Chapter 18
Ashmedai
Ashmedai didn’t need to hear all the details to understand what had happened tonight.
Daniel, Alex, and Julian had come across Nicolas’s squad during their patrol, and a fight had broken out.
Nicolas had been forced to side with his squad in order to maintain his cover with them.
He’d helped to hurt his friends, which explained why he was so distraught when he came home.
His human was a good man, and the guilt was eating him alive.
Even now, as Daniel and Julian dragged him over to the rest of the group and offered him a chair, Nicolas’s bright soul was dim.
It wasn’t permanent, not yet, but it would take time for him to forgive himself.
For a moment when Julian and Daniel hugged him, it had flared so brightly it almost hurt to look at him.
His brilliant soul could turn black, and Ashmedai would still love him. But he hated seeing him in any kind of pain.
Like an olive branch, Nathan passed out drinks and offered an amber bottle to Nicolas, who took it with a nonplussed look and said, “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”
“You’ve been up all night, and you’ll sleep half the day away soon. It’s more like an evening drink before bed. Besides, you look like you could use it.”
Nicolas ducked his head. “Thanks.”
Ashmedai hung uncertainly near the edge of the group as they all sipped their drinks. He was the only one who didn’t consume physical food or drink, and he didn’t understand why these particular drinks were so appealing.
“I meant what I said, you know,” Daniel said after a while. He was sitting on the end of the sofa nearest to Nicolas, so close their knees brushed.
“When?” Nicolas asked.
“Out on the street, in front of the squad. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into leaving you at the guild alone.”
Nicolas blew out a breath. “I was afraid they’d target you to test my loyalty.”
Daniel gestured at his bruised face. “Uh, that happened anyway.”
“A brief encounter on the street isn’t as bad as being surrounded at HQ. I didn’t trust them not to do something to you—or force me to do something to you.”
Daniel’s mouth twisted. “Yeah, I get it. That stuff was already happening.”
“What? It was?”
“Yeah. Tripping me in the locker room. Shoving into me in the halls. Taking cheap shots during training. I knew my time there was coming to an end. They didn’t want me anymore.”
Nicolas’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know about all of that. Some of it, yeah. They didn’t make a secret of it during training. I should’ve been harder on them, forced them to stop.”
Daniel shrugged. “You couldn’t have stopped it. Anyway, I didn’t feel outright threatened, just annoyed. But I knew it was a matter of time before things ramped up.”
Nicolas’s gaze went distant, cold with fury and hurt. “We can’t keep going like this.”
“We won’t,” Nathan said resolutely. He was across from Nicolas, sitting on the floor between Storm’s legs. “But first we have to get the kids back.”
“And then what?” Nicolas asked.
“Then… we make a statement,” Talon said, standing at the other end of the sofa, beside Alex.
“These guys tell me there are still good people in the guild. So we warn them. Tell them we’re going to war, and if they don’t wish to fight, they can leave the guild.
Join us or just lay down arms, I don’t care.
Whoever stays with Sloan forfeits their lives. ”
“You think that’ll work?” Nicolas asked.
Talon’s dark eyes met his speculatively. “Would it work for you? A few weeks ago, if you’d heard a message from us declaring war on the guild with the promise to have mercy on anyone who left it, would you have stayed to fight or quietly left?”
Nicolas’s head tilted. He was quiet for a long, tense moment, and then he said, “Yeah. I’d have left.
I think there are some in the guild who would, too.
” He thought of Dr. Maxwell, balancing between his oath to do no harm and his duty to follow guild orders.
Cyrus, and his mysterious reasons for sticking around.
Aidan’s screams at the wrongness of it all as Nicolas dragged him out into the courtyard.
“I think some of the prophets would choose to leave,” Ira added. “Plenty of the teachers and administrators, too. They aren’t fighters. As long as we didn’t harm the children, we’d have nothing to fear from them.”
“We’d never harm children,” Luke growled.
Nicolas looked around at them all. “Do you really think this little group can take on the whole guild?”
Ashmedai looked around. Eight human warriors, two leviathans, three halflings, a behemoth, and a sin eater.
Four of their number were very powerful demons with special abilities that would allow them to kill multiple enemies at once.
Yes, he thought they stood a very good chance, especially if they were correctly estimating how many people would leave the guild.
He wasn’t alone in these thoughts, because the other demons started laughing. Ashmedai joined them, his quieter laughter lost beneath the howling cackles of the others.
