Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Alistair
I jump up the front steps to my BFF’s townhouse but slow as I approach the front door.
His perpetually grumpy asshole boyfriend has a nasty habit of activating their privacy wards to keep me out, and I do not want to run face-first into them and bounce back into the street again.
That shit hurts . It wouldn’t surprise me if he did it on purpose—he’s the type of guy who gets his kicks from inflicting pain on others.
Well… not really. He’s actually a good guy, just crabby.
And he does seem to like tormenting me. But my bestie loves him, so I gotta tolerate being kicked out of their house at three in the morning and having him put up the wards when I just want to grab some breakfast. Some people have no concept of hospitality.
I let myself in through the front door—it’s locked, but hello, I’m a hellhound.
No lock can stop me—but pause in the entryway.
After that one time I walked in on them right before, er, completion , they’ve been pretty stringent about putting the wards up before sex, but Gideon threatened to cut my dick off and feed it to me if I ever again walked in on them fucking, so I like to be doubly sure it’s safe.
Also, can I just say, how rude is it to have sex in the living room when you know you have friends who might want to visit?
Shameful.
Anyway, there are no suspicious noises, and the sex smells all seem to be at least a few hours old, so I head on through to the kitchen to find something to eat.
I can hear the shower running upstairs and someone closing a drawer, which means they’re still getting ready for work. Running a little late this morning.
I’ll make breakfast for us all!
The kitchen is fully stocked, as Sam’s kitchen always is, and I help myself to a cup of coffee from the half-full pot while I consider my options.
I’m really in the mood for pancakes, but they’re not in my cooking repertoire.
For some reason, every time I make them, they end up either charred or raw in the middle.
It’s very sad. Instead, I stick bread in the six-slice toaster and pull out the bag of oats that Sam buys just for me—well, he used to buy it just for me.
Since his transformation from human to shifter, his metabolism has been working overtime, and he’s come to appreciate the filling properties of a big bowl of porridge.
The first lot of toast has popped, and I’m stirring the oatmeal on the stove when Gideon comes in. He glares at me as he prowls over to the coffeepot and refills the mug in his hand.
“Some of that had better be for Sam,” he growls.
I’ve known quite a few demons in my nearly two centuries of life, and he’s the only one who seems to feel he needs to live up to the human expectation of demon behavior.
Although, when I mentioned that to Sam, he gloomily told me that apparently it’s a family trait.
Sam hasn’t yet met Gideon’s family, just spoken to them on the phone, but they aren’t the warmest people.
Poor Sam. Even if he did choose to hook up with an anal-retentive asshole who likes to rearrange people’s cupboards and torture poor, unsuspecting hellhounds.
“Of course some is for Sam,” I proclaim. “I love Sam. He’s my bestest BFF in the whole world—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, grabbing the toast and putting more bread in. Two shifters and a demon can put away a lot of food, and twelve slices of toast plus porridge will not be enough.
Hmm. Maybe…
“I was going to make you pancakes, but you remember what happened last time,” I say innocently. “Would you like some porridge too? I can make more.”
He blinks at me over a mouthful of toast and peanut butter. I can’t blame him for being surprised—he doesn’t know I’m a master manipulator, and last week I did refuse to share my four-pound bag of M&Ms with him and then yelled at him for five minutes for being a best friend stealer.
Finally, he swallows and says, “No… thank you. I can make my own pancakes.”
I shrug, like this doesn’t matter at all to me, and say, “Sure.”
He seems suspicious, so I keep up a steady stream of small talk about how much I’m looking forward to spring and seeing people’s gardens in bloom as he gets out a bowl and cracks the eggs into it. Only four, which is a worry.
“Good morning,” Sam declares breezily as he wanders in, empty mug in hand. “Alistair, no food left at your place?” He wanders over to the coffeepot.
“Are you implying that you don’t want to have breakfast with me?” I place a hand over my heart as I lift the pot off the stove with the other. “I’m hurt. How could you hurt me this way? How can our friendship mean so little to you after all these years of devotion and—”
“Fucking hell, I almost wish he’d go back to talking about the damn flowers,” Gideon mutters, and I grin.
