lie to you.”
And I believe him.
The female demon laughs. “Oh, Akor. I like this one. So trusting!” She thrusts a hand right in my face. “I’m Arariel.”
“Ariel?” I ask, because she spoke close to my bad ear.
Right away, she straightens, jaw clenching.
I realize my mistake. “Sorry.” I wave my hand frantically at my ear like I’m trying to put out a fire or something. “Deaf in that ear.”
Her face melts like butter, getting soft and delicious once more. “Oh. My apologies. Were you born deaf?”
I sigh. “No. Car accident.” I keep my answer clipped, trying to cut off conversation about it. I don’t like remembering that night.
“You look so young. Were your parents driving?”
I shake my head. “It was a nanny.” Before they had me to look after Adam, my parents hired help to look after me.
“You poor thing. I can’t believe she was so careless!”
Dammit all. I can’t stand to have people think ill of Ali, who was for all intents and purposes my mother when I was a child. “She wasn’t. It was nighttime, and we’d just gotten ice cream at the drive through.” I’d been a bit of a brat, trying to take the lid off of mine and dropping it on her back seat accidentally. She’d looked back to curse at me, then back up at the road and then—
“We hit a deer…or something,” I say. The “deer” part of my explanation comes from the years of therapy where it was beaten into my head. For a long time after the accident, I’d had nightmares that Ali had hit someone, some huge, hulking shadow. But it had been dark. And what did I know? The only deer I’d seen as a kid was Bambi.
I try to yank myself out of the nostalgic whirlpool threatening to suck me under. I give a fake little smile that immediately transforms into a look of pure terror, because Adam barrels right past me to Arariel.
He wraps both arms around her and gives her a huge hug before he steps back and says, “Hi. I’m Adam. You have big boobs.” He’s completely nonplussed by the wings and horns. Maybe I let him watch too many superhero shows.
Arariel laughs. “You’re very observant. That’s usually the last thing anyone notices about me.” She glances up at me and winks.
Instantly, I soften a little toward her. Anyone who treats Adam well gets a gold star in my book.
Of course, the bonding moment is ruined when Jason comes bounding in. “I just peed outside. Are there more brains? Oh, your brain smells good.” He leans closer to Arariel, who just looks at Akor and raises a brow.
Akor just snatches up Adam and says, “Let’s go play fetch with the zombie-man-dog, okay?”
“Oh yeah! That’s epic! Can we throw heads for him?” It’s like he’s stepped into one of his favorite TV shows or something and he’s just rolling with it.
“I’m fresh out of heads, but I’ve got a severed hand we can use.”
“Yes!” Adam gives a victory screech.
Jason trots along behind them, waggling his butt and jumping up near Akor’s shoulder asking, “Can I eat the fingers? Can I? Can I?”
I want to facepalm. I want to beat myself with a stick. I’ve become a terrible influence, and my brother is going to grow up thinking playing with dead bodies is normal. “I need to get out of here.”
But a soft male voice at my back says, “Why? We just got here? The fun’s about to start!” I turn to the side to see four male demons and Raz. Were they behind Arariel? I couldn’t see past the boobs or my own jealous haze. They all hold lite beers in their hands.
“Watching your figure?” I can’t help but jab at Raz, gesturing at the prominent Only 100 Calories! printed on the can.
“Watching yours,” one of the new demons jests, winking at me and giving me a salacious once over before he takes a long pull from his beer.
Kastros and Van release low, warning growls, standing so close that their wings brush me when they tuck them closed, and the sensation of supple leather trails over my arms briefly before their wings disappear like they were never there.
Kastros’s hand comes down on my shoulder, and he pulls me tight into him, sending a surge of heat through my stomach. I’m a little surprised by the decidedly possessive touch, but I’m more confused with how much I like it. Choosing not to focus on either of those thoughts,