“Why is that funny?” Nicolas asked, looking reluctantly amused.
“Nic-las,” he said kindly, taking Nicolas’s hand, “how did we meet?”
Nicolas blinked at him. “We… You killed my squad.”
“By myself,” Ashmedai said. “In moments, yes?”
Nicolas’s throat bobbed. “Right.”
“We demons are as powerful as many men. Not like the mindless beasts you hunt. We have powers, strategic minds, enhanced strength.”
Nicolas nodded slowly. “It makes sense. I just… can’t believe that the guild could be brought down so easily. It’s been around for centuries. If it’s so easy to bring down, why haven’t demons done it already?”
“The guild used to be far more powerful than it is now,” Talon said.
“Not that long ago, it was united. The humans in this room who left it created fractures that have weakened it. A handful of demons attacking a united Paladin Guild would stand no chance, as evidenced by the fact that a kalmach used an army of possessor demons to attack it not that long ago and failed.”
“You guys helped with that,” Nicolas pointed out.
“Yes, and therefore, we succeeded. But demons attacking a guild whose own people would lay down arms and refuse to fight for it? That’s a much easier war to win.”
“Is it the right thing?” he asked. “To break down the guild?”
All eyes turned toward Ira, who was leaning against Wolf’s side, his curls falling across Wolf’s shoulder. He blinked at them, pushed himself upright, and offered Nicolas a reassuring smile.
“They like to think I have all the answers,” Ira said.
“He has more than most,” Nathan added with a cheeky wink.
Ira chuckled. “But yes, I think this is the right thing. I think the Sentinels here are building something that will last even longer than the guild. We all want to defend what we have here—not just here in this room, but here on Earth. The demons, too. That, I think, is what will provide such a strong foundation.”
“Humans and demons defending Earth… together?” Nicolas said slowly.
Ira nodded. “Yes. I don’t have the full picture.
I don’t know what will happen between now and then.
All I know is that… we’re doing something important here.
Something worth doing.” He gestured toward Ashmedai, who straightened under the attention.
“Don’t you feel like your connection with Ashmedai is world-changing? ”
Nicolas looked at him, his expression overwhelmed but melting into fondness the longer they stared at one another.
“I’m starting to think so, yeah,” Nicolas admitted.
Ashmedai preened. He closed the distance between them, stopping behind Nicolas’s chair and urging his head back to flick his tongue across his lips.
Nicolas chortled, blood rising to the surface of his skin and turning his face pink.
When he released him, Nicolas turned his drink up and drained it, avoiding the others’ eyes.
Daniel laughed, slapping his knee. “I’ve never seen you so flustered before.”
“I’d like to see you get kissed like that in front of your brother and see how you fare.”
Daniel sat back, crossing his ankles on the coffee table. “Ah, nope, none of that for me. I am the lone,” he glanced around, counting, “fifteenth wheel. Ouch.”
They all laughed. All but Ira, who gave a small, close-lipped smile.
Ashmedai absently trailed his claws up and down the side of Nicolas’s neck, pressing his fingertips against his pulse.
He liked the way Nicolas tilted his head to give him better access.
Daniel fetched him another beer as conversation flowed from topic to topic.
Julian spent some time telling Nicolas about the house he and Valac were renovating and invited them over to see it sometime.
‘We were all very close. Julian would host dinners at his house, and the whole squad would go over there,’ Nicolas had told him. His human needed that companionship, and Daniel had just told him he couldn’t isolate himself anymore. They should rebuild those friendships.
“Dinner,” Ashmedai said, interrupting them.
“Sorry?” Julian asked.
“You should host dinner. Like you used to. Nic-las told me about them.”
A smile bloomed on Julian’s face. “Yeah, we did. We actually just bought a grill. We could definitely host a dinner. Why don’t you all come? Might be a fun team-building activity.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“Or somebody might try to kill each other,” Talon remarked.
“No violence in the new house,” Valac said, like he was quoting something, and Julian beamed at him.
“Had enough of that at the last place,” Julian said.
The back of Nicolas’s head grazed Ashmedai’s abdomen, and his fingers curled under his jaw, shivering at the easy surrender in Nicolas’s pliant body.
He didn’t realize anyone was watching them until Shadrach said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t get over a human letting a sin eater do that.” He gestured to them, to Ashmedai’s gentle grip and Nicolas’s lax form.
“Why’s that?” Nicolas asked, unmoving.