Behind him, the taller demon finally sighed and rubbed one hand over his face tiredly. “You are both making this dramatically worse than necessary.”
Nina pointed at him. “Actually, no. You do not get opinions anymore. You arrived through a broken door.”
The taller demon ignored her completely before looking back toward me. “My name is Anderson.”
I blinked once. “Oh. You have names.”
“We are not raccoons.”
“I really didn’t like the implications of that answer.”
Anderson regarded me with profound disappointment before turning back to my demon. “They will continue searching.”
“I am aware.”
“And eventually they will stop asking politely.”
At that, my demon’s expression darkened slightly while Anderson’s attention shifted toward me instead. There was nothing openly threatening in his face now, which only made it more unsettling, and then a soft voice spoke directly inside my head.
If he leaves… there is a way to find him.
I froze instantly. The voice continued calmly before I could panic.
The same ritual you performed while drunk.. Remember that.
Then Anderson turned away like nothing had happened, and the fact that nobody else in the apartment reacted at all terrified me far more than the voice itself had. Cold air still drifted through the cracked apartment doorway while Anderson adjusted the sleeve of his coat like the entire situation had become deeply exhausting for him personally.
Then finally he faced others near the entrance. “We’re leaving.”
The guy holding the wine bottles sounded relieved. “Thank Hell.” The woman with the gold rings nodded once before stepping away from the doorway. Even the praying guy seemed quite finished with the evening.
Before leaving, Anderson paused beside me briefly. His attention shifted toward my demon first, who was still watching him carefully from across the apartment. Then his gaze settled on me. “Do not summon anything else,” he said calmly.
“I feel like that’s fair.”
“And if he disappears,” Anderson continued quietly, “do not wait too long before looking for him.”
My stomach tightened instantly. Before I could ask what that meant, Anderson stepped back toward the hallway again.
Then all four of them were gone. And just like that, the apartment fell strangely quiet without them there. Only the broken door, flickering candles, and cold air remained behind like proof none of this had been a stress hallucination.
For the first time since the summoning, it was finally just me, Nina, and my demon.
Nina surveyed the destroyed apartment before grabbing the cereal box again. “I'm charging somebody rent after this.”
Chapter 12
Eva POV
For the next three days, my demon stayed, and somewhere during that time the situation stopped feeling temporary, which turned out to be a much bigger problem than the summoning itself.
Because somewhere between the broken apartment door getting replaced and Nina refusing to sleep over anymore “for spiritual reasons,” my terrifying demonic prince became part of my actual daily life.
It started with small things.
He fixed my kitchen sink without mentioning it after hearing me threaten it verbally for twenty minutes.
Then he reorganized the disaster shelf above my refrigerator because, according to him, “your storage methods create mental strain.”
