The Lure of the Devil (The Demons' Muse #4) - Auryn Hadley Page 0,132

today. It's going to take a bit, but he says it's yours, since this is where you call home, and it was simply convenient for us to find a place with enough rooms for all of us."

"That doesn't fix the problem," I reminded him. "It's sweet, and it's amazing, and I do love this place. But the fact is that I owe it to Sam to be his when I'm with him, and Ron's when I'm in there, and Bel's when I spend the night with him."

"No," Nick breathed. "Sia, that's not how it works. You don't belong to any one of us, and we don't forget the others, dove. You're mine and theirs, all at the same time. Most of all, you belong to you. We are the ones who wait for your attention, entertaining ourselves with each other. Didn't you notice that no one paired up last night until you were in Ron's room? We wait, Sia. We don't say anything because we don't want to pressure you, but I promise that we're all waiting to see who's lucky enough to get the invitation. We spend all day trying to impress you so we'll be the one who's chosen. Doesn't matter if you just want to go to sleep. I swear it doesn't. It's just that we want to..."

"To what?"

He leaned in, pressing his brow against mine. "To love you. I was going to say we just want to have a piece of your life, but I know you well enough to guess that you'll then start to worry you're doing something wrong, and you're not. You aren't ignoring us, and you aren't being selfish. It's more that for our entire existence, the people we love only stick around for a while. They die, and so we try to cram in as much time with them as possible." He paused. "And every time I see your clothes in those drawers, I remember the college girl who shoved herself into the corridor to chase down Death. The woman who drained an angel to his knees and was so in awe of the aether she'd collected. It's not because I don't want you to be with them. It's because I don't want to lose the memories of when we found you. Of that girl who grabbed her sketchbook and came here because she was supposed to think all of this through, and she felt most comfortable doing it in our living room."

"I'm not doing this to hurt you," I insisted.

"Then don't do it," he told me. "Let us make this into your studio. Let us build rooms onto the cottage. Give us the chance to fit you into the lives we had before you were even born."

"So, how do I make this fair to them?" I asked. "Especially Luke, because things between you two seem so good."

"They are," he assured me. "And Bel is completely smitten with Ron. He's been so worried that you'd feel rejected if he made a move on anyone else, so we convinced him you'd be thrilled. Please be thrilled?"

"I am!" But he'd made me laugh, even if it was weak. I could definitely imagine Bel worrying about that - and the guys talking him through it the same way they had with me. But that came back to treating them all the same. "Nick, I love you so much. I just want to be fair to everyone."

He nodded. "Ok. So how about we consider something different?"

"Ok?"

"First," he said, catching my hands and stepping back toward the door, towing me with him, "We could get you more things and put your clothes in all of the guys' rooms. Personally, I'm a big fan of this, since it would mean we all have a little piece of you, even when you're not in the room. Your shampoo in our showers, and your toothbrushes beside our sinks. Maybe even a few long orange hairs left in the sheets, which will inevitably end up wrapped around our balls at the worst time."

"Nick!" I hissed, struggling not to laugh.

He just opened the door and kept going, heading to the other side of the hall. "And then there's the second option." The room he was leading me to wasn't one I'd been in before. It was directly across from the gold room and faced the front of the house. Without any fanfare, he opened the door and stepped in, one hand still clinging to mine so I'd follow.

But it was empty.