An irritated expression crossed Damon’s sharp features as he shook his head and gritted his teeth. The others had similar reactions.
“That’s not the point, Stevie. We’ve trained for this, we know what we’re capable of, and we know what you’re not,” Damon countered.
“But you were sent here to protect me, so that makes me the boss around here, doesn’t it?” I shot back at Damon. Lach stifled a proud smile, but the others gaped. Damon’s expression was a downright thundercloud.
“Kind of, but that’s really not the—” I didn’t let him finish.
“I know that, and I’m not stupid. I know the risks. At least, I think that I do. A little, anyway. But I’m just not mentally prepared for a life of fear and living like a fugitive,” I admitted. “I remember this time I went swimming in the ocean when I was a little kid. I was so sure there was a shark in the dark depths of the water that I swam around in icy panic the entire time. The unknown is a thousand times worse than if a shark had just attacked me.”
They all stared at me, blinking. Finally, Rex spoke up.
“The attacking part seems way worse to me.”
The others instantly chimed in with a chorus of agreement, even that traitor, Brie.
“Yeah, I’m going to go with the non-shark too, Steve.”
“Okay, fine. So maybe that’s a bad analogy, but you get the point,” I muttered in exasperation.
“Can we eat while we talk?” Lach interjected. “I hate cold eggs.”
“Let’s, yeah,” I said. Maybe they’d be more agreeable on full stomachs. While the guys stuffed their faces, I laid out the argument I’d come up with in the shower.
I concluded it only when their plates were clean and their eyes softer. Though I had no idea if it was as a result of my pleas or my food. Lachlan was the first to nod in agreement, coming up behind me to sling his arm over my shoulders. “Stevie has clearly given this a lot of thought, if she wants to stay. I say we stay, for now.”
Damon’s eyes flashed in warning but Lach shrugged. Matteo and Rex shared a glance, then set their jaws and nodded.
“Fine, but if we’re staying,” Damon said, his voice dangerously low, “you have to learn how to fight. No more games, no more reading. We will train all day every day and if you can’t keep up or get up to speed quickly, we’re leaving.”
His tone booked no argument, so I nodded my agreement. Brie looked dubious at best.
“If I can just add something here,” she said in a small voice. “Stevie catches houseflies in plastic grocery bags and sets them free outdoors so that she doesn’t have to kill them. I also can’t remember the last time she saw the inside of the gym. Fighting and killing off actual people, even evil ones… I’m not sure if she has the fortitude.”
Brie wasn’t wrong about old Stevie, but I was trying to be the new and improved version of myself. They had to know that. “I’m a new person now, I’ll do what I have to do to survive. And I’ll work around the clock if that’s what it takes to make sure that my protectors don’t end up like the last ones.”
It would cut me to the very bone to lose them. I cared for each of them so deeply already that it would haunt me if I was responsible for any one of them getting hurt, let alone if I was responsible for their deaths.
The guys mulled over my words, looking me up and down as though gauging my strength, my resolve. Before they could reach a final decision, Brie spoke up again.
“If you’re staying, I’m staying.” Her voice rang with finality. It broke my heart that I had to tell her no. I’d anticipated that as well.
“You can’t, B,” I said softly, shrugging out from under Lach’s arm and walking to Brie.
“I want to help,” she insisted.
“Not like this, not by staying,” I gently told her. “You have your own life to live and you aren’t as strong as the rest of us.”
To my relief, the guys agreed emphatically. Though it was Matteo’s colorful description of what awaited her if she stayed that finally swayed Brie. “Luci will cut through you like a cleaver through a skin-sack of meat if she finds you here.”
Brie blanched, going pale before she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay, I hear you. That doesn’t sound awesome.”
“At least someone around here listens,” Damon muttered, garnering dark looks from everyone else in the room. He wasn’t fazed in the least.
“I still want to help, though.” Brie’s voice drew our attention back to her. “If it’s not by staying and helping you train and learn, then tell me what I can do.”
Max slunk into the kitchen, clearly ready for his breakfast. I was going to miss him, but I took his sudden appearance as a sign that solidified the idea that was forming in my mind. Bending down, I scooped him up and scratched his soft head. Brie would take good care of him.
“You can take Max home with you. He’s my most valuable possession, but it’s not safe for him here either.” My voice cracked with emotion. It wasn’t goodbye, but it was sure starting to feel like it.
“Okay. I will protect him with my life,” Brie promised. “Is that it, though? There has to be something else.”
“There is, actually. Do you think you would be able to ward off questions from my mom and Charlie?” I asked her. I didn’t expect her to lie for me, but it would be a huge help if she could handle the home front. “You don’t have to lie to them, just tell them that I’m okay and spending some time away trying to find myself or something.”
“That’s not a lie, I guess,” Brie said.
“Exactly, you can just tell them that you’ve seen me and that I’m fine and safe. Let them know that I’ll call them when I can but that I just really need some time to myself.” That was also entirely true when I thought about it.
“That’s a solid plan,” Lach said. “It’ll help a lot if Stevie knew that she didn’t have to worry about things back home.”
My heart swelled with affection for him, for the succinct way in which he had summarized my feelings.
