Chapter Thirteen
That duffel bag on my bed was not packed when I got in the shower.
I frown at it from the bathroom’s doorway, towel around my waist, humid air billowing into the bedroom.
I had my game-day stuff spread across the bed like usual, but it’s tucked inside the bulging Hellhounds bag now, with the suit I planned on wearing lying next to it.
Is my suit … ironed?
Pieces connect and I grunt a helpless laugh. “Bel?”
Something clatters in the kitchen.
A beat later, he pops up in the doorway, drying his hands on a dishcloth. His eyes widen at my bare chest, the towel low on my hips.
Spots of deeper pink burnish his pale cheeks. “Mm. I didn’t think we had time for that,” he says with a salacious smirk.
No, we don’t have time for that, but I give myself a moment to eat him up anyway, because he’s here, and I can’t get enough.
He doesn’t have to dress up for the game-day arrival, so he’s in orange sweatpants, white sneakers, and a black Hellhounds tank, his tail tucked away and body transformed to human with the illusion spray.
Around his neck is a band of white faux pearls Seb enchanted—if Bel crushes one between his fingers, both Seb and I will get a magic ping in our heads letting us know that he needs help.
They also emit a general protection ward, keeping him safe from enchantments and most magical attacks.
He can make the whole necklace vanish with his illusion spray when he has to wear his cheerleading uniform, but he hasn’t done that yet; he knows I think the pearls look sexy on him.
Bel’s smirk turns a little breathless when my eyes rise back to his. “We could have time for it,” he prods.
I shake my head and rub a hand across my trimmed beard. “No, that’s not—what’s that?”
I wave at the duffel bag.
“Your game-day stuff?” Bel’s head tips to the side. “Did I pack something wrong?”
“You shouldn’t have packed anything, sweetheart.”
He blushes again, meek this time, fingers toying with the dishcloth. “It was there. I had time.”
“And what are you doing now?”
The toe of his shoe digs into the carpet, and his mouth opens and closes a few times before he mumbles, “Meal prepping.”
The buzzer on the washing machine chooses that moment to go off.
I arch an eyebrow at him.
“And some light laundry.” Bel breaks out of his humility with a frustrated groan. “I live here, too, right? I’m doing what normal people do when they live together. Housekeeping.”
I cross the room and wrap my arms around him. He falls against me, sulking to my chest.
It’s been a week since he moved in. A week of carpooling to HQ for practices or meetings, and me only being okay with Bel out of my sight because he’s got that necklace, and Gulus is still a nebulous shadow in the distance.
A week of Seb and Thio coming over for dinner, and Bel begging Thio to teach him how to cook.
A week of Bel immediately dropping his human form when the door shuts behind us.
Of him rehearsing his cheer routines in the living room.
Of me buying tons of stepladders and lifts to make my giant-sized apartment accessible for him, and filling an entire cupboard with dark chocolate peanut butter cups just to hear him cackle with glee.
Of this place being our own little haven.
I bend down to rest my forehead on his. “We talked about this. You don’t have to earn your keep.”
Bel looks up at me without disengaging our foreheads. “I’m not going to freeload off you. You won’t let me pay rent, so you’re going to have to get used to me cooking and cleaning.”
“And packing for me?”
He pulls back and runs his fingers through my chest hair. “I’ll stop doing chores if you stop the research.”
My dining room table has been overtaken by old college books I pulled out of storage, texts I ordered online, and research Ilbryen shipped over when I asked for their info on Galaxrien’s cult.
The official religion of the Temple of Galaxrien Vossen is well documented, but the specific ritual the cultists are obsessed with is less so.
It’s based on an offhanded comment made by a Galaxrien priest generations ago about their demon lord breaking free.
The comment wasn’t even a full-blown prophecy and was never officially sanctioned by the Temple; it was one guy waxing hopeful about Galaxrien escaping the pit in the Demonic Plane where Urzoth Shieldsworn trapped him.
Nevertheless, a subset of the Galaxrien faith took it as gospel, and cultists have added on over the years: someone claimed it’d happen on a spring equinox; someone else countered with summer; then it went back to spring and seems to have stuck there, despite the cultists repeatedly doing rituals on days that aren’t any equinox.
Sometimes the ritual involves a full sacrifice, sometimes a piece of his descendant’s body.
One cultist swears the ritual involves handcuffs to symbolize Galaxrien’s suffering.
