“Should I sit?”
She glanced over at me, then quickly looked away again, a blush rising on her cheeks. There was no point in putting back on my clothes if she wanted to tend to my wounds, and seeing her try desperately not to stare made it even better. She got up abruptly from the couch, motioning to it.
“Yeah, uh…sit. Sit down.” Her attempts to avert her eyes from my cock was cute, and ultimately futile. Funny how she could still blush when she already knew what it felt like inside her. But then the sight of my injuries, oozing blood again from the shower, distracted her. “Jesus, Leon! You need stitches!”
“Not necessary.” I settled on the couch, stretching my arms over the back of it, and its firm softness immediately awakened an odd pang of nostalgia. I did have a home back in Hell — I hadn’t set foot in it in over a century, but it was still there, waiting for me. There were some comforts one could only associate with home, with a place that was familiar and safe.
Fuck, what did safety feel like?
Rae threw up her hands, walking away as she grumbled, “So your magical super demon powers grant you the ability to fight off gangrene? Or create new skin? Your shoulder is infected!” She returned, arms full with a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a damp washcloth. Her eyes fell on the gash running from my thigh down across my knee, and she winced as she set her supplies down.
“God, what the hell would you do without me?” she said it playfully, but there was a note of real concern in her voice. It made me frown, and I shrugged.
“Likely go to Zane’s place and sleep it off,” I said. “A few days of solid sleep can heal almost anything. Although, under Kent’s control, I’d just hope for a few days of sleep when I was injured. He never quite grasped that even demons need time to heal.”
She frowned now as she knelt with the cloth and carefully dabbed at the edges of the wound. She still didn’t believe me about Kent — or didn’t want to. But I liked how she looked on her knees.
“Zane is a demon too, isn’t he?” she said. I nodded. “Are there others? In Abelaum?”
“Could be. I haven’t met them. But everywhere there are humans, there are demons. We’re drawn to the brightness: human lives burn so brightly but so briefly. An explosion, a roaring fire in the night. We demons…are more like smoldering coals. Burning on and on. Dulling and flaring. We’re always seeking more. We’re driven toward that light, to take it, own it.”
“Why?”
I chuckled at her curiosity. “Why do humans breathe air or drink water? It’s necessary. It’s irresistible.”
I don’t think my answer satisfied her, but she quieted for a bit.
“You and Zane,” she said slowly. “You’re lovers?”
I snorted. “Once upon a time. We’re companions who share similar pleasurable tastes.”
She laughed, dabbing a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide along my leg. “Companions, right, okay. Way to not give an inch on any emotions there.” She shook her head. “Are all demons like you?”
“Bisexual? Yes, but we don’t have a need to label our attractions like you humans do.”
She laughed again. “No, that’s — that’s not what I meant. I meant, like, are all of you so…closed up. You just replace emotions with anger or sarcasm. Are you all like that?”
I glared down at her. “Years of torture and solitude will have you learn that anger is the safest emotion. It’s the strongest. It’s a fire that will keep you going in the dark.”
The playful smile on her face fell, and she went on cleaning my leg in silence. The gentle touch of her fingers over my skin nearly made me flinch — not from pain, for pain I could endure, but simply from being touched. Soft hands weren’t something I typically encountered.
A happy little chirp announced the arrival of Raelynn’s cat, sauntering down sleepy-eyed from the stairs. He came straight for me, hopped up on the couch, and curled his chubby orange-and-white body against my side, purring as he kneaded the cushions with his claws.
Raelynn paused as she watched me stroke the cat’s head, using my claws to give him proper chin scratches.
“He rarely comes down to visit people,” she said. “He’s usually too shy.”
“Cats and demons tend to get along well,” I said. “They’re the only animal that can be found both on Earth, and in Hell.”
“Figures.” She laughed, but then her face grew somber. “Thank you for saving him. Really. He means a lot to me.”