Page 28 of House of Pain
Rogue narrowed his eyes, taking in the view of the library and dusty books behind her. Matias cracked a smile, his tongue playing with his silver lip ring.
“Well, my life for sure just got so much better,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “What did you do to get here, Black?”
“Oh, you know, the usual—smoking, drinking, fucking, sucking…”
“Stealing,” said Rogue. She narrowed her eyes in a way that indicated that he should shut his mouth before giving anything else away.
Matias was a member of the House of Tigers. And he was Gabe’s best friend.
The Tigers couldn’t know about their little shtick because it would reveal Blaze’s prank and what was about to happen. No matter how much Alecto hated Blaze, she wanted their House to win more than anything.
“Oh, yeah?” Matias asked. “What did you steal, baby girl?”
“Your heart.”
That made Matias laugh, and Alecto didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered as he rubbed his chin.
“So, how are we going to do this?” Rogue asked.
Alecto gestured to the books on the desk. “I suggest starting with dusting the books off, then we will be able to categorize them according to their genre and then by alphabet. After that, we’ll only need to put them onto the shelves.”
Rogue nodded, pouting, and started towards the other table on the left.
“Whatever the lady insists,” Matias said.
They sorted through the books, wiping the dust with the cloth from each one, mostly in silence. Alecto kept shooting glances at Rogue, who was sorting through the books like a good little student. Which was, of course, very weird, because he was a demon. You’d think a creature like him wouldn’t bother with such petty tasks, even if he was bound to the Snakes.
While Val seemed to have moved on from the fact that they summoned a demon instead of a Guardian, Alecto still didn’t trust Rogue. He was too content with his current role for Alecto to feel comfortable.
“Don’t they like have spells for shit like this?” Matias finally asked, tossing the book he finished cleaning on the desk with a louddunk.
Alecto waved a hand at the massive dust cloud that rose in the air.
“Do you mind?” she hissed, closing her watering eyes. “Some of us have allergies.”
Matias huffed a laugh. “Oh, right. I keep forgetting you’re a half mortal with your weird little quirks.”
It was kind of him to refer to Alecto as a half mortal rather than a half breed.
Pure-blooded witches never had things like allergies.
“I’m pretty certain they don’t use magic to sort through the books so that students like us would have something to do when we get in trouble,” Alecto said, pushing one book aside to the “cleaned” pile.
“I really don’t see a point,” Matias complained. “It’s not as if dusting books and organizing shelves will stop us from doing it again.”
Alecto arched a brow. “Well, well, do tell—what got you here, Santos?”
“Gabe and I egged the Rabbits’ House.”
Alecto laughed. “That’s so fucking basic.”
“Oh, you think?” Matias asked, leaning on the desk, drawing his tanned face closer to hers. “It might be basic, but it’s very effective. It still stinks, even though they managed to clean most of the junk off.”
“Rotten eggs?” Alecto widened her eyes. “That’s just evil.”
“You bet your tight ass.” Matias winked, prodding his lip ring with the tip of his tongue.
Alecto narrowed her eyes on him but couldn’t help the smirk.
