Page 55 of Lust

Eddie yanked her hand back. She didn’t want this son of a bitch touching her.

“Which is another reason we believe you are not entirely human.”

The right-hand hound laid his huge head on her knee as if offering her comfort.

Her mind refused to process the not human thing. They had to be wrong about that. She had memories from being a child. Dee had countless photos of her as a baby. She was as normal as the next person. She couldn’t entertain even the possibility that they were right on the non-human thing. Her brain kicked that out and chose to focus on all the other stuff.

“Why does Wrath want to kill you?” Not that she cared.

Sophia beamed at her like a proud parent. “You keep asking all the most important questions.”

“Yesterday—he’s an imp—said they fight all the time.” Actually, he’d said they fucked and fought, but she wasn’t bringing that up around Shade. “Don’t they always try and kill each other?”

“No.” Sophia frowned. “They war for power, and because it’s in their nature, but trying to kill each other would end all of them.” She gestured around them. “All of us as well.” She smiled, and Eddie struggled not to melt. “The problem is bigger than Wrath and Shade however.”

Bigger? Oh, that’s exactly what she needed. For this shit show to get worse. “Define bigger.”

“Wrath is not behaving as he usually does.” Shade propped his hips against the desk and dropped his chin to his chest. “His seal is breaking, and wrath is out of control.”

Sophia sucked in a sharp breath. “And your seal?”

“The same.” He cleared his throat. “It’s hard to control the leakage.”

Sophia stood and paced the three by eight foot lighting booth, somehow managing to dodge the two huge hell hounds, three chairs and a couple of boxes filled with gels lying against the back wall. “Ramiel will have to be told.” She heaved a sigh. “And Gabriel.”

Shade scowled. “Not that uptight ass.”

With a pained expression, Sophia nodded. “I know. She is uptight, but we need her.”

“Gabriel is a woman?” That was her question? And Sophia said she asked good questions.

“Gender is fluid.” Sophia waggled her hand. “We are what we choose to be.”

“You humans.” Shade scoffed. “You always have to oversimplify everything.”

“Oh yeah?” Eddie’d had a gut load of his crap. “And yet we puny humans are going to hide you here to keep you safe from your homicidal buddy.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie, but we are going to have to ask you to keep him here.” Sophia winced. “At least until he is healed enough to face Wrath.”

Eddie had no doubt on this score. “No.”

“We have no choice.” Sophia gave her a look of unadulterated pleading.

“I like it here.” He grinned at her. “And I like you.”

“Yay, me.” Eddie rolled her eyes and made sure he saw. “Does that mean you’re going to do that mind fuck thing with me again? Because I’ll rip your balls off if you try that again.”

“He won’t try that again,” Sophia said with enough steel in her voice for Eddie to fear for her lighting booth.

“I won’t do that again.” Shade looked from her to Sophia and back again. Then he smirked. “Mainly because I don’t need to. You managed to resist my full impact but you’re like plugging into a nuclear reactor.”

“Really.” Sophia seemed to consider this seriously. “She is getting more and more interesting.”

“I know.” Shade looked smug. “For that alone it’s worth staying here.”

“You’re not staying.” Eddie scowled at him, so he knew she meant it.

Both hell hounds gave her pitiful, pleading glances.

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