Page 37 of Orion: Galaxy Huntress

Everything was quickly unraveling for me. My pack’s safety. My mate’s life. Both competing priorities demanding I solve them. But which did I attend to first? Loyalty insisted I retaliate and safeguard my shifter family, protect those I’d been raised with. Things changed when Vice threw a mate into my path. A fake mate, nonetheless. I’d only just met Orion but felt a deep-rooted obligation to her. An urgency to save her, claim her, care for her for all time. My stomach shredded at the thought of the vampire hurting her, bleeding her, killing her. What did it even want with her?

Shit. I went to rub at my eyes with the heel of my palms until scorching pain shot down my arm, stopping me. This was no easy choice. One I felt too frozen to make. I couldn’t let my brother submit to our enemy and merge us with them any more than I could leave my mate—fake mate—to her twisted, demon-fucked fate. My head ached analyzing the consequences of either decision.

Vice coughed and spluttered as his lungs gave up. “Fuck, Ace, you’re really pushing me today.”

I hadn’t realized I’d captured his throat. Held on with what little strength my broken limbs contained. Dark magick loosened my fingers and palm, weakening them, pressing my digits back to the point where they were about to snap like my wrists. My hold broke and I released him from my captivity. The demon slid free, rubbing at his swollen, red throat, gasping for breath. When he recovered a little, he punched me in the face twice—a pretty mean left hook for a weaselly demon, I might add—disorienting me. My cheek ached like another bone had broken as he dragged us out back to his storage room. Shelves held cartons of beer, spirits, ale, and all sorts of non-perishable food ingredients, each item spinning in my vision. I think he’d knocked my head hard enough to dislodge my brain.

“Fuck,” I groaned, leaning my shoulder on the wall.

Who would have thought the demon knew how to punch that hard? Fucker always started the fights or riots then disappeared before things got dicey. Impressed, I had to hand it to him for defending himself. Didn’t think he had the balls.

Meanwhile, the demon grabbed two bags of peas from the freezer and tossed one to me and put the other to his bruised neck. “Ace, aggression and assault is fucking bad for business,” he started on me, his voice strained and harsh from his bruised vocal cords.

“I don’t give a shit about your business when my mate is in trouble.” I slammed the icy peas on my right wrist because I couldn’t curl my aching fingers to strangle him again. “You got us into this shit. It’s your responsibility to fix it.”

My shifter healing slowly repaired the injury and I felt the bones shifting to reset. Cracking bones in his tail told me he healed pretty quickly, too.

The demon paled, and I swear the temperature in the room went down a few degrees. “You want me to rescue her?”

I scrubbed at my jaw, imagining the greedy vampires harming my mate, fucking bleeding her to death. “Fuck, yeah, I want you to rescue her.”

“Are you insane?” Vice scratched his forehead. “You want me to walk into a coven of vampires?” Obviously breaking my wrists and punching me were his limits of bravery for the day.

I cornered him up against one of the shelves. “You fucked my mate, you asshole. You’re lucky I let you live. Saving her is the least you can do.”

Vice shrugged with his arms wide and palms skyward. “How could I resist? She’s heavenly. Literally.” His frivolous, croaked comment sparked a vicious growl from me. “Hey, take it easy, Ace. No harm in the comment. By heavenly, I didn’t mean her pussy… well, I did.”

That was it. I grabbed him by the shirt, slamming him hard into the shelf. Bottles of ketchup and pickles tumbled off, smashing on the floor. My fingers cracked as his magick ripped them back.

“Fuck, Ace.” The demon surveyed the mess while I cradled my broken fingers. “I meant she fell from the heavens.”

I buried my hand in the bag of peas to kill some of the pain.

“What? Is she an angel or something?” Fuck, I could get behind that. Desire for my mate shot up three hundred bars.

“She’s a fallen star.” Vice kept the peas close to his throat as he moved to the corner to grab a broom to sweep up the broken glass.

A fallen-fucking-star. No way. Wasn’t any more unbelievable than a fallen angel. But I’d hoped she was a fallen angel. A bit of a sinning, sexy girlfriend never hurt a man. Wait. Why was I thinking that? I didn’t need a mate. Damn demon worked his magick on me again to calm me the fuck down. No fallen angel or sin. Had enough of that shit with the devil screwing with my life. Just a wholesome good girl for me, and not one chosen by a meddling damn crossroads demon.

“That’s why the vampires want her.” Vice collected the smashed glass in newspaper, wrapping it up and tossing it in the trash. “They want to bleed her for power.” With that task complete, he grabbed a mop to clean up the rest of the mess.

Fuck. I contemplated snatching the mop and snapping it over the demon’s head for putting us all in this shit. Fucker had lit the fuse on my temper and let it explode. Call me a rebel. A rule breaker. But I wasn’t normally a hothead. This shit with my pack agitated me. Then Vice had to go and fuck with me by adding the mate to complicate things. I’d warned him that I’d hurt him if she messed shit up for me.

“We can’t leave her with them,” I said, failing to calm my simmering temper. “We have to go get her.”

I couldn’t stop the words once they’d tumbled free. Damn. It seemed like I’d made my choice. Mate over pack. What the fuck was up with me? Darius was going to go and make a new deal with the Lithgow pack. Maybe there was a way to achieve both. Save Orion from the vampire’s clutches, then bring a screaming halt to my brother’s negotiations when I appeared, backed by fifty fucking demons.

“Uh, Ace, you’re forgetting that barging into a vampire coven to rescue our fallen star requires courage and bravado,” the demon pointed out. “Two qualities I don’t possess. Besides, my men are out looking for her. Leave it to them, they know what they’re doing.”

I smacked him on the back of the head. “You started this shit, it’s up to you to fix it. Time to acquire courage and bravado.” He’d managed to find the courage to punch me, so he could dig deeper and find more to bust into the vamp’s coven. One issue dealt with, on to the next. “When is the demon army arriving?”

“Tomorrow at midnight.” Vice looked queasy. Seasick queasy. A bad batch of KFC queasy. “After the blood moon has risen.”

Orion could be dead by then, but so could we if we charged into the vampire coven. Better to be safe than sorry. “We’ll take the demon army with us to rescue her.”

“Hold up, Ace.” Vice threw a palm up at me like a damn traffic controller. “You realize that if you use the army to save Orion, you use your one favor.”

Fuck. Crossroads demons and their contract conditions. Stubble bristled as I rubbed my jaw. This demon sure knew how to fuck people up the ass and piss on them at the same time. “Can’t you be a little lenient this time, considering you got us in this mess and that I didn’t sign a contract, so I’m not held by your rules?”

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