Someone else claims it won’t work unless they have a bottle of ghost pepper hot sauce to summon the flames of hell.
This is why the cultists’ ritual changes so often. None of them knows what they’re doing. And they’re all dumbasses.
Ghost pepper hot sauce? Seriously?
There’s been an uptick among people of demonic ancestry in the news since that attack, decrying the cultists for targeting them—even though the guy they tried to sacrifice wasn’t even demonic.
The Urzoth church has also been making headlines for their demonstrations of strength in response to their member being taken, mostly public fights organized by the church; but people seem more sympathetic to Urzoth worshippers being upset this time around.
It brought me back to another issue: How did the cultists know Galaxrien’s descendant is tied to the Urzoth church now?
Ilbryen also sent over a list of everyone who knows about Bel, who might have leaked his info to the cultists.
It’s not a long list—Ilbryen, Gulus, Tem, three other members of their immediate adventure party, as well as a clerk who helps organize sensitive missions between their larger union of adventure parties.
I’m not exactly sure how to go about investigating.
Ilbryen’s doing her own investigation, but do I hire someone to dig into them?
They’re scattered all over the country—how do I question people who aren’t even in this city?
I can barely get a read on Gulus. He came to inspect the apartment, nodded in approval of my security wards, and left.
Barely said four words to us. Is he the mole? Hell if I know.
There might have been a bit of validity in Tem’s concerns about my qualifications. I am, when it comes down to it, an athlete with a lot of money and an interest in world religions. Is this as far as my ability to analyze plays and defensive maneuvers can go?
Is it going to be enough to keep Bel safe?
I run my thumb across his necklace. “Bel—”
“You don’t need to research,” he says. “I can tell you anything you want to know about the ritual or the cult. I’m a walking, talking, dancing encyclopedia of demon lord knowledge.
You don’t need those books. For instance, I can tell you that this”—he waves at the apartment, encompassing the wards, the general security I’ve offered—“is as far as you can protect me. There’s no secret way out. You’d have to change who I am.”
I give him an unintimidated stare. “I’m not going to stop looking for a way to save you. I’m not going to accept that this is the rest of your life.”
He smiles, but it’s tinged by that resignation I hate on him so much. That he’s given up to his fate, like he expects the cult to get him one day, and there’s no other hope.
“Do we have to think so far ahead?” he asks. “I’m happier than I’ve been in almost a decade. I want to enjoy being safe. With you. You can’t stop an entire cult, and I don’t expect you to. What you’re doing is more than enough.”
But it’s not enough for me.
While Bel may only be thinking in the day-to-day, chopping survival into immediate moments, I’m greedy. I don’t just want moments.
I want years.
I want a lifetime.
Rather than continue this conversation, I twist down to brush my lips across his jaw.
“Have I told you lately that I’m glad you’re here?” I breathe the words into his ear and he, predictably, shivers.
I love that I know exactly what buttons to push to get reactions out of him.
“Prove it.” He bumps his hardening cock against my leg, and I chuckle over a groan.
We’ve only traded hand jobs and sloppy blow jobs the past week. Much to Bel’s disappointment—but it was risky enough fucking him with my admittedly monster cock for his first time. I want to make sure he recovers, that we ease into anything like regularity.
It has been a week, though.
And today is going to be a roller coaster of shit from the start, so maybe it’ll help pad the bumps to know there’s something good waiting at the end.
I bite his neck above the pearls, and suck, a flash of aggression he wasn’t expecting by the way he chirps and wriggles against me.
“Orok.” My name comes in a moan and I suck harder, getting a mewl, another sexy wriggle.
“Tonight,” I say into the spot I abused, dragging my lips back and forth over it. “You good to give me your ass tonight, sweetheart?”
Bel whines, the roll of his exhale across my chest making my nipples tighten. “Yes. Gods, yes. Please.”
I smile. Even with the stress of researching the cult and fielding today’s events, my face hurts—I’ve been smiling nonstop.
He drags his nose through my chest hair, nuzzling, and asks, “Is that our reward for surviving lunch with your parents?”
My head drops back on a disgruntled moan. “Please don’t link sex to my parents.”
Bel pulls away with a laugh, his gaze dragging down my body again before he swats me with the dishcloth. “Get dressed, or we’re both going to be really, really late.”
“Might miss the game entirely.” I loosen the towel and let it drop. “Oh no. That’d be awful.”