Chapter 5 Onyx #2
Nico’s lips twitched like he was holding back a smile. Like he was laughing at Onyx. The nerve. “It’s not the end of it, but I feel better now that I’m not the only one aware of what’s happening.”
Onyx was momentarily glad Nico felt better before he remembered he didn’t care.
“Is that why you’re here? To see how spreading the word is going?”
Onyx pursed his lips. “I’m here to see Harper.”
“Okay. Feel free to browse the shelves while you wait.” Nico turned his attention to a notebook lying open on the counter.
Onyx wouldn’t be dismissed like that. “So, do you not need my help anymore, or what? Because it seems like you could have done without harassing me. Have you even talked to Ash and Dante?”
Nico looked up. “I talked to them yesterday.”
Had they all met without him? “Sounds like it’s all taken care of then.” He couldn’t keep fury from tightening his words. He turned to go.
“Hey,” Nico called.
Onyx stopped but refused to turn around. Why couldn’t he control his temper? He wasn’t usually this short unless Ash was in the room.
“What?” he snapped.
“I’m seeing Rowan tonight. Come with me?”
“Why?” Onyx spun slowly. His stupid heart fluttered at the invitation as if he had no friends, but Scott was right. His social calendar was always full.
“You can ask him how things are going. Meet some more of the Valero Coven, too, if you want.”
Onyx wrinkled his nose. “More vampires?”
“You don’t have to.” Nico shrugged like he didn’t care much either way.
“I probably should, since everyone decided I need to be involved. I want to keep an eye on Rowan. Don’t need him trying to twist things to his advantage.”
Nico tapped his notebook thoughtfully. “He wouldn’t twist the situation, or make trouble where there is none. He’s not like that, but he does look for advantages in everything.”
“That doesn’t bother you? I thought you were out to help people.”
Nico chuckled. “Rowan helps people, too. Just in a different way. I don’t need my friends to all be exactly like me.”
“Good because if they were, I wouldn’t come tonight.” Onyx shuddered. Nico’s sincere kindness was off-putting.
Nico laughed more loudly. “Why do you hate me?”
“Why do you care?”
Nico grinned, and Onyx’s lips curved upward to match. He couldn’t help it. Damn witch.
Nico pulled out his phone. “Give me your number.”
Onyx did as he was told, rattling off the digits before he thought better of it.
“There.” Nico sent him a text, and Onyx’s phone vibrated. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep you updated. There’s been a lot happening this week.”
The apology soothed some of Onyx’s agitation, quieting the flames inside him. “A lot happening? It’s only Wednesday. Was there a dried herb emergency?”
Nico snorted. “Nothing that dire.” He paused. “I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop, even if it’s to confirm that I followed through on what we discussed.”
Again, the reassurance soothed Onyx, loosening the tightness in his chest. He took an involuntary step closer to the counter. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“I’d expect you to.” Nico leaned forward once more, forearms on the counter. “While you’re here, can I ask what happened when you went to the Realm of the Damned? Ash and Dante won’t tell me what’s going on with Lucifer.”
On the one hand, keeping the details within their inner circle was probably best, but if Ash and Dante didn’t want Nico to know, it gave Onyx the opportunity to rock the boat. They deserved it after messing him around.
He shrugged. “Why does it matter? Lucifer isn’t going to come knocking on your door.”
“Glad to hear it, but he might come after Harper and Ollie, right?” Nico’s voice dropped, like he was afraid of the answer.
Onyx inched closer. “You’re very concerned about them, but you don’t have to be.
Luc would be a fool to go after the mates again.
I had to stop Dante from killing Luc just for hurting Ollie.
He was out for blood. Ollie and Harper are safer than they were before they mated.
My brother’s issue is with us, not them. ”
“Brother?”
Onyx cursed himself for letting that slip. “Yes, brother. Luc and I share the same unfortunate parentage.”
Nico looked fascinated by this news, and Onyx’s tension returned.
“What’s Lucifer’s issue with you?”
“There isn’t enough time in your mortal life to unpack that.” Onyx shook himself. He shouldn’t get personal. Nico’s kind face must have lulled him into a sense of false security. Still he said, “Luc wanted to drag us back to the Realm of the Damned.”
