Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“Oh, you would likely eat the wise woman,” Tix said with a clucking sound. “Not that it wouldn’t help, but it could get messy. Do you want me to find you a healer to eat?”
“Tix,” I said.
“Well, it would make her feel better, and there are a couple hanging about who I think drag down our vibe,” Tix admitted. “Pretentious things. And I’m right about not trusting the witch. The witch lives in two realities, and until she admits it, she’ll be trouble for everyone. The master is altogether too happy about being out of his contract. His smugness will make Lucifer angry, and that is not a fun time. Prince Lee is likely going to die because he’s plotting something. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I think it’s bad. He’s worried about dying. He’s worried about dying before he can find someone.”
I forgot that Tix was an empath at my own risk. “Don’t worry about Lee.”
Tix wasn’t done. “The wolf is so horny, being around him makes my dick go hard. It’s disconcerting, and there is no need for it. There are any number of demonesses who would be happy to help. They would be thrilled to sexually serve the wolf king.”
“And then you’ll have any number less demonesses,” Evan promised.
“See, she wouldn’t be so violent if she was fucking. Humans. I don’t understand them. They fear perfectly good fangs and wings and think they can ignore their Hell-given needs. In Hell. It’s not happening.” Tix put a hand to his head. “And the sick boy keeps going on and on about something. I was so excited about hosting my lovely family, and it turns out you’re all fucked up, with the exception of Trent, who gives me nothing at all. The silence in that wolf’s head is like a beautiful melody of absolutely nothing. I think I love Trent most of all. And yes, child, I understand. I cannot forbid your mother from doing things that are normal and natural. Yes, even while she’s pregnant and can’t get any more with child.” He frowned. “Can’t you consider it something like a massage? Or a roller coaster? Oh, you will love those, and in some ways the motions are similar.”
He was staring at my belly.
He better be joking. “You are not talking to my embryo.”
“He is insistent on asking if you wouldn’t mind keeping it down. It’s not the movement that bothers him. It’s all the terrible sounds you make,” Tix said with a shake of his head. “Yes, Rain, I know. The Dark Lord was here. He’s not going to harm your mother. He would have trouble if he harmed an unborn duke of Hell. And your fathers are fine. Kelsey, he’s concerned because his wolf father said something last eve about whatever he was doing being too tight. Rain is concerned because he sounded like he was in pain.”
I wasn’t having sex ever again. Ever. “He’s fine. Trent is great. He must have misunderstood that.”
Evan hid a smile behind her hand.
Tix stood up straight. “I don’t believe he did. I think he might not have enough information to understand fully what you and the masters have put him through. Just keep your eyes closed, Rainier. It will all be over soon, and you will no longer worry that a sword will pierce your amniotic sac.”
Now I knew he was being an asshole. “My son doesn’t know what an amniotic sac is.”
“Doesn’t he, mistress?” Tix’s head tilted up, and his lips formed a mulish expression. “Then you certainly understand the nature of the demonic soul better than I. I can see that you need no aid from a son of Lilith.” He started to walk out but turned at the last moment. “And if mistress is unaware, that’s Lilith, the First Woman.”
I was, in fact, unaware. “I thought Eve was the first chick. Biblically, of course.”
Liv snorted. “She didn’t have to go through the same classes the rest of us did. When you join the supernatural world after living in the human one, there are these classes one normally takes. Kelsey got the short, here’s how to kill things version. Not the understanding our world and all the demons who can fuck you up version. Lilith could fuck you up, Kels.”
“According to Judaic belief, Lilith, not Eve, was actually the first wife of Adam,” Evan explained. “Adam rejected her because she wasn’t submissive enough and Lilith joined Lucifer in Hell and became known as the mother of demons. Tix, are you really a son of Lilith?”
“I’m one of her favorites,” he confided. “All of my brothers are horrible conversationalists. It’s all death and pain and mutilation with them. My mother is actually quite cosmopolitan. She’s into fashion and gossip, and we have a standing date to watch telly once a week. You do not want to be a reality TV show personality who gets on my mum’s bad side. Things go wrong when she’s annoyed. You know it’s really sad that of all her sons, I’m the only one she can talk to.”