“It would also help us all rest easier if we knew that we didn’t have to watch out for more unexpected visitors that we nearly kill because we don’t know that they’re friendlies,” Matteo added his two cents.
The blood drained from my face. “You nearly killed her?”
“We were about to. That’s what we do, Stevie. We protect you from any threat. No matter how,” Damon’s eyes raked over Brie’s slight frame, “harmless it, or she in this case, may seem.”
“I had a bat,” Brie objected. “I wasn’t harmless.”
Lachlan hooted with laughter. “Do you honestly think that we’re scared of a tiny wooden bat?”
“I guess not,” she pouted. Then smiled. “At least I can rest assured knowing that you’ll do anything to protect her.”
“Absolutely,” the guys agreed.
“So how do we go about this whole ‘dealing with family’ thing, then?” I asked the room.
“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Brie answered immediately, fishing her phone from her bag and waving it at me. “We do what every self respecting young adult does and take a few selfies of our time together.”
The guys’ reactions varied. Damon rolled his eyes and shook his head, Lach and Matteo burst out laughing and even Rex’s mouth twitched, though he also looked perplexed.
“You’re on, where do you want to start?” She hopped from her seat and took my hand, leading me to the messy part of the kitchen where I’d whipped up the pancakes.
“Right here,” she answered and held out her phone, flipping the screen to selfie mode. “Smile for the camera.”
We spent the next few minutes taking selfies at various places around the house and even at the grotto. We got some pretty cool snaps in front of the fireplace, draping blankets over our legs and placing our kindles on our laps. We even took some of half-filled glasses of wine on the dining room table next to some of the cleared breakfast plates, creating the effect that the picture had been taken over supper.
Once we were done, even I had a hard time believing that we’d taken the pictures in a few minutes and not over the course of a couple of days spent together. Brie was a genius.
“I guess I’d better take off then,” she said, shouldering her gigantic bag of tricks.
“Not yet,” Damon spoke up, walking into the dining room where we’d staged the last of the shots. “Road’s still all snowed up. It will be plowed in a couple of hours, you can leave then. For now, want to watch your non-housefly-hurting friend in fight training?”
Brie’s eyes lit up in humor and she nodded enthusiastically. Damon smirked. It made me more determined than ever to become a great fighter.
I shoved Damon’s shoulder. “Lead the way, warrior prince.”
Chapter 14
The guys had shown me the training room and gym on my first day when they gave me the tour of the house, but I’d never been inside. It was huge, much bigger than it appeared from the door. To the left of the door was the gym area, it was chock-full of equipment with everything from weight training machines, to treadmills to yoga mats.
I tried, and failed, to imagine any of my massive guys doing yoga but there were some mats still spread out from where someone had worked out earlier.
Right on the center of the space was a gleaming wooden floor that appeared to be a training floor. It had a few scuff marks but was in good shape otherwise. It was an expansive space and I assumed from the fact that it was so central that it saw a lot of action.
Off to the other side of it was the training weapons section, though I didn’t know what its actual name was. Some of the weapons I recognized, like the bow and arrow and honest to god swords. Others looked vaguely like medieval torture devices and sent an uncomfortable shiver down my spine, but I squared my shoulders and bit back my unease.
If I wanted to have any kind of life that wasn’t spent living in constant fear, which I badly did, I had to learn how to fight. Even if it meant learning how to use every one of those scary-looking weapons.
“Have a seat.” Lachlan patted an open space on a bench off to the side.
“I thought we were fighting?” I arched a brow.
“We are,” Matteo confirmed from behind me. “But first, we have to tell you a few things.”
Brie and I sank onto the bench side by side. The guys towered over us. Matteo and Damon walked over to flip a switch on the wall closest to us, causing it to slide open to reveal hundreds of vials and strangely shaped blades and ammunition cases, crossbows and more. My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe that all of these deadly things had been right beneath my feet all this time.
Brie shrank against my side. I wasn’t the only one uncomfortable and taken aback. Lach chuckled at our unease, then came over to pat my thigh.
“Relax, you girls are safe with us. No one’s about to lose it and hurt the person we’re protecting.” Then his gaze flickered to Brie. “Or her friend.”
We both nodded, but something vital inside of me had shifted yet again. I’d known as soon as I’d laid eyes on them that they were dangerous. It radiated from them as surely as their brute strength and blatant sexuality.
Seeing them here, however, in their natural habitat, moving like deadly predators from one end of the gym to the other as they gathered whatever they needed for their show and tell, was overwhelming. They were built to kill and clearly had the toys to back them up.
Apprehension rolled through me. How the hell was I supposed to keep up with that? Brie was right about my innate nature to nurture and protect, yet there was also something else building inside of me.
Something unfamiliar that was thrilling at the thought of harnessing the power that I felt coursing through my veins more acutely now that I was faced with actual fighting and weapons. Something that felt completely alien and like a limb I hadn’t known I’d lost growing back all at the same time.
Rex watched me closely while he gathered seemingly random weapons from the training section and carried them over. Damon and Matteo were talking quietly among themselves at the wall of death. Lachlan was doing a series of flips and kicks, his body twisting like a graceful, predatory dancer in midair.
