“…You are terrifying in deeply confusing ways,” I informed my demon quietly.
For the first time since the confrontation started, he almost smiled again.
Chapter 10
Eva POV
For the first time since the confrontation started, my demon was faintly amused again, and judging from the reactions around the apartment, that was apparently a very bad sign.
I was still standing there wrapped in the blanket he’d placed around my shoulders while the taller demon near the broken apartment door stared at both of us like he was witnessing something medically concerning.
Finally, I pointed at my demon carefully. “You’re a prince of Hell.”
“Technically.”
“There should not BE a technically.”
Nina was still sitting on the kitchen floor beside the fallen frying pan with the exhausted expression of somebody whose entire understanding of reality had been personally insulted. “I need holy water and a therapist.”
The taller demon dismissed the rest of us, his attention settling on my demon once more. “I don't care how comfortable you are here. You need to return.”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
The taller demon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Hell is looking for you.”
My demon remained completely unfazed. “Hell can keep looking.”
The apartment went silent again.
I stared at him carefully while cold air still drifted through the cracked doorway behind the other demon. “...Why are you refusing to go back?”
For the first time since I’d summoned him, my demon hesitated, and the pause was small enough that I might have missed it if the taller demon hadn’t answered first.
“Because if he returns now, they’ll choose him.”
Nina blinked once from the floor. “Choose him for WHAT.”
An answer didn’t come right away, and that made the situation feel even worse. I tightened the blanket slightly around myself before looking between all of them.
“Okay. I officially hate this conversation.”
The taller demon stepped farther into the apartment now, his expression growing more serious. “If he becomes king, he cannot remain here.”
The tension in the room turned heavy enough to make my stomach drop before I could stop it, and judging from the way my demon’s attention snapped toward me, he noticed the reaction too.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
I frowned. “Don’t what?”
His expression softened slightly in a way I'd only ever seen when his eyes found mine. “Look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated again, and that frightened me more than the threats had before he finally said, much quieter this time, “Like leaving would hurt you,” and something in my chest tightened painfully at the way he said it.
Nina gaze bounced between the two of us with the exhausted expression of somebody realizing that the current situation had become worse than the supernatural one.
