Page 51 of Demon Apathy: Sunderverse
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Pressingahandtomy stomach and bending over, I tried not to vomit all over the plush rug at my feet. Why, oh why, did he have to do so many unpleasant things to me? He used my past against me. He scared me when he appeared out of nowhere, and this.
And hadn’t Grant said that passing through demon portals too often was unsafe for humans? For all I knew, my cells were getting scrambled every time he transported me this way. What if I turned into a mutant?
“I know t-teleporting is impossible, but I feel as if I was… remade,” I stuttered.
“Well, not exactly impossible.Hecan do it.” He pointed skyward.
“So how exactly… are you doing it?” Feeling better by degrees, I straightened to my full height.
“A portal. It’s like folding time and space,” he said, smiling and strolling around the living room of the Plaza Hotel penthouse, where I’d last seen Lunar. “Imagine an open book. One page is St. Louis and the opposite one is New York. When you close the book, both pages meet, almost becoming one, then you can move from one to the other.”
I frowned at this explanation, which made sense, though it didn't really tell me how he did it. But maybe it was like trying to explain how to breathe or think.
“Hmm, the moon child must be sleeping,” he said.
Without knocking, Drevan barged into the bedroom and flipped up the light switch, eliciting a horrified cry from ourhostage.
“OMG, OMG, OMG!” she exclaimed.
I rushed into the room right after Drevan, hoping that seeing me would help relieve her shock.
“Hey, Lunar,” I enthused, as if bursting into people’s rooms in the middle of the night was the most normal thing to do.
When I caught sight of her standing on top of the bed and running in place, a panicked expression on her pale face, I blinked up, feeling terrible. Drevan had really scared the crap out of her.
I moved my hands up and down. “Hey, it’s all right. It’s just us.”
Gradually, her volume went down, and she collapsed to her knees on top of the bed, breathing hard. I glowered at Drevan, who looked like someone who’d been watching paint dry for an hour. Really, the guy had no patience or respect for us lowly humans. Or was he the one who was lowly since we, humans, seemed to be sandwiched between heaven and hell? I had no idea.
As Lunar took a few deep breaths, I scanned her rose-red silk nightie, her braided hair, andmakeup-lessface. Not only that, but I also noticed that the floor and every piece of furniture were littered with fancy shopping bags and boxes of every color and size.Damn!Someone had been working their credit card overtime.
Drevan strolled to the dresser, reached inside one of the shopping bags, and pulled out a lacy black thong.
“Hmm,” his eyes flicked from the scant garment toward me, then back again.
Feeling as if lightning had struck my middle with a thousand volts of heat, I somehow managed to take two steps forward to snatch the thong from his hand. Cheeks on fire, I threw the thing back in the bag and cleared my throat.
“I see you’ve been keeping yourself busy,” I told Lunar, wishing I could sink my burning face into a pile of snow.
Lunar’s previous panicked expression was replaced by one of interest and amusement. “He likes you,” she said. “You lucky girl. I would tap that.” She gasped and pressed a hand to her mouth. “What did I just say?”
I exhaled in frustration and glared in Drevan’s direction. His eyes were doing that glowy thing again, but he wasted no time in dampening it down and jumping into action to distract us from what Lunar had just said.
“We have a task for you, my dear Lunar.” Drevan snatched her hand and pulled her out of bed.
He likes you,Lunar’s words echoed in my mind.I would tap that.
Hell, I would tap that too. Even if, no doubt, he would ruin vanilla-male sex forever.
I followed Drevan as he dragged Lunar into the living area where Khargon was waiting for us. I did a double-take. Had Khargon been there before? No. No way I would’ve missed the badass female clad in head-to-toe leather, including a pair of knee-high red boots over her skin-tight black pants.
“Oh, great, you made it,” Drevan said. “Do you have it?” He put out a hand, and Khargon handed him a cell phone. He turned to Lunar again. “Here, this is an untraceable burner for you to call your brother.”
“But I thought—” she began, but Khargon interrupted her.
“You’re not here to think, dear. You’re here to do as we say.”
