teases.
“We should go,” Jerif says. “I can feel the Gate. We’ve been gone too long.”
“Yes,” Iceman agrees, reaching down to take my free hand. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
Those are just about the best words I’ve heard in a long time, and my spirit practically sings. “Hell yeah. Get me out of this asylum before I catch the crazy too.”
“I wouldn’t normally object to you taking off your clothes, Maverick, but why exactly are you stripping down in our driveway?” Iceman asks me.
I growl as I contort my body in the weirdest angles so I can reach the zipper and peel myself out of the now soaking fabric of what used to be a beautiful dress. So much for keeping it and wearing it on my bloated PMS days when I need to feel beautiful and eat until the hormonal rage subsides.
“The fucker probably did that on purpose,” I grumble as I step out of the moonstone encrusted purple fabric that was my gown. “Could have portaled us to the front door of the mansion or right into a nice warm bath, but noooo.”
“No shifting within a mile from the Hell portal remember?” Jerif tells me. “We’re probably as close as he wanted us to get.”
I give a huff. “You guys get dropped on the driveway, and I get dropped right into the fucking bog you have hidden at the bottom of your estate’s stupid hill,” I growl. “Not fair.”
I can tell the guys are trying really hard not to laugh at my slimy, muddy state. I can taste the sludge in my mouth, and it’s already saturated my wings.
“I was holding your hand, so you tell me how I ended up down there and you didn’t?” I ask Iceman. But my eyes widen when I see what he’s holding in his hand. “Wait a minute. You managed to catch my scythe and save it from the bog, but not me?” I ask, fixing my glare on him.
He looks down at the stick a little sheepishly before quickly passing it back to me. “Apologies.”
Shaking my head, I kick off the one shoe that survived my tumble and try to wipe off my legs with the less sludge-covered portions of my dress. “Ugh, why does this shit happen to me?”
The other guys cover their mouths with their hands, but the snickers leak out despite their best efforts. I whirl on them, putting one hand on my hips while I hold the scythe in the other. I’m now only decked out in a skin colored, corseted bodysuit, and the mud that’s slowly dripping down my calves.
“You know Grumpy Lurch is going to cut me in my sleep if I trek in another mess,” I tell them. “He’ll fuck with my food, probably Nair my shampoo, and fill the house with doves because he’s petty like that. So I’m stripping down now before we get there.”
None of them argue my logic. I bend over, trying to get as much filth off of my feet as I can. I should probably be grateful that I’m not entirely covered this time in muck, but I’m tired and hungry and I’ve just barely survived Hell to end up in a pit of mud that smells like that nasty worm pasta that Satan likes to eat.
“Fine by us. We enjoy the view,” Crux says with an appreciative smile as his green eyes skate up my body. Even though I look like a runner-up at a bad mud wrestling competition, I still can’t help but blush.
Iceman’s amused gaze suddenly veers off in the direction of the graveyard for a moment, and his navy blue brows furrow. “Jerif, you and I are on boost duty tonight,” he declares, and both of them look back at me longingly for a moment before Jerif nods.
“We should induct Delta as soon as she’s fed and rested,” the lava demon states before his eyes land on me. “That is...if you still want that.”
I snort. “Did you not just hear me going to bat for this job against my sperm donor?”
Jerif shrugs. “You could have just been digging your heels in for the sake of being stubborn. Doesn’t mean you might not have second thoughts about all of this, especially now that you know you’re a Nihil.”
I study Jerif for a moment, getting the impression that he’s asking about more than just my accepting my duty to the Hellgate.
“Nihil or not, I meant everything I said,” I tell him evenly, surety ringing in my