Page 52 of Monsters' Manor

I’m on with Ren in an hour, and as I leave my cottage and trudge up the hill toward the Acres for what might be the last time, I try to convince myself not to turn and run in the other direction.

Maybe it’s what Odelia wants me to do.

Maybe putting all this on me was meant to force my hand and get me to pack my shit and get out. Maybe she didn’t want to be the one to make the call.

Or maybe it’s just reverse psychology, and she’s hoping it’ll piss me off enough to stay out of spite.

With Odelia, who the hell knows?

Letting out a frustrated breath, I make myself stop trying to guess at my aunt’s machinations. I’ve just reached the front gates when I feel a familiar darkness beside me.

“Hi Silas,” I say with a small smile. Just having him near clears away some of the storm clouds of my bad mood.

“Hello darling.”

My heart stutters at the sound of those words in his midnight-silk voice, of the gentle tenderness in his tone. And at the accompanying pang of guilt in my stomach.

Because it’s not just my magick and my future at Edgar’s Acres I have to make a decision about today.

This can’t go on any longer. Whatever’s happening between me and Silas, between me and Ren, between the three of us. One way or the other, it has to be decided tonight, too.

If I stay, we need to be honest and open with each other and figure everything the hell out. If I go, I need to end things with as little damage as I can.

“How are you feeling?” Silas asks, brushing a shadow soothingly up and down my arm as we walk.

All that comes out in reply is a disgruntled groan.

“That bad?”

“No,” I say in a huff of breath. “I’m… well, I actually don’t know what I am.”

We reach the manor, and Silas curls two shadows around my shoulders, turning me to face him.

“You’re going to do wonderfully tonight, darling.”

“Yes, she is.”

Silas and I both turn to find Renwick striding down the manor’s front steps.

He’s in his full Lucifer’s regalia. Tight leather pants slung low across his hips and fastened by a silver goat’s head belt buckle. A silver pentagram medallion laying against his bare chest. A sumptuous black cloak draped over his shoulders.

It’s certainly a look, and on anyone else it would probably come across as corny, but on Ren… holy hell.

I’m not sure who’s staring more blatantly, me or Silas, as Ren stops just in front of us at the bottom of the stairs with his legs braced wide and his arms crossed over his sculpted chest. His crimson eyes rove back and forth between the two of us, and my momentary brain-melt over just how fucking hot he is passes.

This is the first time the three of us have been together in weeks.

The tension in the air grows heavier as the two of them seem to remember that fact, too. Ren catches Silas’s eye, and for a few long moments it’s like I’m not even here. They stare each other down, both their gazes intense and unreadable as they share a silent conversation I can’t even begin to translate.

The moment breaks when a couple of harpies approach and brush past us to head inside.

Ren recovers first, shaking his head and glancing over at me with a sharp grin.

“Ready to sell your soul to the devil, Rosie?”

I give him an insolent once-over. “Looking like that? I don’t know, I think you’ll need another couple gallons of baby oil smeared across your chest, maybe some nipple rings to go with your—”

My words cut off on a squeak as Ren catches me around the waist with his tail and drags me up against him. He curls a hand over my jaw and presses his thumb against my lips to shut me up.

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