Page 17 of Demon Queen
“Maurice is a demon. Not the same kind as Drigo, but few are. Only one I know of, in fact. That youngling who will almost certainly not accidentally rip out your spine.”
I stared at him then craned my neck to try and get a good look at the pastry chef. We were too far away to see anything. “You’re joking. He does pastry, not sexiness.”
Strigo snorted. “Really? Interesting that you’re immune to the ink’s allure. I am absolutely not joking. I wouldn’t want you to throw up in my car just for a laugh.”
My stomach was queasy now that he mentioned it. There was something so absolutely awful about the idea of feeding on my desire like a soulless vampire. Or a soulless demon, I suppose.
“Here we are. Now I’m going to go take a nap. Watching you is exhausting.” He got out and walked towards the building, leaving me there in the car to have a mini-meltdown.
Was Maurice actually a demon? It wasn’t possible for one person to know two demons in one lifetime. I took a shaky breath and got out of the car, closing the door firmly behind me. Nonsense. I was going to meet the young demon and find out whether or not he was my baby. The more demons the merrier. Gulp.
six
. . .
The club seemed much largerduring the day when it wasn’t filled with monsters. It was so quiet that I could hear the rustle of paper as a guy in a fedora counted money behind the bar.
I stood there for another beat, looking around for Dorian, but there was no sign of him. Was he really a demon? Was he really okay with me paying him back in a civilized way? Didn’t demons have to make examples of thieves? I knew next to nothing about him, about his world. But here I was, once again out of my safe haven, like a raw nerve being lowered into a boiling stew.
“Drigo hasn’t come in yet,” someone said directly behind me.
I whirled around and there, right against the metal door was the demon, the little one who was probably too old to be my Wilkie. “Oh.” I stared at him, trying to gauge by his features, his red-orange eyes, his long dark lashes, his coppery skin, something that was too much like Dorian to belong to anyone else’s child, but it was impossible to tell. I hadn’t known Dorian at the age of twelve. Because that would be at least four hundred years ago. Gurgle.
“You’re staring at me,” he said with a slight smile. “But not at my wings.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I took a step back and dropped my eyes to his feet, which were bare, with clawed toes. I’d kept my babies nails all clipped and tidy. Were those Wilkie’s feet? I stared for a second before I realized and brought my gaze back up to his face.
He was smiling. “Don’t worry about it. I like it when beautiful women can’t help but stare at me.” He winked.
I blinked at him. Um. Was it worse that a demon with clawed toes was hitting on me or a that a person who was too young for me and may or may not be my child was hitting on me?
He laughed outright, threw his head back, and it was like the few times I’d made Dorian really laugh. That laugh was a ringer. “I’m sorry to tease, but you are too fun to play with. Everyone can tell which demon in the place you’re hot for.”
“I’m not hot. What?” I blinked at him while I tried to figure out what to say without things getting too awkward. Things were already too awkward. Why didn’t I just tell Dorian that I’d had his baby and ask him to help me find him? Because I couldn’t have more things that tied me to him. He was a demon, and more than that, he’d already broken my heart and betrayed me. I couldn’t survive another broken heart. He was good with humans, good at manipulating us. Hopefully I didn’t see him while I worked here. If I did see him, hopefully he didn’t see me.
The young demon slung an arm over my shoulder and tugged me towards the stairs. Was this the part where he accidentally ripped out my spine? “You’re clearly interested in Drigo, or you wouldn’t have come here, particularly with that obvious lie that you were engaged to someone else. It was just what he needed to send him over the edge. Did you see his spikes? Of course you did. How could you possibly miss them? The Zombie Queen’s going to freak out when she hears about them."
So much in there to panic about. I was supposed to be interested in his boss, my ex-boss? Not that he wasn’t my boss again. Either way, no, I wasn’t. I was a human. Humans didn’t get to be interested in demons, not when they were all public about it. "Dori…I mean Drigo saved you from the Zombie Queen. Are the two of you related?" There. Normal question anyone would ask even if they weren’t looking for their half-grown demon baby. Sorry, normal? What even was normal about any part of this? Whatever.
He laughed again, light but with an undercurrent of something tight. “He’s never had any children, but we are the same type, so we’re probably related somehow. It’s this way to the kitchen. So, how do you know the Alpha’s mate and the Grand Master’s bride?”
I stared at him and almost tripped on a step, but his tail snaked around my waist to stabilize me. That was unbelievably weird. Could he rip out my spine with his tail? “Who?”
“Honey and Lucy are what you called them.” His eyes glinted and I knew this is why he was talking to me, because of them, because they’d come here and he was trying to gauge the threat. Interesting.
“Honey is a werewolf,” I said slowly.
His flashing smile was disorienting. “Indeed.”
“They spent some time at the same foster home I lived in.”
“You don’t have parents?”
“I did. Of course, everyone has parents, but they died when I was very young, so I was adopted by an American couple. Then they died a short time after that.” I swallowed hard. My earliest memories had not been happy. Probably better than this kid, raised by the Zombie Queen. Were there actual, literal zombies? Could I go through my life without seeing any? I’d reallyreallylike to do that.
“You aren’t from this country originally? What are you?”
“Oh, I was born Russian. I don’t remember much about my early years. What about you? What country are you from?”
