over to smell them, the shirt riding dangerously high up her thighs.
“Unless Stav can sleepwalk or Zach is faster than me, it must’ve been.” I averted my gaze, hoping she’d take my dismissiveness as a sign that it was nothing. I didn’t pick the marigolds for her. I totally just grabbed flowers out of the ground randomly and stuck them on the table all the time.
“Thank you, Kais. This is really sweet of you.” Of course she wouldn’t. She could probably taste how badly I wanted the flowers to make her happy.
Deyva straightened up and padded toward me on bare feet, her smile downright devilish. “Marigolds are much better than daisies.”
“I don’t know about that. You’d look pretty cute with a crown of daisies around those horns.” I wanted to kick myself. Why was it so easy to flirt with her?
She was made to feed off that energy, you idiot.
“You wouldn’t,” she huffed, pouting in mock anger. “I’ll tell Stavros on you.”
The laughter barked sharply out of my throat and wouldn’t stop coming. She looked so fucking cute when she said that, and for some reason, knowing she could kill me with the strength in her pinky finger made it even funnier.
“Right,” I wheezed. “So you can kill demons and what’s Stav gonna do, hug me to death?”
She let out a girlish giggle, wrapping her arms around herself as the joy spread plainly across her features. It wasn’t just Stav having the time of his life since she’d been here.
“I know, right? He’s such a teddy bear.” Her eyes grew dreamy, still hugging herself as she swayed from side to side. “He tastes so sweet when he feels loved. It’s like I want to protect him from everything out there, and make him feel like that all the time.”
“That’s Stav, alright.” I cleared my throat, sobering up from my laughing fit. “The guy thinks he’s especially susceptible to lust, but it’s not that. He just has a lot of love to give, and people have taken advantage of that.”
Deyva made an adorable little growling sound. It made me smile and caused a pinching sensation in my chest at the same time. Stav was damn lucky.
“I worry about people taking advantage of Zach too,” I said quickly, hoping to steer the conversation away from her love life. “Even before Azariah showed up. He’s just…”
“Young,” Deyva and I said together. “And idealistic,” she added.
“He’s always seen things as black or white. Good or evil.” I chopped through the air with my hand to illustrate. “So it’s a fair assumption that he’s learning some nuances now and that things aren’t always what they seem.”
Deyva laced her hands in front of her, her expression turning pensive. “Has he ever told either of you?”
I blinked. “Told us what?”
She sighed. “That he’s bisexual, Kais.”
“What do you think?” I scoffed. “I’m not surprised, but I also know he’d be a sexless Ken doll if he had any control over it.”
“It’s just, when we caught him like that with Azariah...” She chewed her lip, brows furrowing. “I tasted so much embarrassment from him, so much pain and shame. I know he’s not the biggest fan of me, but I just want to wrap him up and protect him too. To tell him it’s okay.”
“After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, I think he’s a bigger fan than you realize,” I said. “He just needs to stop clutching his pearls first. But I understand that need to protect him. The world is harsh to kids like him, even before the Rising.”
At some point during our conversation, Deyva and I had drifted closer together. She stood directly in front of my feet now, face angled up towards me and well within the reach of a caress.
“And who protects you, Kais?” she asked in a breathy whisper.
I tried to huff out a dismissive laugh, but it got stuck in my throat. “I look after myself. Always have.”
“How’s that working out for you?” Her green irises shifted to gold, sharp and reflective. “I’ve tasted your pain, Kais. You don’t have to face it alone.”
Her lips reached toward me until they were close, so close. And then they were touching mine.
The heat of her mouth felt like a brand. The reality, knowing that this was no longer a dream, shook me down to my shoes. And her tongue flicking out to taste me might as well have been on my cock the way fucking thing jumped to attention. My instincts screamed