30. Gabe
Salem, Massachusetts - Present Day
I was… on edge. Shemhazai was afraid. I could taste his fear on my tongue, and it made me nauseous. I wanted to wrap him up in my arms and tell him I would protect him from whatever it was that had shaken him so badly.
However, I knew that wouldn’t be welcome. He was retreating from me, hiding himself as he always did when he felt threatened by something.
Hecate’s dogs were now dressed and sniffing around her destroyed home, searching for clues as to where the mother and the crone might have been taken. Hecate and Shemhazai were bickering again, and I was growing increasingly irritated with the mother of witches.
Something told me it was her fault that this Raziel person was here, and the look on Shem’s face when the angel’s name had been mentioned would haunt me in my fucking dreams.
I’d never seen fear like that on his face. He’d squared off with the god of fucking creation with nothing but contempt and fury in his gorgeous green eyes. But the name of an angel had frightened him so badly he wouldn’t even look at me.
“It’s not a big deal,” Hec was saying as she lazily lounged on her shredded couch, tapping away on her phone. “Nothing the work of a coven won’t solve. I’ll text Luna and Willow to meet us at Hex and Haven.”
“You think a couple of fucking humans are going to be a match against the god of war and Raziel?” Shem growled.
Hecate rolled her eyes, shooting Shem a glare. “They may be mortal, but they’re true witches, Shemhazai. Do not underestimate the power of sisterhood. Together, we are a force.”
“Do they even know who you really are?” he snapped.
“Uhh, not exactly, but Luna will be cool with it when I tell her.”
“You don’t think she’s going to be pissed that you fucked with her memories and implanted yourself in her brain?”
Hecate winced. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
Fenrir rolled into the living room, a boyish grin on his face, making him look handsome and much less aggressive than he’d been when he’d been my captive. He threw himself on the couch next to Hecate, draping his arm over her shoulder and kissing the side of her head affectionately.
“Hec’s the goddess of crossroads—crossing bridges is her specialty.” He winked, and I frowned at how easily he’d moved past the fact that he’d had his nose buried in her pussy less than an hour before.
“Sorry, Hec,” he whispered in her ear, obviously referencing his inability to control himself under the power of the elixir.
She looked up at him, gently brushing his soft brown hair out of his eyes with gentle fingers.
“Don’t apologize, sweet pup.” She smiled at him.
“No one can resist Eros’ elixir. I made sure of it when Eros and I crafted it to fuck with Shemhazai.
” She turned back to her phone, firing off another text to someone I assumed was Luna.
“Besides, it’s not like we’re actually related.
But it did fuck with me when I thought you were my brother. Touché, Shemhazai. Call us even.”
Shemhzai didn’t even smile. He was a cloud of anger, which I knew was a mask for the very real fear he was trying to shove deep down within himself.
“I still think he deserves to be punished for that,” Skoll snarled, entering the room and leaning against the arm of the couch on Hecate’s other side .
My hand throbbed from where he had bitten me, and he eyed me up and down as if he could sense my discomfort.
“I’d like to see you try,” I threatened him softly, and he met my eyes, his brown irises darkening with something that looked a lot like… lust?
“Looking for round two, raven?” he growled quietly, glancing down at my injured hand suggestively. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, barely remembering how I’d ruthlessly fucked the guardian’s mouth in response to his actions. The way he was looking at me made me think that maybe he hadn’t hated it as much as I’d expected him to, which was… confusing.
I’d done it as a punishment, not because I was particularly interested in having his lips wrapped around my dick.
“As much as you enjoyed sucking your brother’s cock?” I deadpanned. “Because if you want that to happen again, it can be arranged.”
Skoll’s face went beet red, and a thrill of satisfaction rocked through me at how much that altercation had clearly shaken him. His less serious counterpart, however, just chuckled.
“He’s not actually my brother. We’re two sides of the same coin. It would be more like someone sucking their own cock,” Fenrir mused, looking as if the idea was somewhat intriguing.
“Enough!” Shemhazai snarled abruptly. “We need to get this threat under control; then, once we have Hec whole again, the three of you will need to come with us to Hell until we can figure out what to do about Ares and Raziel.”
“Jeeze, Hazai, didn’t know you cared,” Hecate drawled, pocketing her phone and getting up to stretch lazily as if this entire situation were boring her. He narrowed his eyes on her.
“Of course, I care. Do you know how much it will fuck things up if Raziel gets full control over your magic? He could use it to free Yahweh, and I am not suffering another several millennia answering to that asshole.”
Hecate glanced at the obviously distressed cat demon and softened. “Okay, yeah. Fair enough. Don’t worry, Hazai. We’ll get this sorted out. There are five of us, plus my daughters. They don’t stand a chance.”
“Do not underestimate, Raziel,” Shem growled, and again, I felt myself bristle at how uncharacteristically upset he was .
Hecate even seemed to notice, and she crossed the room, laying a hand on his forearm gently. “I said we’ll figure it out, Hazai.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and finally, the tension seemed to leak out of him, and he relaxed.
“Alright. So what’s the plan?”
“Luna said she would meet us at Hex and Haven. We’ll get her caught up and make a plan from there.”
“What’s Hex and Haven?” I asked. Hecate and her dogs all turned equally devilish grins on me, their eyes lighting up with excitement.
“Salem’s best kept secret.” Hecate winked, and I frowned.
Something told me I wasn’t going to like whatever this secret was. I glanced at Shemhazai, who seemed just as intrigued as I was.
“Let’s go, little hell demons. Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”