“But he won’t drag you back now that everyone is free. Right?”
Unease swelled inside Onyx. He hated speculating on Luc’s plans. “It seems unlikely.”
Nico almost looked relieved, but why would he be? “Is the conflict between you over?”
Onyx was suddenly exhausted. It took effort not to let it show. “Our conflict will never be over unless we trap him.”
Nico’s eyes widened. “Trap Lucifer?”
“Yes.” Onyx probably shouldn’t have revealed that, but whatever. Everyone else gave away their secrets. It wasn’t like Nico would do anything bad with the information, and Luc already knew imprisonment was their aim after their failed attempts.
Nico made an understanding sound. “You want to trap him as payback for him imprisoning you?”
“In part. It’s also because he betrayed us. It’s because…of a million reasons that I don’t need to explain.”
Onyx’s fire flared once more. He didn’t need Nico’s approval or understanding. How had he gotten sucked into saying any of this? He hadn’t come here to talk to Nico at all. “Tell Harper I stopped by, and text me the details for tonight. I have to go.”
Nico seemed startled by his abruptness but recovered quickly. “Sure thing. See you later.”
Onyx stormed out of the shop.
Finding a deserted alley, Onyx cast an invisibility illusion over himself. He stripped off his shirt, freed his wings, launched into the air, and flew toward Dante’s otherwise inaccessible clifftop home.
He shouldn’t have said anything about Luc.
Nico didn’t really care what Luc had done to Onyx.
He wanted to hear the sensational tale of the Devil’s origins, and Onyx was sick of that side of the story.
He was tired of hearing how Luc had led them on a noble quest for their mates and freedom before it all went wrong.
That wasn’t how Onyx saw it.
Luc had never liked being told no. He didn’t like their parents’ authority—neither did Onyx, to be fair—and especially disliked that their seats on the council gave them power over granting him his mate.
Luc’s rebellion had been personal. It wasn’t about freeing Eternals from a controlling society.
Luc longed for his fated mate, but he also wanted to spite their parents and get his own way no matter what anyone said.
Ash and Dante had been heartsick, clinging to the idea of a perfect love. No one had been happy with what they had, and were quick to leave it all behind. To leave Onyx behind.
Onyx had never sought approval from the council to mate—a secret he’d kept to himself.
He was younger than Luc and the others and hadn’t been restless like they had been.
He’d only wanted their love, their companionship.
He’d wanted Ash and Dante to treat him like a friend in his own right, not an extension of his brother.
He hadn’t wanted them to leave.
Nothing Onyx had said convinced them to stay. They saw Earth as a place of limitless possibilities. They proclaimed the bond between the four of them to be strong, but not enough without their mates. They didn’t think they were giving anything up by leaving.
But Onyx had wanted to stay, and they would have left him behind. How was that not giving something up? Was he nothing to them?
Luc would have happily left Onyx to deal with their parents’ fury once they discovered Luc had fallen. Luc knew as well as Onyx that Onyx would have been punished in his brother’s stead.
Onyx would have had no one. Even if he’d stayed and been granted his mate—which seemed unlikely after his parents learned he’d failed to prevent his brother’s fall—he hadn’t wanted to lose his brothers. A mate wasn’t everything.
So Onyx fell with them, and it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
Luc had hurt Onyx well before his betrayal, stealing their power and turning them into prisoners. Onyx should have seen that coming. He shouldn’t have gone. They hadn’t wanted him, and that never changed.
These days, Onyx wasn’t so young or na?ve. He hated chasing people, but he still did it. Not because he hoped Dante and Ash might love him one day, or respect him as they did each other, but because he would not allow anyone to ignore him.
He was in control of who came and went from his life.
Onyx landed on Dante’s deck. The sliding glass door stood open, but neither demon was in sight. Onyx retracted his wings and put his shirt back on, striding into the house as if he owned it.
A tray of mushroom tarts sat cooling on the kitchen island. Ash must be around. Onyx popped a tart in his mouth. They were still hot from the oven and not bad considering they were baked by such an oaf.