“Show off,” Rex muttered as he came over and set his weapons down.
Damon cracked a grin, joining Rex at the growing pile of equipment by our feet. “Are you surprised?”
Rex shook his head, adding dryly, “I was surprised when he didn’t break out his moves in the living room when it took us longer than we were planning on getting her down here.”
Matteo laughed. “He’s got nothing on me.”
“Careful, Matty, your cockiness is showing,” I laughingly joined the banter.
“You can see my cock,” he paused, smirking, “anytime you want to.”
He winked at me, which made Brie giggle and relax again.
Damon clapped his hands. “Right, boys. Let’s get to work, shall we?”
They fell into a loose formation around him, as though they were bound to their positions by an invisible thread. They were obviously comfortable with their respective positions.
“Okay, rules of engagement,” Matteo started. “There are some sacred areas in the paranormal world where attack is prohibited, but even those are shaky at the moment. Especially where succubi are concerned since Luci came around.”
“Why don’t you go there anyway? For Stevie’s protection,” Brie asked. It was a good question and I nodded, impressed.
“Can’t,” Rex answered gruffly. “They’re reserved as residences only for the elders. The rest of us are only allowed for meetings and negotiations.”
“Oh.” In that one syllable, Brie managed to convey the same disappointment that I felt.
“Moving on swiftly,” Lach said. “The rules of engagement are simple, really. We have none of that humanitarian bullshit that humans do. There are few things that are not allowed in our fights. They mostly relate to weapons that kill or incapacitate an entire army at once, but then there are some serious loopholes to those rules.”
“So basically, anything goes, anywhere, at any time?” My blood ran cold.
Damon met my eyes and nodded.
Shit. I swallowed.
“To that end, Luci is a master at bending the few rules that there are, so really, if it comes to a fight, which it will, we’re going to have to hedge our bets and fight to the death. Or escape, if that’s possible,” Lach said.
“Fight to whose death?” I breathed, feeling myself pale.
“Hers,” Matteo said confidently. “Which is why you need to know what can and cannot kill her.”
“Okay.” My voice was too shaky to say much more.
“Everything on that wall,” Damon gestured to the wall of death, “contains elements of things that can kill her. Silver-tipped arrow points that were forged in hellfire, bullets engraved with her family crest that have ripped through her human ancestors, and a handful of herbs that aren’t readily available in this realm.”
“That’s all?” Brie choked out.
“Weapons wise, yes. There are a couple of spells, but they haven’t been tested against Luci yet. Obviously. Even if they have killed powerful succubi in the past,” Rex added. “She’s wily, that one.”
“Okay then.” It definitely wasn’t okay, but what else could I say? I gulped, trying to even out my breathing.
Damon cast a worried glance at me, but pushed forward. “Each of us has a different strength when we’re fighting. That’s why we work so well as a team. I excel at hand-to-hand combat.”
I flashed on my dream and remembered Damon going at it with rival armies. It was too close to his true skill for comfort, especially since I hadn’t known what that was at the time.
“We’ll each be taking sessions with you to teach you our respective strengths, so you and I will be starting in the morning,” Damon told me.
Seriously? My first session was going to be with the biggest one? Nerves bubbled in my stomach. They were only calmed when I reminde
d myself that Damon would never actually hurt me. Though I knew he wouldn’t go easy on me either.
“Okay,” I squeaked. “What about the others?”
Rex stepped forward as if he sensed that I needed to be comforted. “I’m a flame thrower.”
That made sense, I guess. I wondered if that had anything to do with the temperature of his bare skin. I remembered the feel of his burning chest under my fingertips and from his knowing smirk, he knew exactly what I was thinking about. I really had to look up demons and mind-reading powers.
“You’ve seen both Damon and I produce small flames, but with focus and energy, those small flames can grow into balls and rods depending on your will. You can do it too.” My jaw dropped, but he carried on. “By now you should’ve felt light and heat coursing through your veins. The trick is to harness that energy.”
He was right, I had felt it on multiple occasions, mostly from interactions with them that would make me blush if I let myself think about them, but it seemed impossible to harness those feelings.
“I’m a marksman with a crossbow or a bow and arrow,” Lach volunteered next. “You and I will practice most afternoons at sunset until dinnertime.”
“Why?”
“Luci is most likely to attack at night. She’s been known to spend her days feeding and her nights expending the energy she absorbed,” Lach said so matter-of-factly that I had to replay the words in my mind to grasp their meaning.
“You mean…?” I trailed off.
Lach nodded grimly. “Yeah, I mean she absorbs power and life during the day and attacks at night.”
I was sure that if Brie wasn’t there, his answer would’ve been way more descriptive. Something along the lines of, ‘Yeah, I mean she fucks all day and slaughters all night’.
I shuddered at the thought that I would need to uh, feed, that much eventually. Rex answered my unspoken question.
“You won’t end up like her. She does it because she wants to, not because she needs to.”
The others nodded, but Brie looked confused. “What do you mean feed? What does she feed on?”
Her Demon Harem: Reverse Harem Duology 1 (The Succubus Chronicles) Page 11