Dark Champion (Flirting with Monsters #4) - Eva Chase Page 0,17

shadowkind didn’t matter more to you than your own existence. That’s enough for me. It just won’t be enough for the Highest.”

Sorsha stretched, limbering up now that she had her full range of movement. Her gaze stayed wary. “And what do you think will be enough?”

I smiled again, even narrower than before. “We’re going to set it up so it appears you’ve destroyed someone who’s foiled them far more than ‘Ruby’ ever did. Tempest might even agree to help us with the ploy for the extra chaos it’ll cause. If you accomplish more on their behalf than even their most loyal subjects ever did before, how can they possibly accuse you of meaning them harm?”

At least, I hoped that was the case. And if it wasn’t, well, then I’d have a battle with their minions on my hands. If Sorsha died at the Highest’s command, it’d only be over my dead body as well.

6

Sorsha

I’d never been to any sort of reunion—family, class, or otherwise—but I doubted there’d ever been one as joyful as when Omen ushered me across the cracked pavement of an otherwise vacant lot to the waiting RV.

I was still ten feet from the door when it burst open. Snap sprang out first and dashed to me with his usual serpentine grace.

He wrapped his arms around me and tucked my head under his chin with a sigh as if my arrival had put every wrong thing in the world right. I hugged him back just as eagerly. Didn’t I wish our problems could be solved that easily.

Pickle scampered after the devourer with excited little squeaks, Thorn chasing behind the little dragon with a worried glance over his shoulder to make sure no mortals were close enough to the parking lot to see. My foster creature twined around my ankles, still chirping away.

Ruse sauntered over to join us at a more languid pace, but his smile beamed with far more affection than his typical smirk. Heedless of the hold Snap had on me, the incubus leaned in to claim a kiss so intent it left every part of me tingling, in part because I knew just how enjoyable it could be to be adored by both these men at the same time.

Thorn made a sound of consternation but looked as though it was more that he wished he’d thought of making the same gesture than that he objected to the incubus’s forwardness. He seemed to decide Pickle wasn’t causing any real trouble as long as the tiny creature stuck close to my legs and left off that chase. When Ruse released me, the warrior squeezed my shoulder, not quite smiling himself but with a thrum of pleased energy emanating from his brawny frame.

“It’s good to have you back where you belong,” he said, which from the wingéd was practically a standing ovation.

“Then I expect an even more enthusiastic welcome than that,” I informed him. I bobbed up on my toes with the devourer’s arms still around me, and a hint of a real smile crossed Thorn’s lips. He brought them to mine, giving me a taste of the passion that resided beneath his stoic front.

The other wingéd man who’d joined us more recently, Flint, hung back but appeared to at least be not upset to see me. Antic bounded around our cluster with actual applause and bursts of gleeful giggling.

“She’s back, she’s back; the Highest didn’t eat her!” she crowed.

Yes, I was rejoicing that fact too, even if I wasn’t totally clear on what had won Omen over. Just for that moment, I didn’t feel any need to dwell on that. I was back where I belonged, a monstrous human among monstrous shadowkind, and I couldn’t imagine wanting any company more. Not even the bitter tang of asphalt baking in the warm autumn air could cut through my relief.

Omen gave Snap a sharp look. “How much do our new recruits know now?”

The imp’s chant appeared to have stirred something in my devourer. He lifted his head just enough to fix his moss-green eyes on Omen. I felt his body bristle against me with a trickle of aggressive energy as if he might be about to rise into full devourer form, both wondrous and horrifying.

“Enough to realize how awfully you treated Sorsha. How could you have even thought about giving her to them?” His clear, sweet voice came in a more forceful tone than I’d ever heard it take before. “You didn’t even talk to her—or us. You hurt her.”