house. Or do. Whatever you want. Just let me get Adam out first.”
Zolroth turns toward me, and his eyes glow red for a second, the power in his palm sizzling brighter, until his gaze falls and he sees the ice packs in my hand. He swallows hard and closes his eyes. The crackling ball of lightning in his palm sizzles into nothingness, and when he reopens his eyes, their beautiful brown color has returned.
“What’s that?” he asks softly.
“Ice, for your faces.” I bite my lip. “Or does ice not work on demons? I don’t really know.” My sentence isn’t even finished before Akor’s at my side, good arm wrapping around my waist. He scoops me up single handed and carries me to the couch, where he plops down with me in his lap.
He helps lift my makeshift ice pack to his forehead, his hand covering mine. He nuzzles into the ice pack. “Take care of me, gorgeous.”
The other demons scoff and roll their eyes. Raz jerks his head toward the doorway, and the rest of them leave the room in a huddle, probably to discuss whatever the hell they were talking about when I walked in. The center ring of Hell or whatever.
Fine. Yeah, just walk away from your friend, I think. Let me play nurse. But really, they’re demons, so should I expect that much out of them? The way they played with Adam earlier, cheating to let him win Go Fish (which I saw during one of my very few, necessary checks on my brother’s safety), that’s clearly an exception.
I sigh as I look back down at Akor. But then I regret being a bitter Betty. He looks so pathetic and hurt that I find myself raising my hand to his cheek and gently stroking the uninjured skin there. “What happened?” I ask softly.
But Akor doesn’t answer. He just lets his eyelids flutter closed. “That feels so nice. Don’t stop.”
I let my fingers trail up and down his cheek as I note several evil-looking bruises on his neck that are changing color before my eyes. They go from purple to green to black within minutes, leaving me alarmed.
“Um, Akor. Are black bruises a normal demon thing?”
Is he dying?
He simply responds with a peaceful, “Mmmm.” Then he leans back on the couch, sliding us both so that his head can rest against the leather cushions. Once his head is comfortable, he moves me on his lap so that I end up right on top of a very solid bump.
Not dying then.
I quickly slide my ass down out of dangerous territory so that I’m sitting lower on his thighs.
Akor grumbles and tries to pull me back up onto his happy place. In an attempt not to piss off the unstable demon who left the house earlier with all of our knives, I reach up and stroke the side of his head, where his shorn hair is thin and blond. He liked me touching his cheek, so I gamble that he’ll like this too.
He moans, “Katrina, that feels so good.”
I keep stroking, and the words I naturally use on Adam pop out. “Shhh, you’ll be okay. I’m here. You’ll be okay.”
I note a trickle of blood near the neckline of his shirt and reach down, gently pulling back his shirt to see a jagged scratch running down his clavicle. It’s like someone or something clawed at him.
“Damn, you need some Band-Aids.” What he really needs is gauze, but I don’t say that. I don’t know if I have any in the house. I’ll have to look.
I move to stand up, but Akor clamps down on my hips and won’t let me move. “No, don’t go,” he whispers. “It’s been decades since someone’s touched me. Don’t stop.”
Of course, that makes me freeze.
Akor’s expression is laced with so much pain and hurt—the kind that’s not just physical, but emotional. A solitary tear gathers in the corner of one of his eyes when he opens them and lifts his blue gaze to mine.
I can’t refuse him.
He’s broken and hurting, jagged and chipped and raw, and he’s asking me to hold his pieces so he doesn’t break any further.
I can’t say no.
I don’t even want to.
“Move over,” I grumble. I shove him up against the back of the couch, taking the ice pack away and setting it on the coffee table. Then I snuggle into him so that we’re lying front to front, every part of me touching every part of him.
I’ve never done this