He selected another tart.
“Those aren’t for you,” Ash growled from behind him.
Onyx stuffed the second tart in his mouth and turned, staring Ash down as he chewed.
Ash pushed past him and moved the tray to the other counter. “You can’t come in and steal things.”
“Steal? Please. Harper would have shared them with me. He can’t eat a dozen tarts by himself.”
“It’s still rude.”
“Oh no. I feel so bad about it,” Onyx sneered.
Ash crossed his bulging arms. “Why are you here?”
“To steal all the treats.”
Predictably, Ash’s eyes burned orange.
“What is wrong with you two?” Dante strode in from the deck, shirt off and wings out. Ash was similarly undressed. “I eat your baking all the time, Ash.”
Onyx used to take Dante coming to his defense personally, but Dante did it for everyone.
“I wanted to see how things were going,” Onyx said before Ash could respond. “You barged in on me first, so you aren’t in a position to complain.”
“You aren’t barging in.” Dante’s brow creased, probably fretting over Onyx’s irritated tone. “You’re always welcome here. If you want to stay now that Luc is back, there’s plenty of room.”
“No, thank you.” Onyx made a show of shuddering. “My place is nicer and there’s no risk of running into Ash with his clothes off.”
“I’m dressed,” Ash muttered.
Onyx ignored him. “So, what’s happening? You wanted me involved, and here I am. Or did you forget?”
“Of course we didn’t forget. I was going to call you today,” Dante insisted.
Sure he was. “Don’t hold back now. Where’s Luc? You’ve been tracking him for ages.”
Dante grabbed a soda from the fridge and plopped onto a barstool. “We can’t track Luc. He figured out another way to hide.”
Damn his brother. It was too bad he was clever. “But he can’t hide behind our magic anymore. That illusion was broken.”
“No, he can’t hide behind the magic he stole from us. He’s using everyone else.”
Onyx took a staggering step back. “He stole magic from all the demons he released?”
“No.” Dante gave him a horrified look. “We’re lucky it wasn’t that. Fuck. No, he did the reverse. The spell must have been built into the gateway. When we’ve tried to track Luc, we get hundreds of locations.”
“It seems like Luc branded every demon that flew through the gateway with his magic,” Ash added.
Or overexplained, Onyx would argue. But he kept quiet as Ash continued.
“Several groups of demons are headed this way, but there’s no way to tell if one is Luc.
We’d have to hunt them down in person and see who we find at the end of the trail. ”
“Well, that’s useless.”
“Thank you, Onyx, but I’d already worked that out.”
“Good for you. Not as dumb as you look.” Onyx turned his attention back to Dante. “So are you going to scope out every demon that comes to the city? How long have you known this was an issue?”
Dante ignored the second question, and Onyx feared the evasion was deliberate.
“My flock will recognize Luc by sight, as long as he’s not invisible, so I’ll have my birds discreetly check any new arrivals.
I don’t want to seem aggressive, turning up in person and demanding to know what every demon is doing. We don’t need to create enemies.”
“We’ll have enemies whether or not we create them. What if more demons are here to hunt us down like those last three?” Onyx asked.
“Then we’ll deal with them.” Dante paused, his tone taking on an edge of concern. “You can stay here if you want. It might be safer.”
Onyx wrinkled his nose. “Again, no thanks. My place is guarded.”
No one argued with him even though they knew his home wasn’t as well protected as Dante’s. Maybe Dante’s offer was insincere despite how it sounded.
“I guess I’ll keep an eye on the witch situation,” Onyx continued. “Make sure our fellow magical beings don’t freak out about demonkind’s repopulation of the planet.”
“Great.” Dante smiled, all supposed concern vanishing. “Nico said he’d keep us updated, too.”
Was he trying to say they didn’t need Onyx? But they’d made such a big deal out of it. “Yeah, well, my assessment should be less biased than Nico’s.” He turned to go. “If you spot Luc, don’t forget to tell me.”
They’d need him to help open the prison for Luc, so it wasn’t likely they’d forget, but honestly, if it weren’t for that, they probably would.
Onyx left before they could dismiss him.