Straight To Hell
ROGUE
The first thing I notice is a burning weight across my chest. I know in the back alleyways of my mind that I’m not dead—if this were the transition period, I wouldn’t be sweating this much.
Unless I’m coming back inside a crusty fur sauna—which, based on my life choices, is plausible.
Attempting to lift my arms, I find my right shoulder entirely buried under something both heavy and golden.
It’s either the world’s most realistic weighted blanket, or—yeah, it’s definitely lion fur.
I attempt to inhale and come up with cat dander, a trickle of my drool, and the faint scent of spicy demons.
My left cheek is plastered to something smooth and warm and definitely breathing.
I’m pinned by Lion Archie and surrounded by demons on either side; no wonder I’m roasting.
I crack one eyelid and grimace when the sun spears through the narrow slat of the blackout curtains.
Squinting blearily, I realize that the blanket pinning my other side is a pair of demon wings.
One’s folded neatly; the other is flopped over the lion’s rump, twitching slightly in sleep.
If I squirm even a centimeter, it’ll probably whack me in the face.
“Shit,” I croak. My throat is a sand trap, and I frown as I assimilate the rest of my surroundings.
Above my head, there’s a hellish, piercing baby screech. Not a baby human, obviously; I don’t know many infants who sound like a blender hitting a kazoo. The noise makes the lion rumble like a discontented diesel engine, and dig its chin deeper into my solar plexus.
Thanks, Archie. Didn’t need that rib, anyway.
It all comes back: the attack, Rebel’s abduction, our injuries, and the fuzzy memory of passing out on the sofa.
I must’ve been black-bagged in my house because now I’m upstairs, sandwiched between two demons and an apex predator, with a baby phoenix screaming on the bed frame.
My hands are tangled in Archie’s mane, and I’m pretty sure I’m drooling into Damon’s bicep.
The small mercy is that my legs aren’t tangled up with anyone’s but my own, and I might be able to get out of this air fryer via the bottom of the pile.
I wiggle my fingers experimentally. There’s no numbness, no ache—actually, the deep soreness that had been chewing through my magic reserves is gone. I feel like a person again. My head is clear, and if I can just unpin myself, I might even stand up successfully.
“Unnnngh,” I say, in case anyone wants to register my distress.
The demon wing twitches in answer, flicking my ear like it’s bored with my suffering. I try a more targeted approach: I nudge Damon in the ribs with a pointy elbow. He doesn’t wake up, but he snorts and mumbles, “Five more minutes,” like a petulant teenager.
Even in sleep, he’s adorable, but I have to get out of here.
I try the other demon. “Angelo,” I whisper, aiming for the exposed bit of his neck not covered by lion mane. No answer, but his tail flicks, then wraps around my ankle. He’s not even awake, and he’s already being a possessive dick.
Above us, the baby bird goes off again—louder, this time and my ears demand that I stop that sound. I wriggle my head out from between the demon and the lion, craning to get a look.
Perched atop the bed’s wrought iron headboard, Javier looks less like a gross featherless chicken and more like an angry, downy fireball.
He’s got one tiny talon wrapped around the bar, and his little beak is gaping in a war cry.
Every time he screams, he horks a smoldering little ember into the air.
By my count, the bedspread is seconds from spontaneous combustion.
I try again to wake Damon, this time with a slightly harder jab. “Hey. Wake up. Javi’s about to torch the sheets.”
“Do not care,” Damon slurs, then his arm slinks tighter around my waist, pulling me closer. “Let it burn.”
I shift back against the lion, which is also now making an annoyed grumble.
Archie’s breath is heavy and hot, and when he opens a single gold eye, it takes a second for the light of recognition to flicker.
Then he blinks, remembers he’s a person inside there, and flops his tail off the bed, nearly taking out Javier.
“Off,” I hiss, shoving at the wall of fur.
Archie ignores me, instead doing the world’s slowest, most deliberate stretch, like a two hundred pound house cat.
His ass end rises, then collapses, and the rest of him follows in an avalanche of muscle.
There’s a moment when I get a truly intimate view of lion anatomy I never needed, and then he’s rolled away enough that I can peel myself up.
So. Fucking. Weird.
My tank top is soaked in sweat and lion drool, so the minute he moves, I scramble upright. Kneeling on the mattress, I massage feeling back into my arms as I scramble out of the oven made of my mates.
