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You know what I was forced to do with all those extra hours? I cleaned my toilet. I cleaned my kitchen. I got down on my hands and my knees and I fucking scrubbed my baseboards. Do you know what baseboards are? They’re the fucking worst. You know what else I did in those two days? I cried.

That’s right. Demons cry, bitch.

I know if my evil overlord would have been there, they would have been providing such a nice background sound of all my shortcomings, reminding me how useless I was, and then likely I’d have been scrubbing my ceiling instead. Which is much more important, but I’m so useless without him that I seem to find the stupidest things to do with my time when he’s gone.

I never wanted to be that man again; the man who starts to think he might be nice. So, I recorded all kinds of personal slurs, so that even if my overlord has to take a break or a day off, all I have to do is turn to my phone to be insulted. That's the condition when I do with my best work, really.

When everything got settled back to normal, I was sent on a special mission topside. It took several days of briefing to get all my information, and several days after that to prepare myself.

I found out there were some souls there trying to cheat their way out of hell. That’s so stupid if you ask me, because where else are you going to find such a good spa that will remove your toenails with diamond encrusted tweezers? You can’t find service like that just anywhere.

I’d heard the word love before. Didn’t understand it, but I’d heard it.

Well, there was this man who thought himself very highly evolved. He had gone around bargaining with people stronger than him, trying to find out the secrets to immortality. He said he needed to live forever, so that he could live his legacy.

Fine, whatever.

The problem is, he was dealing with a witch who had some very peculiar tastes and ideas that went completely against our demon king, Lucie.

She was also madly in love with this cheat, but I'm not sure how that's at all important.

Ah, fuck. It's walk across hot coals night, and I just remembered. My buddies will never let me live it down if I skip. I'm certain you have enough information to hold you over for now.

Until next time.

Chapter Seven

Wilder

I wait for my current class to start exiting the room before I pack up my stuff. The past few days have left me on autopilot, barely responding to external stimuli because once again, everything is a mess with my mate.

I could blame the fact the I haven't spoken with her or sought her out in nearly a week on the fact that I'm now facing many more duties as pride male, but even I know that would be a bullshit excuse.

The truth is far more stupid; she was right.

Now that I've had time to come to terms with what my father pulled and tried to expose Delaney to, I find my thinking at the time to be absolutely ridiculous.

How could I have thought that Delaney getting her parents involved would be a bad thing?

Likely because my own father is such a fuck up that I find it hard to comprehend that there are parents out there that actually want good things for their children.

I begged off of returning home with Delaney over the weekend, where she brought Adam and Cory and her mates to spend time with her family, because I just wasn’t ready. I knew it was important to her, and yet I let my ego get in the way and told her I had other responsibilities.

I did actually, so it wasn't a complete lie, but it would have been fairly simple to rearrange my schedule to fit Delaney's needs in.

In fact, it would be expected of me as her mate to assimilate into her life like she should be melding into mine. Which clearly isn't happening.

Everyone has kept me in the group chat, so I know all about the cute picnics Cory and Adam have taken her on,the football game she went to to support her brother, but also how she ended up fucking August and Jackson in the empty women's locker room after and how hot it was, but it's just life going on without me.

I don't know how to reinsert myself into her life after we had just started getting somewhere good and I blew us off the map.

My teeth ache from how hard my jaw keeps clamping itself shut, because I'm so tense, and my lion doesn't understand what the fuck I'm doing with our mate.

“Wilder? You have a second?”

I shake my head and force myself into play-nice-with-my-colleagues mode as I start collecting my lecture notes so I can replace them in my briefcase. “Yes, I have a moment. What did you need?”

“I was just wondering if you could check over this grant proposal I put together; it’s for that one you won last year, and I just wantto make sure I'm giving it my best shot. My students could really benefit from this kind of program.”