"She has to eat," Seven reasoned. "She will come out eventually."
"Once she calms down, I will go talk to her," Lenore supplied.
"Yes, because learning that not only do demons exist, but witches do as well, will certainly help the situation," I drawled, getting an eye roll from her.
"I'm the only woman here that can talk to her. It might help. I don't have to say anything about being a witch. Or, you know, part demon myself."
"Do what you got to do," I invited, pushing through the crowd in the doorway, making my way back upstairs, closing myself in my room that still smelled like sex. The sheets were still bunched up where her hands had grabbed them as she came. "Fuck," I hissed, pacing the length of my room, trying to force my thoughts to calm, so I could focus.
I didn't manage that.
And when exhaustion finally called me to bed, I had vivid dreams of her.
She didn't come out the next day.
She didn't, it seemed, even check on Red.
And she certainly hadn't touched the food Lenore and Minos had brought up to her twice that day. Daemon had even run to the store to pick up various items he'd heard Josephine mention while she'd cooked herself food.
Even with her favorites there for her, she refused to eat.
She'd rather starve than take anything from us.
That realization made another of those stabbing sensations pierce my chest.
"Just break the fucking door down," Drex suggested, shrugging. "She's only good to us for taking care of Red. She's not doing that. So force her out. Fuck what she thinks about it."
"I'm not so sure she's not checking on Red," Lenore said, drawing my attention. "Red was on the opposite side this morning as she was last night. I mean, I haven't been paying that close of attention, but Red doesn't seem to be writhing around anymore. I don't see how she would have gotten onto her other side unless someone else rolled her there."
"So then, there's no problem," Drex concluded.
"Except humans die if they don't eat," Minos reminded him.
"She will eat eventually," Drex said, shrugging. "She might be stubborn, but humans have a strong survival instinct. I mean, they cannibalize each other when they need to," he added, shrugging. "Besides, if she doesn't make it, we can just get another one. We weren't planning on keeping her on forever."
A low, growling sound moved through my chest, loud enough for Minos and Ly to look at me curiously, but, luckily, no one else noticed.
"And if that is all settled, I am heading out," Drex announced. "Want me to take the little shit with me to keep him out of everyone's hair? If I hear him complain about not getting any pussy while we are on lockdown one more time, I am going to punch a hole through the core of the Earth to send him back to hell myself."
"Did I hear someone call my name? Daemon asked, appearing out of nowhere, clearly shamelessly eavesdropping.
"Yeah, take him. But watch him," I demanded, giving Drex a hard look. I didn't need to say it. After all these years, he knew what I was trying to get across.
We don't need issues with any more supernaturals.
"Oh, he doesn't need to watch me, boss man. I'll keep myself occupied and out of trouble under some pretty lady's skirt," Daemon said, giving me a smirk before making his way out of the front door. Drex followed behind, letting out a sigh.
"So what about Red?" Aram asked, moving into Drex's old seat.
"What about Red?" I asked him.
"Why isn't she healing? Who would have done this to her? And why?"
"Fuck if I know," I admitted, hating the words even as they came out, but there was no way around them anymore. I'd consulted all my books. I couldn't find a single reason a demon would be suffering this long. Or would lose their minds at all. "You got any insight?" I asked, looking at Bael since he'd been in hell most recently.
"You know how it is down there. Different crews. We don't usually attack each other, but shit happens."
"She had no crew," Aram told him. "We're her crew."
That was both true... and not.
We were her crew on Earth after we'd all somehow gotten ourselves sucked up here and stuck. Before then, none of us had really known one another.
"We're her crew now. We weren't always her crew," I reminded them. "She was under Marceaus," I clarified, looking back at Bael.
"Marceaus?" Bael asked, brows drawing together.
"Yes. Why? What aren't you saying?" I demanded.
"Marceaus is a legend."
"Why does that sound past tense?" Seven asked.
"Because no one has seen Marceaus in a generation," Bael said. "Lucifer himself has been pissed since he had disappeared. Marceaus was one of his favorites. One of the most ruthless bastards anyone had ever met."
My gaze slid to Ly, seeing reflected what I already had swirling through my mind.
"Marceaus has to be here," Aram said.
"Yeah, that's what everyone is thinking now," Ly agreed. Then, he looked at me. "How much older is Marceaus than you?"
"A lot," I confirmed.
"Could he know something?" Aram asked.
"We'd have to find him and ask," Seven concluded. "What do you think?" he asked, looking at me.
"I think it's a big fucking world," I told him. "I think that if he came up here a generation ago, he could have acclimated just about anywhere."
"We could put some feelers out," Aram said, hopeful, not anywhere near ready to give up on healing his friend.
"Yeah," I agreed, if for no other reason, than to get some of them out of the way. "You, Seven, and Bael should head out after you've packed and put a plan together."
"You want us to put the plan together?" Seven clarified, looking confused. And why shouldn't he? I'd never let them lead up missions without any direction before.
"Yeah. Stay out of trouble with the law. Stay away from any unfriendly supernaturals. And keep in touch."
