The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,130

honesty is one of your best parts. So I will do you this favor and do nothing.

"She's right," I told him. "It'd be kinda weird if you busted out with the SAT words all of a sudden."

But, God went on, I will give you something else in exchange. I will teach her the languages of the first and second children. I have one condition for this, Beelzebub.

"Name it," he said.

You must take care of her, because you are the Devil's guardian. Her strength.

"What am I?" Nick asked, sounding like he was almost daring her.

Her mentor. Her confidence. She turned to look at Sam. You are her companion and have taught her acceptance. Ronwe shows her grace. And you, Lucifer, build her pride. All of you will protect some part of who she is, just like she will protect some part of who you are. I did not plan for you specifically, but I always knew that some would stand with her. I cannot imagine a more perfect group to assist the Devil than this.

"The ones who've spent their lives being blamed for it," I realized. "Ok, God. Show me how to understand Daemonic and Angelic."

First, you must sit down.

Obediently, I did, unable to imagine what could come next. I thought God would make her way back to me, but I was wrong. Instead, white light flared behind my eyes, blinding me, and my entire body locked up. The last thing I remembered was toppling sideways onto the couch. The strangest part, though, was that it didn't hurt at all.

30

Sienna

Four hours later, I finally woke up. Evidently, God didn't stop with just the languages of angels and demons. She also gave me the others. As in all of the others. Spanish, Fae, German, Satyr, and more. Ron went through everything he knew, and I could not only understand him, but also speak with the right words as fluently as I used English. In fact, they all felt like English to me, as if there was only one language I needed.

And while I'd taken a nap, it appeared that God had made herself comfortable. Luke had slipped out to buy a bouquet of cheap grocery store flowers and put them in a vase on the dining room table. The little dragon-butterfly was now happily playing in the pollen - or whatever - in the middle of them. Considering that from nose to rump, she was about the length of my pinky finger, I had a feeling fresh flowers were about to become common in the house.

Then there was the big thing. While I'd slept, the guys had come to terms with her. According to Sam, they'd all taken a moment to just talk to her, venting about the things they'd blamed her for. She'd apologized, listened, and tried to make up for it. He said she honestly seemed sorry, and while it wasn't all better, there was no way to hold a grudge with someone who insisted that he was right, she was wrong, and she hoped she could make up for it with each of them.

But once I was awake, the guys no longer had a reason to keep quiet. The bigger surprise was what they decided to spend their time doing on our first day back on Earth in so long. They cleaned. Ron got to learn how to work the vacuum. Bel was put in charge of dusting everything the others couldn't reach. Luke cleaned all the tables and counters while Sam mopped. And Nick? He made sure that all the stupid details were taken care of: that the cars had current tags, our identities were all working, and each of us had credit and debit cards that wouldn't be declined.

That left only one thing for me to do, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. Heading upstairs, I skipped Nick's room and headed to the one beside it. When I opened the door, I paused to appreciate that a group of men had decorated this on their own and managed to do such a good job. Then I stepped into the red room.

This was supposed to be mine. Dozens of unframed, stretched canvases were stacked against the walls. More hung in the empty spaces. All of them were things I'd painted. Some were for classes in high school. Others were for art classes I'd taken while saving up for college. Most, however, were just things that I had to get out of my head, and so many of