Page 62 of My Demon Assistant

Meeting my eyes, he took a deep breath, then said, "I love you."

I stared at him, too stunned to react in any other way.

"What?"

"I love you," he repeated, voice stronger as he moved closer. "So you better come back so you can tell me you love me too."

"I can't say it now?"

"Nope. Now go! Be safe."

I nodded mutely, then kissed him once more before taking off for a supply closet outside the view of security cameras. From there, I used my magic to get to my usual spot in the parking lot, where Lux and Fres were already waiting.

"What took you so long?" Fres grumbled, and I shook my head.

"Come on—let's go."

Now that they were here, they could sense the presence too, so the three of us made our way closer to it, teleporting from place to place in our incorporeal form so humans wouldn't see us. In this form, we weren't just invisible, but we had no physical form. We could walk through walls, or appear in the middle of a street without causing a crash.

"It's close. Should we alert Maximus?" Lux asked, and I nodded. While we were good at sniffing out dark souls, demons werenotfighters. We could use our magic to defend ourselves in a pinch, but from my last experience, I knew Mammon could stop me from doing that. I didn't know if he could stop all three of us, and I'd rather not find out.

"We should come at them from different directions. Corner them," Fressia said, but I shook my head.

"If Mammon is with them, it'll be safer to stick together."

Fressia winced, then relented with a nod.

Lux's phone buzzed, and he gave it a glance. "Maximus says they're on standby. They'll find us as soon as we alert them."

"Good. Let's go," Fressia said, and we moved closer to the dark souls.

Displaying their love of concrete and exposed beams once more, the dark souls were hiding out in an abandoned, half-constructed building of some sort.

"You smell that?" Lux asked, wrinkling his nose. The scent of blood was thick in the air, which didn't bode well. Why hadn't I sensed them sooner? We could've saved whoever they'd killed.

A groan rang through the air, and my eyes widened, then flashed to the others. There was someone else here. Someone hurt.

I nodded toward Lux's phone, and he nodded before alerting Maximus with a text.

"Please," a weak voice begged. Male and young. How young? If they'd grabbed a kid...

"Status?" Maximus asked, suddenly there, and I turned to him, grateful for him and his team.

"I can only sense one dark soul. No Mammon. There's someone else, human, I think. He's hurt."

Maximus nodded, then turned to his team, giving them hand signals they immediately followed. Watching them in action was always a fascinating experience, but for once, I was more focused on the hurt human. Why had the dark soul targeted a human? Were they just playing, or were humans a part of whatever plan they were cooking up?

"Stay here," Maximus murmured, his dark eyes flashing between us. "Grab the human as soon as you can, and get out of here. Take him somewhere safe. I'll come find you when it's over and take care of his memories."

I nodded, only too happy to let him deal with the danger. He was trained for this, and I had a mate to get back to.

Maximus signaled his second, a man named Malik, if I remembered right, and the two rushed around the corner into the room we'd heard the voices from.

"Come on. Let's get the human and get out of here," Lux said, and I nodded.

I hoped Maximus would capture the dark soul. Then maybe we'd finally find out what they were up to, what their endgame was.

Twenty-Four

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