Chapter 28
Lucifer
“I don’t understand why you’re moving to Brunswick,” I told Tiamat.
She was behind the wheel of one of my cars, driving painfully slowly and looking out the window at the nice houses in this fancy neighborhood she had selected to find one to her liking.
“You do not need to understand everything.” She glanced over at me just as I wrinkled my nose. “You’re still sulking.”
“Well, I was watching my boyfriend sleep, and you pulled me away from him. It was my duty to make sure he was fine during his rest. Also, what if he wakes, wants my cock, and realizes I’m not there to give it to him?
What then, Dragon Mother? Being in a relationship is all about that lazy morning sex! ”
Tiamat’s eyes came to rest on me for a long moment. Naturally, I looked away first.
“You were reading him one of your books. How was the human supposed to rest if you read him a scene about someone who reaches sexual heights while being held captive in a cage? Some of what you read might even defy physics. Cage bars can be too slippery to support—”
“That doesn’t matter. It was all about planting a suggestion in his dreaming mind.”
The only issue with reading Nelly that book had been that I’d had to stop every few pages. I kept imagining us as the main characters, and…I wanted him. I’d carve his desire like the skin off an orange, going slow while the lovely scent of lust he’d produce at my touch spiced the air.
The Dragon Mother sniffed as if she were smelling something, though nothing as pleasant as orange zest.
“Are you fantasizing about that young one?”
“Well, that’s what boyfriends are for. And I wouldn’t have to fantasize about him if I were with him right now.”
“No, but you are ever reliable, which is why you are here with me to help me move.”
I sighed. “Yes, Dragon Mother.”
“Good, good.” She patted my hand, her full attention once more going to the houses all around us.
Still, this excursion had ruined the plans I’d had for today, to wit, the reenactment of a few scenes from a few books with Nelly.
One of the scenes from the novel I’d read Nelly involved a reticent lover who’d needed to be chained to the bars of his cage and taken from inside the cage and outside it.
In that case, there were two other people involved, but I figured I could do that to Nelly in sequence: first his cock in my hand, then mine in his mouth, and last, I’d come deep inside him and leave him barely conscious under me.
Which brought me back to last night. I was reasonably sure Nelly had done something funny with his magic to knock himself out. I certainly hadn’t. I liked my lovers conscious…except, of course, I had a boyfriend now and no more lovers.
“I would like to know why you can’t just hire a realtor,” I asked the Dragon Mother. “As I explained, I had plans.”
She snorted and looked up at a gaudy building with columns out front. “That mortal looked so tired, he’d either had too much of your attention, or not enough. I do suspect the latter.”
I knew there was no point in arguing with the Dragon Mother, but she was just being silly now. Nelly was difficult, but I was trying.
“If this is about the juice cleanse—”
“Yes, that nonsensical waste of good produce.”
“—then we are doing it to get him off the obscene amount of coffee he’s been drinking. It was my suggestion, out of a lover’s concern.”
Surely that had to count for something, and surely she would appreciate it.
She clicked her tongue. “As I told you last night, your Nelly is a magic user, and those need actual proper food. Ah, that’s it.”
She parked the car in a driveway framed by white oleander and blooming jasmine. The trellis that led to the garden was overgrown and sagging under the weight of eagerly flowering bougainvillea, and the garden beyond was in a state of wilderness without any direction whatsoever.
“You mean, that?”
I pointed. The house beyond the frenzied greenery was sort of pretty, but it was partially timber built, not just stone, and it looked more like a cottage than a proper house, let alone one fit for the Dragon Mother.
Tiamat turned toward me as she unfastened her seat belt. “Lucy, do you really not know the bones and essence of a thing when you first see it?”
And with that, she got out and walked toward the front door.
A whiff of oleander and jasmine drifted into the car before she closed the door.
I was guessing the inhabitants—former inhabitants to-be—of this place were not aware they were moving today, but you did not say no to the Dragon Mother. Her badassery forbade it.
I unbuckled my own seat belt and followed the Dragon Mother into the flower-scented greenery of her new garden to do her bidding.
I looked around the house, much emptier now than when we’d first stepped inside. No one was watching, so I leaned against a doorframe and pulled out my phone to shoot Trony a quick text.
How is Nelly?
The angel’s answer came quickly.
Still a dummy.
I looked up when the neighbors from across the street came down the stairs opposite me, carrying a mattress to the moving truck outside. How Tiamat had found the two women who had lived here a new home so fast, I had no idea, but a few calls from her, and things had just happened.
The neighborhood movers were simply enchanted, but the way Tiamat did all of this?
Oh, the Dragon Mother had raw skill I could only ever marvel at, and whenever I thought I had improved in some ways, Tiamat showed up and helped me maintain my humility.
I loved her, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t sometimes annoyed by her as well.
I turned back to my screen.
I don’t mean that. I mean, is he rested? Horny? Does he need me?
????
Nope. He went to work.
I pushed off the wall.
Did you not feed him?
Don’t blow your top. Of course I fed the human. Juice through a straw, but I fed him.
Because I care.
I groaned. Nelly had gone to work without being treated to a lazy morning by me.
It always seemed like he just dealt with oozing death at odd hours of the day.
Him leaving early and before I had the chance to deepen our relationship was not something I had considered.
Things seemed generally easier in my books.
“Stop using that head too much and use your hands instead,” Tiamat said, poking me in the ribs with a finger. I hadn’t noticed her approach. “Furniture.” She pointed at a few old cabinets.
“I can turn them into ash,” I offered.
Tiamat crossed her arms. “Neema and Eileen still want those in the new house, so you will damn well carry them outside without scratching them up. You can figure out how to take care of one mortal man when you are done with your chores.”
No one talked to me like this, no one. If anyone heard Tiamat, my own badass reputation would be ruined. Nelly must never hear her.
I ran a hand through my hair. “Tiamat, I am the Devil.”
“Yes, Lucy, which is why you know exactly what they say about idle hands. There is no time for playing or for your self-esteem issues.” She pointed. “Furniture. Now.”
I felt for the former inhabitants of Tiamat’s house, but you did not argue with the Dragon Mother.
I put my phone away and picked up those damn cabinets, making sure to not damage them.
I was strong, but they were bulky, and I felt used.
I wanted Nelly. Carrying him was a lot more fun than carrying the cabinets.