? I couldn’t get a read on him.
“It happened while my succubus was feeding. We hadn’t ever crossed the line and had sex before, but just like that time I went feral with you, the demon side took over as soon as we came out of that group dreamwalk.” I gave a helpless shrug, my hands splayed in a “what can you do” gesture. “And fate just sort of intervened, and in the middle of it all, the mate bond snapped into place.”
“He wasn’t lying. He really didn’t trick you into it, did he?” Chaos asked, surprising me.
I shook my head, equal parts surprised and not to learn he’d talked to Luc. “If anything, I think I might have tricked him.” I grimaced. “I was pretty aggressive.” Realizing these four probably didn’t want all the dirty details of how I’d fucked their sworn enemy, I faltered and blushed. “Sorry.”
“I hate this,” Sin admitted.
“It doesn’t change anything between us.” Crossing the room, I settled myself in his lap and wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight. “I love you just as much as I ever have.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Malice said, his shoulders relaxing as he rooted around in my unguarded mind. “All of it. He didn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want. He is destined to be hers, just as we are.”
He didn’t sound happy about it, and I couldn’t blame him. The five of us had only just sorted our shit out, and now we had to somehow add a sixth person to the mix? Lucifer, at that? Nothing about our new situation was going to be easy.
Grim looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept getting distracted by the velvet throw pillow he was caressing. I would have laughed if I weren’t so worried about his state of mind. Or was it the state of his heart I was worried about?
“So there’s no way to change this?” Sin asked.
“No more than it would be possible for her to cut one of us out of her heart,” Malice muttered. “We’re stuck with him.”
Sin’s soulful eyes found mine as he pulled back from me. “Why?”
My heart broke at the sadness in his voice. “I... It was fate.”
“No, kitten. Why did you keep this from us? Why not tell us as soon as we got you back?”
I opened and closed my mouth, surprised to learn this was the part he was most upset about. But maybe I shouldn’t havebeen. Out of all of them, Sin had always been the first to take my side and roll with the punches. He probably thought I was still punishing him for hurting me before.
