Page 15 of True Sacrifice
“I’ll walk you to your room, little fox,” Justice offered, and I smiled back. I felt more at ease with Justice than the others.
Jasper and Jax turned the opposite way out of the hallway than the way Justice led me.
“Our rooms are down there,” Justice explained.
“Why is my room so far away from the rest of you?” If they expect us to be this happy group thing, it would have made more sense for us all to be closer.
“You have the master room for the pack. You can invite whomever you want back to your room, and you have some privacy from the others.” Justice stopped as he approached a door. My door, my room.
He stood there waiting, so I turned the knob and went into my room, while he stood on the threshold watching me. My bed was bigger. Like a hell of a lot bigger, but it didn’t appear to take up more space in the room. It had expanded just that pocket of space to accommodate a bed big enough for all four of us. Like that would ever happen.
Justice cleared his throat, bringing my attention back to him. The air around us felt a little more charged, and honestly, that made me feel awkward. Was he waiting for me to invite him in?
“Thank you, Justice.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. Images of our kiss at the party, alone in the light from the fireplace, flashed through my mind as I entertained the idea of asking him to come in. One day, but not today. “Goodnight,” I said, my mind made up for the evening.
I saw the slight disappointment on Justice’s face, but he quickly smoothed that over with a smile. “Goodnight, my fox.”
I closed the door and heard him walk away, releasing a long sigh as the weight of the past few days settled over me. I was trying my best to accept my new reality, but there was just too fucking much to just get on board with all at once. Looking at my hands, I noticed they were slightly translucent, and my entire body felt like it was slowly shutting down. Definitely time for some rest.
I put my new phone on the table by my bed, as I had done every night as a human. Tomorrow, I promised myself, tomorrow I would inspect it and open those apps Jasper mentioned. For now, I needed to lie down and get some rest.
I got ready for bed quickly, finding an assortment of comfortable clothes perfect for sleeping in my closet. Hell really provided, and that thought made me chuckle. Getting into bed felt exquisite. I’m not sure I had ever felt so fucking comfortable in a bed before. I allowed my mind to settle, hoping this wouldn’t be one of those nights where my mind raced.
“You are infuriating.”
I smiled. For some reason, I liked the disembodied voice of Jax much better than him.
“Back at you,” I quipped before melting off into a peaceful dream.
CHAPTER7
JASPER
“Good morning, princess.”
She was lying on the bed completely passed out. I let her sleep for as long as I could, but we really needed to get started with her training.
“What time is it?” Morrigan groaned while fishing around blindly for something. Her hand flopped around on the nightstand until she grabbed ahold of her phone, pulling it in close before powering on the screen.
“It’s well past 9,” I answered just as she looked at the time printed in large digits on the screen.
“No.” She put her head under the blanket and rolled back on her side.
“I don’t think so, little princess,” I laughed, grabbing her blanket, and yanking it off her. She held on to a tiny corner and battled with me for a few brief moments before I yanked hard; freeing it. She was wearing nothing more than a small pair of shorts styled underwear and a baggy shirt.
“Give it back and let me sleep,” she whined. Something about that was cute. Normally, I didn’t think things were cute, but she was.
“Not a chance. Get up. Get dressed. Make sure you eat something. I will be back in half an hour to get you. Whether you are ready is up to you. I will march you around naked if that’s how you decide to play this game.” I saw that look of fire in her eyes. She would try to pull something on me, same as she did to Jax.
I didn’t give her a chance to come up with an argument before I left her alone to decide. I wasn’t kidding either; she had thirty minutes,tick-tock. I went back to the war room. Our unofficial hangout. There wasn’t much to do during the palace season. Political meetings never happened unless we were at war, which was practically never. Mortals didn’t stand a chance against a demon. They made us to be eternal.
Our only purpose in the cog machine of the universe was making sure wayward souls moved on. We would capture them if possible, or end them if not. It kept the machine working smoothly, all the gunk being cleaned up the way we do. Outside of that, we wanted for nothing. Nearly impossible to kill. We had an entire realm to live in peacefully. Power based demon hierarchy. The more power you had, the higher up the food chain you sat. Which, in a place that literally provided everything you could ever want, being higher in the food chain just meant you had less work to do. Idle hands. Devil’s playground.
Justice and Jax were sitting at the war room table when I arrived.
“My fox was still sleeping?” Justice gave me a weird ass grin. Seriously, it was creeping me the fuck out. I don’t think I had ever seen him smile until she arrived, other than when he was in his dungeon. I made the mistake of barging into his dungeon once. Never again.
“I gave her thirty minutes, then we head off to the fire arena.” I took a seat as a cup of coffee appeared in front of me. Through the years, we had tried many foods and beverages from all the different realms. It was one way to keep some tiny joy in our life, trying a myriad of edible concoctions. Justice went through a phase where he would only try different poisons.
