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A pang of fear rang through Dove, just like he’d intended. There had been some hints of fear while they were in the bathroom, but they had been too faint. Not potent enough to leave him with his nostrils flaring, vibrating for more.

“I need to believe someone. Or something.” His Dove gulped, clenching his hands in tiny fists that rested over his chest. “It’s the only way I know to ride it out.”

Melchom frowned. His human could spend hours without worrying about the reality of his situation, then all of a sudden, a thought would pop up. Right now, he was thinking he must be in a ward already and that was why he couldn’t leave the room.

The way most human civilizations dealt with brain imbalances had never made sense to him.

“What do you need to believe this is the real thing?”

Dove snorted while he quivered with a much more potent kind of fear. “I can never tell something’s the real thing for sure. Yes, before you ask, it’s fucking exhausting.”

Melchom had not planned to ask him that, but he didn’t say it. What he did was grab hold of Dove’s body and push him to the bed. He usually tried to avoid soaking his mattress, but he didn’t quite care now.

Covering the tiny body with his almost felt like an instinct. He couldn’t say the same about pressing his lips against the human’s. His body vibrated as he held himself back, only exploring the chapped lips and the faintest hint of cherry-flavored gloss he must’ve been using before he was sent here.

He needed to be the only thing his human saw, the only thing he felt. He needed to mark him, to make it clear he belonged to him. It didn’t matter what the prophecies said or didn’t. Heavens, it didn’t matter if the prophecy really was about his human or not.

Melchom didn’t quite understand why he felt this urge toward the human—because he wasn’t so delusional to believe it was just about having a convenient food source. Demons weren’t about feelings and emotions and all the mushy stuff he knew Dove had had hundreds of dreams about. So he knew it wasn’t that… but it was something.

“What are we doing?” Dove licked Melchom’s lips before he asked, his body otherwise still in bed.

“A bit late to ask that question, no?”

Dove snorted. “I understand fucking. Not so sure about kissing languidly in bed.”

“Is that what you think we’re doing?” Using only one finger, Melchom tucked locks of honey brown hair behind the human’s ear. As soon as Dove started to relax, Melchom pulled at it, forcing him to arch his spine. “Never learn to anticipate me, Dove.”

The human scoffed. “Are you really gonna keep calling me that?”

“Yes.”

Melchom licked the side of Dove’s neck. If the human didn’t want kissing, he still had a million other things he could do.

“Will you tell me about it?” Dove struggled to speak. Melchom could see it in his head, the brute force to focus on the single mirror that had stayed stuck in the meaning of the prophecy. “Please?”

“Why would I keep you on the loop of anything, my Dove?”

The human shivered, tears pooling in his eyes. He nibbled on his bottom lip before his eyes clenched shut. “Okay.”

Okay? Melchom frowned. That wasn’t the answer he’d expected.

“It’s fine. We have good chemistry, but I’m nothing to you. I get it.” Dove shifted to his side, his back to Melchom as he burrowed in the bed.

Melchom didn’t know what to say. What was Dove supposed to be, other than a human gift whose company he enjoyed? Melchom shook his head. This was why everyone in Hell agreed humans were a lot of work. He was just getting hung up on it because it had been a long time—and the human really was entertaining. He guessed he’d grown to admire Dove, and that was quite the feat when he’d been in Hell for so little time.

“I’m heading out.”

“Whatever.”

Melchom noted the way Dove’s voice shook. One quick peek inside his head showed him the human was terrified of being alone. He’d been planning to ask him, apparently—to even beg if it came to it so Melchom wouldn’t leave him alone. The notion was preposterous. Melchom was going to ignore the almost-not-there tug in his chest. Not leaving him alone at all was just not plausible. Didn’t Dove realize he had a job? Responsibilities? He couldn’t show up to meetings with the princes of Hell with a human in tow.

It would lose him the little dignity he’d managed to hold on to.

He wondered, though. He didn’t know anything about caring for a human under his wing. He thought he’d been doing a good enough job so far, but doubts assaulted him when Dove got this despondent. Did Melchom need to pull him out of it? He wouldn’t know where to start. Dove’s head became disturbingly blurry when he got in one of these spells. The mirrors showed static, the sky moved in different lanes—some too fast, some too slow. It was dizzying just to be in there.

Melchom sighed as he covered his Dove with a Tartar cloth. He didn’t think too much about what he was doing, or what it meant. Instead, Melchom strode to the shelves in the wall to his right. There was a hidden drawer there, covered by sharp axes that had once been gifted to him. There were two history books there. Nothing big, but he figured it would keep the human entertained.

Without a word—he didn’t think Dove would hear him anyway—he dropped them next to him and left. He’d better hope no one caught sight of it. The last thing he needed was to give the Princes another reason to forget who they were talking to.