The men shared a look. Aram was anxious. Seven was determined to prove he could handle it. And Bael, well, Bael was his usual closed-down mask.
"Do you really think he would give a shit about Red after all this time?" Ly asked, getting an elbow from Lenore who may have loved him as he was, but never stopped trying to remind him to be a little kinder.
"I don't know. She talked about him all the time like they had a close mentor/mentee relationship." That she clearly wanted to mean more. "Women of our kind aren't common, so he would have taken extra time with her. Hopefully, it was enough that he would at least offer some insights if he has any."
"We should have told them to pick up Daemon on their way," Ly suggested.
"He's a liability on the road without the rest of us around to rein him in," I said, shrugging. "If he ends up liking the club, we can sic him on Drex most nights."
"I thought you weren't a fan of the club," Ly said, brow raising.
"I'm not. But we have bigger problems right now."
"Problems like the nurse?" he pressed.
"Yes, her starving to death would be inconvenient at best."
"Yeah, that must be the problem," Ly agreed, shaking his head, grabbing Lenore, and making their way out of the room.
"What?" I asked as Minos gave me a long, hard look.
"I... you know what? Nothing," he said, shrugging, and going off to his room to blast his sad music, like usual.
Another day went by that Josephine didn't eat.
But on the third night, I snuck into Red's room, hiding in the dark of her closet, waiting to see if what Lenore said was true, that she found a couple minutes a night to come in and care for her patient still.
I'd just about given up.
It was that moment just before dawn when the sky was still dark, but you could hear some birds already waking up for their morning.
It was probably the one part of the day when none of us were awake, too late for the others, and a little bit too early for me.
That was when the door lock disengaged, then the door cracked open.
Her head appeared, looking around first, then rushing out, giving the food on the plate outside the bathroom door one mournful look before she got to Red, feeling for a temperature, checking the wounds, forcing her medicine down her throat, and then rolling her onto her other side.
With that, she made her way back to the bathroom, pausing, then dropping down beside the plate, grabbing handfuls of cold food, finally proving Drex right. She didn't have the willpower to starve to death.
"If you weren't so stubborn, you could have eaten it when it was warm," I said, getting a shocked gasp out of her as she tried to get up, get back into her tiled sanctuary.
But I was faster, stepping into the doorway just as she got inside, grabbing the door, preventing her from closing it.
"You should let me explain," I suggested, trying to keep my tone even.
"I don't need an explanation," she said, taking steps backward, wanting as much distance from me as possible. "You're evil."
"Yes," I agreed, nodding.
"You have no soul."
"That goes hand-in-hand with the evil part, so yes."
"You're not even going to try to deny it?"
"What use is there for that? You've seen it with your own eyes. You're not stupid."
"I slept with a, with a, demon," she said, spitting the word like a curse.
"Yes, you did. I don't see how that changes anything, though."
"You're not human," she snapped.
"That's both true and untrue," I said. "I have human flesh. My body functions like any normal man's does."
"You have horns."
"Occasionally. Usually when I'm angry," I clarified. "And, apparently, when I have sex with you."
"Just me?" she asked. "No, don't answer that. It doesn't matter. It is never going to happen again."
"Yes, just you. I've been around for a long time, Josephine. I've known a lot of women. That has never happened before."
"What does that mean?"
"Honestly, I don't know."
"Did you... did you do something to me?"
"Something like what?" I asked, brows furrowing.
"Like impregnate me like a Devil's Due situation?" she asked, looking ashen at the very idea.
"You mean did I put a demon baby inside you? No, Josephine. I wore a fucking condom, remember?"
"Well, I don't know how that works," she said, waving toward my crotch.
"It works similarly to the typical man you're used to. Except I can only impregnate when I intend to. And I didn't," I added when she didn't look convinced. "I know your movies and film make it seem like all we do is come here and knock up unsuspecting women, but that's not how it works."
"How does it work then? Why don't you do that?"
"Because there's no reason to. We don't have typical family structures. There's no real drive to carry on our lineage unless we Claim a human woman. And that rarely happens." Except, not as rarely as it used to, it seemed.
"I don't understand."
"Claiming is, in a way, involuntary. Something in us reacts to a certain woman and Claims her. Lycus and Lenore have that. It means he is attached to her for eternity. He would do anything to protect her, to keep her happy. Even if Lenore had rejected him, the Claiming would be a part of him."
"It sounds like love," she said, shaking her head at me.
"Love is a choice," I countered.
"No, it's not."
"Sure it is. That's how you can fall into and out of it. You choose that. There is none of that with Claiming. We can't fall out of it. It is a forever part of us."
To that, her gaze fell, inspecting the tiles on the floor for a moment before looking back up. "It doesn't matter. That all doesn't matter."
"What does then?"
"You're a demon!" she shrieked before shrinking back like she thought I might charge at her.
"Yes, I am. It doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything!"
"How so? I've been this way since we met. The only difference now is that you know. Nothing has changed."
"What do you want from me?"
"The same thing I've wanted from the beginning. For you to help Red."
"Red is one too, isn't she?" she asked, the dread in her voice letting me know that she hadn't considered that before.
