Page 98 of The Last Slayer
“And yet I gave it.” Alexandros walked over to me, put a friendly hand on my shoulder. It seared but felt oh so good. “Listen, love. You need me. Ramiel can’t—Oh, you don’t want my hand there? Very well, no need for violence. Anyway, Ramiel can’t count on his third triumvir. Too unstable. So he figures I can help him keep you alive until you have all your heartstones.” He looked at Ramiel. “That about right?”
Ramiel looked like he’d just swallowed an entire peeled lemon. “In essence.”
“But you see, here’s the problem—I don’t know if I want to.” The incubus king shrugged. “I like you well enough to fuck, but I’m not sure if I like you well enough to help.”
“Alexandros, choose your words more carefully.” Ramiel’s hand tightened around the sword. “Lest I revoke your invitation.” It really was a pity his control was so good. I’d have loved to see him permanently rearrange Alexandros’s face. Or cut something vital off.
Alexandros made a small wiggling motion with his fingers. “Just give me a different room. Something decent, with mirrors.”
Toshi flew over and bowed. “Immediately, Your Majesty! If you’ll just come with me…”
He led Alexandros to the door, where the incubus king stopped.
“By the way, Ashera…?”
“What?”
“I’d be careful if I were you. Not everything is what it seems. Including your champion.” Alexandros inclined his head Ramiel’s way and gave me a smile that made my insides twist. “You two kids have a nice evening.”
Seventeen
Nice evening, my ass.
I sent Ramiel away after Alexandros left. I didn’t want to hear why I had to ally with him, or why Ramiel had sought him out, or anything else.
And the third triumvir. I’d never imagined I wouldn’t be able to count on someone from my own Triumvirate. Not that I expected us to be best friends forever, but I thought the other member would at least be neutral. How many enemies did I really have?
Not everything is what it seems. Including your champion.
Yeah, well… Ramiel might or might not have been helping me out of altruism, but it infuriated me to hear Alexandros say it. Ramiel might have never taken Sex from me, he might always have been proper—rigidly so—but at the end of the day I still had no idea what his ultimate goal was. Even my overwhelming attraction to him might be contrived, magic-induced, like what I had felt for Alexandros. I’d thought I could resist any demon’s sexual pull, but Alexandros had proven me wrong. Ramiel had some incubus abilities—maybe borrowed from Alexandros?—and a dragonlord’s power. It could very well be that if he couldn’t use magic anymore, I wouldn’t find him attractive at all.
Which brought me to a really aggravating question: how could I be sure?
The answer was, I couldn’t. There was too much going on, too much that was new. I was out of my depth, dealing with beings that were orders of magnitude more powerful than I was, and at some point it was just going to be a leap of faith. And if I was going to battle Nathanael and his buddies, I needed an ally I could trust, and that had to be Ramiel. If I couldn’t bring myself to trust him, I might as well just give up.
End of story.
So with that thought and another conscious decision to trust Ramiel in the forefront of my mind, I looked around. What had Toshi been thinking, putting me in a room that used to belong to the incubus king? I felt like I needed another bath…and that bed! It appeared tainted now. Alexandros had slept on it, and I was sure that wasn’t all he’d done there. The image nearly made me gag. Maybe I should sleep on the floor.
I glanced at the mirrors covering the ceiling, now understanding how Alexandros had been able to land on top of me without any warning. Part of me wanted to get another room. Another part—the petty, stubborn part—didn’t want to give up the one I was in. It’d be like him winning, and he would see it as a sign of weakness.
Alexandros was old and powerful. I was—had been—a damn good hunter, but if I’d faced him in a dream, I doubted I would’ve prevailed. It was rumored he had been born before Christ, but that was unlikely. Most supernaturals are the next best thing to truly immortal—they live for eons unless they are killed. The more powerful they are, the longer they tend to stick around. But incubi aren’t demigods, and their court is full of intrigue and betrayal. Alexandros had to be smarter and stronger than his enemies to have survived for millennia.
Of course, there was evidence for the other side too. He couldn’t be that smart, given the kind of garbage spewing from his mouth. Like me well enough to fuck, indeed.
Nope. Not over three thousand years old. Someone would probably kill him within the decade.
My stomach growled, and I put a hand over it. It was time for dinner. I jerked the closet doors open. Dresses, dresses and more dresses, in hundreds of colors and materials and patterns. Didn’t anyone up here know that it was okay for women to wear pants these days? Annoyed, I pulled out a sleeveless, toga-looking number with good mobility and a modest neckline. I kind of wanted to flaunt my cleavage, but…
Come on. Did it matter what I wore? It wasn’t like I was trying to seduce anyone.
The soft lavender silk whispered over my skin as I put the thing on. The second I had it hanging right, a knock sounded.
“Come in.”
Toshi flew inside. “Milady, dinner will be served soon.”
“Good. I’m ready.” I went past him into the hall, then stopped. “Um, which way’s the dining room?”
