Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Syke
Dragging myself out of Hailey’s new home when she smelled like longing was possibly the hardest thing I’d done since I’d crawled through the gates of hell.
Instead of holding her against the wall with my shadows and tongue fucking her into oblivion like I wanted, I brushed my lips softly against hers and said goodnight.
I’d been surprised when Louis followed me out into the driveway, stepping up to his truck.
“Want to go get a beer?” he asked.
“I was meant to go play Mario Kart with Ilyas.” I wanted to tell Louis that I thought perhaps our old friend was depressed, but I didn’t.
The pressure from his flight felt like a noose around his neck, and he wouldn’t let anyone else help with the burden.
I’d offered several times to turn his key into rubble, but he was a noble bastard and kept turning me down.
Louis hesitated but nodded sadly. Fucking hell, when did I become the emotional support person on the team? “You can come too, if you don’t want to go back to your apartment alone.”
Grinning at me with hopefulness that would look at home on a golden retriever with a ball in its mouth, he opened the driver’s door. “I’d like that. I’ll grab some beer on the way there.”
“Sounds good. See you soon.”
I had a standing invitation to enter Ilyas’s home.
I once teased him that he couldn’t blame me if I accidentally shadow walked in on him fucking a girl on his couch, since there was no metaphysical equivalent of a sock on the doorknob in the shadows.
He’d just snorted an unimpressed sound and muttered that he didn’t bring women back to his apartment, and that was it.
To be fair, in the decade we’d been teammates and friends, he’d never had a serious lover, and I’d never scented a woman in his home.
When I appeared, Ilyas wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a woman, though, but Otis on the couch with no shirt on.
He was in his minotaur form next to Ilyas.
I raised an eyebrow. A football game was on the screen.
It was a creature only game, and the rules were a little different, so it was somewhere between a gladiator fight and football. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Fuck off. I thought you’d abandoned me for the night to play house with the human, so I invited Otis over,” Ilyas grumbled without looking away from the television.
“Shirtless?”
Otis rolled his eyes. “Jealous?” he taunted, but a small smile curled his lips.
If I was honest, I was a little jealous.
Ilyas was my best friend, my partner on the team.
“Relax, Syke. I spilled salsa on my shirt, and I rinsed it in Ilyas’s sink so it didn’t stain.
It’s over there drying.” He pointed to the clothes airer over the ducted heating vent.
I made a rude noise. “I’m not jealous, and I didn’t think you were fucking. You guys are both far too uptight.” I slumped down on the floor. “Louis is on his way too. He looked like a sad puppy now that Hailey and Eric moved out, and I didn’t want him to be alone.”
Ilyas kicked me lightly with his bare foot. Gargoyles had large, elongated feet to assist in straight, vertical takeoffs. “You really are getting soft in your old age, Syke.”
I glared at him then turned back to the television. We watched the game in silence. I wasn’t big into football, because demons were still excluded from the league. I thought it was unfair, but I understood. There was no fun in just shadow walking to the end zone.
Eventually, there was a knock on the door, and Ilyas stood to open it. Louis leaned against the door with a box of beer and a grin. “I thought I saw Otis’s car in the parking lot. It’s an unofficial team meeting.”
He plonked the beer on the coffee table then lay down on the carpet. “Thanks for inviting me over,” he said, cracking open his beer. “My apartment is going to be too quiet for a while.”
Otis grunted. “Did they settle into their new place okay?”
The smile on Louis’s face told me far more than his words ever could. He was one hundred percent smitten with the pair. “Yeah. They both seem really happy.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, asked if I could court them now that they aren’t living with me. They said yes.”
Everyone looked at our werewolf friend. He loved freely, but he’d never courted anyone since we’d known him. Courting was serious business for a werewolf. He would be showing her—them—that he could provide for them, both physically and emotionally.
Otis recovered first. “Congratulations, Louie.” His eyes slid to me. “Uh, what about Syke?”
I raised my eyebrows at Louis. “Yeah, what about me?” I teased, though I actually wanted to know. Kind of.
“Do you want me to court you too? Like, you’re hot and all, but you aren’t really my type.”
Blinking at him, I tilted my head. I thought he was joking, but I had a feeling he wasn’t. “You’re actually serious, aren’t you?”
He leaned back against the coffee table. “I might not be a demon, but I’m also not an idiot. You like her, and you like him too, so even after this shit with the arches and that other stuff is done, you’d find a way to stick around. You aren’t that mysterious.”
I waved a hand at him. “Not that. I mean you seriously think I’m not your type? I’m everyone’s type!”
He laughed at me, throwing a beer at my head.
“I mean it.” He tapped his nose. “You really like them. The sniffer doesn’t lie.
That goes for all of you. You aren’t fooling me.
” He turned back to the television. “I know you guys don’t believe in fate, but I do.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we were already halfway to being a pack before she stumbled into our laps. ”
My head whipped toward the other two members of my team. Ilyas’s face was perfectly blank, but Otis was staring at Louis like he’d grown a second head. He cleared his throat. “I don’t…”
I waggled a finger at him. “Uh-uh. Don’t lie to a demon, boss man.”
He huffed, his large nostrils flaring. “It would be inappropriate. I’m her boss.”
“Fuck appropriate. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I told him. Otis just stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had, or maybe Louis had, but eternity was long, and surprises didn’t come around very often. I was going to take the one that had been gifted to me.
Ilyas handed out everyone’s controllers and switched it from the football game to Mario Kart. I picked Princess Peach and glared at everyone before they could comment. Ilyas chose Toad, and unsurprisingly, Otis picked Mario. Louis chose Bowser, which was a bit of a plot twist.
As we played the game, I thought more about Louis’s words. Was it fate that we were already close before Hailey appeared, a pack in everything but name? Or was it Hailey who was drawing us closer together?
Maybe it was just loneliness, the need for something more, or perhaps it was because she was hot, and both Hailey and Eric together created an irresistible package.
The sweet, fragile human and the submissive orc sounded like an erotic movie that I’d probably stroke myself to in the unseen hours of the night.
Otis looked at Ilyas from the corner of his eye. “Might help you with your problem.”
I paused the game. “What problem?”
“Adrik insinuated that he was going to use his position on the Creature Oversight Committee to look into our team for signs of misconduct if I didn’t fall into line and court—or maybe just straight up inseminate—one of the visiting French gargoyles.
He must really want to create some strong political ties.
Normally, I’d tell him to try his hardest, but Eric’s clan sickness call out… ”
I winced. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly on the up and up. We fudged his report a little so he didn’t get in trouble for mate bonding a human without consent, but it had all worked out in the end.
My shadows swirled around me. “Fuck him. Let him try. Eric will eviscerate him, and Hailey is solid. If she can hold her nerve against the arches, then she could completely mess up the Creature Oversight Committee.”
Louis whistled low. “I want to take my time courting them, but Eric still needs a clan to stave off clan sickness. Perhaps you can ask them to mate bond you too. Your flight can’t pimp you out if you already have a bond. That’s against the Creatures Freedoms and Relations Act.”
Ilyas grunted something unintelligible, but it definitely wasn’t a no, which meant he’d think about it. Hailey and Eric might not go for it, but I’d seen the way he showed off for her when we visited the pack the other weekend. He liked her and wanted to impress her.
I smirked as I threw bananas behind my pink car, doing three-sixty spins in my puffy pink dress. It would all work out how it was supposed to in the end, but I wasn’t against giving it a helping hand.