"Yes. We all are. Well, Lenore only partly."
"Partly? How can you be partly demonic?"
"Look, it's a lot," I told her. "If you want the information, I will give it to you. I will answer your questions," I offered, knowing the outcome would be the same regardless, even if an increasingly disproportionate part of me hated the idea of that being her fate. "But you have to come out of this fucking bathroom. You have to eat. There's no reason for you to be miserable."
"I slept with a demon, so, yeah, there is," she mumbled under her breath.
"Hey," I called, moving forward, snagging her chin, forcing it up. "Enough, okay? E-fucking-nough of that. You fucked me. It doesn't matter what I am."
"Does it... hurt your feelings?" she asked, brows scrunching. "That I feel this way?"
"We don't have feelings. Not the way you do."
"It seems like you're upset."
Even as she was saying it, I could see what she was saying. It was in the tension in my jaw, in the churning sensation in my stomach.
I was upset.
Offended.
Hurt.
Or some combination of the three.
It was hard to tell after so long without having to deal with most pesky human emotions, save for maybe the ones that came more naturally to my kind—frustration and anger.
But there they were, unmistakable, undeniable.
"If I am, that is something new for me too," I admitted to her, feeling oddly laid bare. This was what vulnerability felt like. I'd never truly wrapped my head around the concept before. "Come on," I said, dropping her chin, taking a few steps back. "Come out of here. Go back to normal. I'll leave you alone if you want. Or, if you would rather, I can educate you. But come out. Sleep on the couch instead of the floor—"
"Bathtub," she corrected, waving, making me turn and find a collection of towels and washcloths piled in the small space.
"That's even worse," I told her, shaking my head. "Sleep on the couch. Eat your food. Think about what you want. Then let me know, okay?" I asked, making my way out of the bathroom, giving her space.
She gave me a tight nod.
"Okay."
"Okay," I agreed. "I'll get Minos to make you something fresh," I said, waving at the food.
"Alright. Thanks," she added, not taking any steps further.
Until I was out of the bedroom, in the hall.
I had a feeling I knew what she was going to want.
Me as far away from her as possible.
It shouldn't have mattered.
But, I found as I sat up all night going over it, it mattered.
It mattered more than anything I could remember anything mattering.
Chapter Thirteen
Jo
It felt like a lifetime ago that I was worried about my new co-workers, about cutting my hair, about maybe getting a new pet.
I had been so much more naive then.
I felt so much older now.
Now that I knew how the world really worked, that demons walked among us, that they didn't look like twisted creatures out of nightmares or horror movies.
Oh, no.
They looked like very attractive human beings.
I'd noticed some things in the couple of days after I emerged from the bathroom to try to find some semblance of normal again. Like the fact that Minos and Ly and Daemon all had the same flecks of red in their eyes that Ace did, just in different patterns. They were all warm. You could feel it from several inches away. And there was a chilliness to the way they engaged with me that must have been because of their soullessness.
I guess I had been able to overlook all these things because I had nothing to compare th
em to.
Now, though, it was all glaringly obvious.
I kept finding myself looking for other things about them that was different from me, from us, from the human race.
Since they weren't freaking human.
Unfortunately, they all seemed to be under strict instructions not to come too close to me, to linger long. They came in, brought me food, removed old dishes, helped me with Red, and—in the case of Daemon—came in to clean.
"Do you enjoy cleaning?" I found myself asking on the fourth day after I was out of the bathroom, watching Daemon scrub the sink wearing a pair of ridiculous pink cleaning gloves. I knew they came in yellow and even blue, but he was always wearing pink for some reason.
"I can't say that I do, pretty lady," he said, giving me his signature playboy smile.
"Then why are you the one always doing it?"
"I think that answer is two-fold. On one side, I think they all believe I am the least threatening of our kind to come in here for any length of time. On the other, they like making me do all the chores around here."
"You're all evil," I said, shrugging.
"True," he agreed. "But before you knew that, did you hate us all?"
"You kidnapped me."
"You talked to me like a friend in the kitchen while you cooked. Even though we'd kidnapped you."
"Clearly, I have not been thinking straight," I said, tone clipped, a large part of me determined to despise them all, even if they weren't currently giving me a reason to.
"Do you want to try it again?" he asked. "An experiment of sorts?" he added.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, now you know what we are. Let's go down to the kitchen. You can make yourself something to eat. I will talk to you like I did last time. And then you can decide if you despise me for no good reason—aside from the kidnapping thing which was a factor even then—or maybe see if you're being judgmental over something we can't control."
"You might not be able to control being demons, but you can control walking around Earth, pretending to be men."
"We actually don't. We're stuck here," Daemon told me, pulling off the pink gloves, slipping them into the cleaning bucket under the sink cabinet. "We have been for a while. Well, Red and the others much longer than Bael and me. We didn't choose to be here—though now that I am here, I would pick it over and over—and we can't just go back. We have to be here. So we make the best of it that we can. Including flirting with pretty women," he said, giving me a boyish smile.
The Healer (Seven Sins MC Book 2) Page 12