“I knew you were listening! You pretended you weren’t, but I could tell. You love spring flowers just as much as I do, don’t you? You’re just a big softy inside. Maybe it’s buried way down deep—very deep—okay, so we’ll need an excavator to find it, but you do have a heart, and mmph—”
Sam’s hand clamping over my mouth interrupts me midsentence. “Stop now before he murders you. I won’t protect you.” I make big sad eyes at him, and he drops his hand with a sound of disgust. “Why do the puppy eyes always work on me?”
“It’s evil hellhound magic,” Gideon says. “You need to guard against it.”
I gape at that bit of horrific slander, but Sam laughs and goes over to grab a slice of the now cold toast. “Are you making eggs?” he asks, peering into the bowl, and Gideon shakes his head.
“Pancakes. Want some?”
I’d like to point out here that he never offered me any. Me! A guest in his home. See what I meant about hospitality?
“Yes, please,” Sam says. “Pancakes and porridge sounds perfect.”
I shoot him a pleading look behind Gideon’s back, and he rolls his eyes. “Make enough for Alistair, too, since he was kind enough to make me porridge. In my kitchen. With my ingredients.”
“Thanks, Gideon, I’d love some! So nice of you to offer.” I hand Sam his bowl of porridge with one hand and the maple syrup with the other, then grab my bowl and a container of blueberries and join him at the kitchen table.
Gideon turns around and gives me a very level, very dry look. I smile back. “Tomorrow,” he tells me, “I’m leaving the wards up.”
I shovel in a spoonful of porridge because I’m starving—I really did run out of food—then pout at him. “But then I won’t be able to get in.”
Sam coughs.
“That’s okay,” I declare magnanimously, “I’ll just call when I get here. Or maybe I can stay over tonight. That would be fun. Just remember, no sex while I’m in the house. Your soundproofing is good, but not that good, and hellhound noses smell everything .”
“Anyway,” Sam says hastily and way too loudly, “what’s your schedule like today?
Are you in the office or out?” Sam, Gideon, and I all work on the same team for the Community of Species Government—CSG.
It’s actually something I’m insanely proud of, being one of the youngest members of such a senior team and reporting directly to the lucifer, but I try to be cool about it, because that’s the kind of guy I am.
“In,” I tell Sam. “I’m working out in the gym this morning with Noah, and then Percy”—the lucifer—“wants to see me.”
“What did you do?” Sam demands. It’s hurtful.
Although maybe warranted.
“Nothing! I swear. He didn’t sound mad. It’s probably just a check-in or something. We never did get a chance for a three-month review since I started this job.”
Sam still seems suspicious, which wounds me deep in my heart, and since I’m definitely sure I’ve done nothing wrong—well, mostly sure—I stare deep into his eyes and say, “How can you doubt me like this? Don’t you understand that true friendship is based on—”
“Just eat, Alistair,” he says resignedly.
I give an offended sniff and settle in to enjoy my porridge as Gideon begins cooking my pancakes.
It’s so nice to start the day with friends.
“Motherfucking scum-sucking dick eater!” Noah shouts.
“You can do it!” I encourage him from across the room.
There’s no way I’m getting any closer while he’s in this frame of mind.
He may be a twenty-year-old human who just relearned how to walk and is still ridiculously weak from loss of muscle mass, but he’s still one scary motherfucker.
He survived being the test subject of an evil sorcerer scientist, lived in hiding right under his enemies’ noses—in their compound!
—for nearly a year, then basically taught himself to manipulate existential magic in a way nobody knew humans could.
And when he was taken captive again by that same sorcerer, he managed to teleport himself to safety from another dimension—a feat that should be impossible.
So yeah, stay away from pissed-off Noah.
It's only been a few weeks since we thought we would lose him to the extreme malnourishment that was the result of that teleport. The going theory—because we don’t know for sure—is that human teleporting uses so much energy that his body basically cannibalized itself to provide it, leaving him almost a skeleton.
Some top medical sorcerers were working on him, though, and even though he’s still got a lot of muscle left to build, his life is no longer in danger—and his tongue muscles are back in top form.
We’re all taking it in turns to work out in the gym while he does his physio sessions, partly to keep him company, and partly as a protection thing.
After all, Dr. Tish, his former captor, might try to come back for him.
“Shove it up your ass, Alistair!” he replies savagely, intensely focused on the exercises his therapist is making him do.
“I’m only trying to be supportive!” I whine, starting another set of reps. Although really, I quite like having things shoved up my ass.