“Did we decide to have a sleepover and not wake me? What day is it, even?” I mutter as I look around.
The lion gives me a side-eye, then a full-body shake.
Its mane explodes in a halo of gold, and a few tufts of fur drift lazily to the floor.
Damon finally rolls onto his back, wings stretching and flexing, his eyes still closed.
Angelo is the last to wake, but when he does, he’s grinning like a wolf with a mouthful of canary.
“You’re finally awake,” Ang says, his tone sleep-rough, but his dark eyes bright. “We were starting to take bets when that would happen.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “I passed out on the couch for a nap. How the hell did I get up here and again, what damn day is it?”
Damon grins, cracking one eyelid. “It took us a bit to figure out, but I guess you went full ‘Fae-sleep’. According to my research, nothing short of a direct hit from a howitzer was going to wake you in that state. We debated throwing you in the tub, but decided waterboarding was unnecessary after the shit we just went through.”
“Hilarious—also, don’t ever do that. Fae-sleep is no joke and if you had awakened me early, I might have tested all our immunity to death.” I pick at a clump of lion fur that’s gotten stuck under my bra strap.
Angelo shrugs. “Morning-ish, two days after the blast? We’ve been up and down, getting shit done, but you were out cold and Arch refused to shift until you were awake. We just…let you recharge while Javi grew and the big kitty guarded you both.”
I blink at them, letting the fact that I went into the sleep after the attack settle in. The last time I did that was when the Kellys sent Reck away, and I was asleep for two months. I woke one day to an empty house and a new kind of emptiness that I never wanted to feel again.
But here I am, coming out of it with Reb gone and our mating indefinitely postponed.
A fresh peal of baby phoenix rage shatters my brooding.
I reach out and grab Javier mid-flap as he comes off the headboard like a comet, talons raking air.
Once he’s in my hands he settles, staring up at me with coal-bright eyes.
He’s warm—no, he’s hot, like holding a bread roll straight from the oven.
His down is prickly and there’s a fleck of ash on his beak.
“You’re looking better,” I say, stroking his head with a finger. He bites me, but gently.
Archie, still in lion form, sniffs at the bird and makes a grumbling purr. He’s probably thinking about breakfast and a tiny angry bird that he can’t eat isn’t exactly a good thing.
“Okay. Now that everyone’s awake, someone explain why Archie is still a lion?” I ask, waving a hand at the cat, whose only response is to yawn so wide I can see down his throat.
Damon props himself up, his wings tucking behind him. “We don’t know, but he just refused to go human again with you out. I tried to coax him, but he just huffed at me.”
Angelo snorts. “He gave the Dom voice a try and pouted when it didn’t work. Don’t let him fool you into thinking he just let it go.”
I sigh, reaching down to ruffle Archie’s mane lightly. “Fine. Did anything else important happen while I was out?”
Damon and Angelo exchange a look. Angelo looks at me without his usual smirk.
“We had a call with Javi’s parents. The Kings and their phoenix consortium are not happy about Javier going boom.
It took forever to get them to give us the info on what we needed to do to help him.
They wanted to come take him away, but his screeches seemed to talk them out of it. Maybe they understand that loud shit.”
Angelo leans forward, voice dropping. “They also don’t know who snatched Rebel. That wasn’t easy to get out of them, either—both that they’d heard he was missing and the shit for taking care of our feathered friend.”
Lion Archie makes a noise that could be a huff, or a laugh, or just a reminder that he has teeth.
My chest is tight as I think about my stepbrother, but at least I’m not weak anymore. I squeeze Javier, who squirms, then settles. “Okay,” I say. “Well, we’re on our own because if the Kings have heard about Reb, then my handlers have, and no one’s come calling, I assume.”
Ang’s smile is back, sharp and a little dangerous. “We’re better without all those windbags, anyway, Princess. No rules, no guidelines—just our family working together to find him and take whoever the fuck snatched him out.”
I slide off the bed, legs wobbly, and land with a squawk. Javier flaps in my hands, but I manage to keep him from launching. “First things first… I need food and Fae energy coffee. Hell, we all need our versions of that to be able to focus on getting him back.”
It’s a dysfunctional pack without Reb, but right now, it’s all I have.