Outlaw (Wolves of Royal Paynes #4) - Kiki Burrelli Page 0,62
baby boy and worrying about the dead tomato plant leaves would achieve nothing. Still, I should've told my mate instead of keeping it from him in an attempt to save him hurt.
A hurt he ended up experiencing anyway.
"You feel that power, brother?" Claus whispered, his lips curling like he was enjoying this. "That's your demon side. My presence must help you open the door to your demon, and that power you feel right now, making all your no-no places warm? It's only possible because of that."
The shadow covering the room disappeared the same moment the tornado died. Quinlan sank into my arms and the wraiths shrank, hanging once again over his shoulders. "I don't want that kind of power," he spat.
"I thought so," Claus quipped, turning back to the others like Quinlan had simply asked a question out of turn instead of nearly reenacting a scene from Twister. "I don't know what the fuss is about. You aren't even full demon. You're half demon and half nephilim."
"But that's two halves," Jazz said. "That isn't all he is. He's more human than demon," Jazz said as if his determination could make it so.
Claus rounded on him. "Yeah, except the demon and the angel cancel each other out and make a human… Sometimes."
"That isn't possible." Jazz didn't sound like he cared that Claus was a demon, not when the topic was Quinlan. "Your math is shit."
"Fine! I accept that! Moving on!" Claus sliced his hand through the air repeatedly. "Pierce wanted to sleepwalk the nephilim out, and I'm spitballing from what I overheard here, but I think he planned on taking Quinlan and—if it were me—kidnapping the others to appease my master. A servant as banged up as that can't be in his master's good graces. And because of that banged-up-ed-ness he could likely only succeed in taking you all if everyone was deep under the control of the Skull of Arach. In Pierce's hands, sleepwalking you out of here is the extent he could do with the skull. In a demon's hands? A demon king? Horror and anguish? I'd have been unstoppable." He stuck out his bottom lip, crossing his arms to pout.
"Not sorry," Quinlan murmured.
"All this tells me is that he's still trying to serve his demon king. Thalasso is as forgiving as a rusty needle, so whatever Pierce did to get on his bad side he must be scrambling to remedy. This…" He gestured to himself. "It isn't supposed to happen. We aren't supposed to get passes out of hell. We kings do go out, but only on the devil's business. For Thalasso to use his soul contracts to make this happen means he must have an endgame. Otherwise, he's ash when he goes back."
The wraiths skimmed the ceiling as they zoomed back and forth over our heads.
I grabbed Quinlan's hand. "What are they saying?"
"Nothing. They're just…scared? They're scared."
Dog whined and jumped on the table, barking up at the wraiths, who paid him no mind.
Claus pushed back from the table, reaching up like he was trying to catch the wraiths.
"Stop! Don't hurt them!" Quinlan cried out, sounding so much like a little brother pleading to his older sibling that I couldn't refuse the fact that these two beings were related.
"I'll get them for you," Jazz said, shifting as he jumped forward. He flapped his wings and lifted feet into the air, and I wasn't sure if Jazz's ulterior motive wasn't to show off how much he'd been working on his flying. The space was too small for a jumping dog, leaping demon, and flying wolf, with the wraiths weaving around it all like bullets that couldn't make up their minds.
The chaotic sounds drowned out everything else, which meant none of us knew someone was here until the front door opened, and Alejandro stepped inside with a teenage girl.
"Hola, I let myself in. I tried calling Hallie's cell and then knocking—for a while—but…" Alejandro turned like he was moving through wet cement, slow and dramatic. His eyes landed first on Claus, unapologetically demon, stretching his clawed hand toward the ceiling. He gave Dog a brief glance, but seemed to decide that wasn't behavior too out of the ordinary. But then he spotted the wraiths and Jazz—who'd crashed to the table, tangling up in his wings, the moment he realized we had guests.
Hallie pushed back from the table and stood, both hands cupping her tummy. "Al! I forgot—"
Alejandro grabbed the teenage girl's hand and walked out the door.