Page 5

Chapter

Four

GRIM

F lames danced in the hearth as I sat staring into oblivion. Malice was speaking, his sonorous voice registering, but the words could not find purchase in my brain. My thoughts kept returning to Merri and how upset she’d been.

Generally I didn’t stick around after my work was done, but every now and then I’d come across a widow grieving for her lost love. That’s what Merri had reminded me of. She’d been completely undone.

Over Sinclair.

It was unfathomable to me. She barely knew him. How had she come to care so much?

What had he done for her that made him worth her tears?

“Grimsby, did you hear a word I said?” Malice snapped.

My eyes flicked to his, my expression and posture radiating boredom. “You’re prattling on about Merri.”

Mal narrowed his eyes as he crossed his arms. “And?”

“Why should I bother to listen when you’re constantly going on about the same bloody thing? I’ll pay attention when you actually have something of consequence to say.”

Chaos poured himself a fresh drink and knocked back the entirety in one long swallow. “She’s a menace. A very pretty menace.”

“Relying on camming isn’t going to serve her well enough. We’ve seen evidence of that twice now.” Malice flopped down in the leather club chair across from me. “But us working as a team seemed to suffice.”

I sighed and dragged my fingers through my thick hair. “You seem to have forgotten one very important detail of why we were charged to keep her with us, Mal.”

His unnerving purple irises locked on me. “I haven’t forgotten. Neither has Sin, if the sounds from upstairs were any indication.”

“Do you really think they were going at it again?” I asked, shocked at the suggestion. Merri had been devastated. How did one go from that to a romp in the sheets?

Chaos shrugged. “Don’t underestimate the power of a beautiful woman.”

“Beautiful succubus, you mean.”

Chaos’s sharp glare said he didn’t like me reducing her to her species. I held his glare without issue. The distinction had to be made. Not only were the four of us not immune to her power, twice over, one of us had been rendered unconscious because of them. We could not afford to forget what she was.

Eventually Chaos sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. “A woefully unprepared one. Malice, have you made any headway on those shielding sessions?”

Malice gave him an incredulous once-over. “And when exactly was I supposed to have done that? While we were fleeing London? While getting the chateau ready for five unexpected occupants with a need for internet access and security? During the orgy?”

Chaos held up a hand. “Okay, okay. I get it. We’ve been busy. But I do think we need to make her lessons a priority. I’ll handle the hand-to-hand. You deal with the mental stuff.”

“I don’t care when you do it, but she needs sessions with each of you every single day until we are confident she can control and defend herself.”

Merri was a liability in so many ways, chief among them how open she was to outside influence. That pride demon should have never been able to draw her away so easily. But a powerhouse like Merri with no protective skills was a prime target. She had been a sitting duck. The woman was basically a bowl of candy left unattended on Halloween.

Chaos nodded his agreement. After a beat, Malice huffed out a breath and did the same.

Under any other circumstance, he would absolutely refuse to assist, but we didn’t really have a choice here. If we wanted to keep Merri out of Lucifer’s clutches, she needed every advantage she could get.

“Fine,” he sighed, reminding me of a put-out babysitter.

“You guys, you promised you wouldn’t have book club without me again.” Sin stood in the doorway, hair wet from the shower, shirt in one hand, jeans not even buttoned.

“Welcome back,” Malice said, sounding not at all welcoming.

“Don’t hate me ’cause you ain’t me,” Sin said smugly, tossing his shirt at Malice’s face.

He had no idea how true that statement was at the moment.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

He gave an obnoxious wink as he sank back into the authentic rococo settee, his arms slung across the back. “If you have to ask, you’re not old enough to know.”

Chaos lost his temper first. “We don’t care that you fucked her, asshat. Why did she knock you out cold?”

“She didn’t. I just... overloaded on power. Had to sleep it off. Like after a Thanksgiving dinner.”

“So you were in a sex coma?” Malice asked.

“Exactly. Best meal of my life.”

“Is that what happened to Malice?” I asked.

Sin shook his head. “Nope.” He made a point to pop the P . “Mal Pal wasn’t strong enough to survive the experience.”

Malice chucked a throw pillow at Sin’s head.

“Children,” I intoned, my warning clear.

“Sorry, Dad,” Sin said without any hint of genuine apology. “Malice is still weakened from Hel’s little game. He hasn’t had the opportunity to recharge like Chaos and me, so when she fed from him without the rest of us there to share the burden, his body couldn’t handle the energy drain. It powered down, just like one of his machines.”

Chaos appeared lost in thought.

“What is it?” I asked, recognizing the look in his eyes due to years of familiarity. He was like a bloodhound scenting a new trail.

“Why should we trust Lilith?”

I wasn’t sure what had led him to this line of questioning, but I knew that his strategist's brain picked up on things I didn’t always notice right away. “Why shouldn’t we?” I countered.

Chaos held up a finger, as if ticking off items on a list. “One, she’s a demon. Two, she’s a demon. Three?—”

“Yes, fine. We understand. But we’re not exactly the good guys either,” Sin argued.

Chaos shrugged off his assessment. “I think we need to at least consider the possibility that Lilith is not to be trusted and that she sent Merri to us knowing exactly what would happen.”

While it was true that Lilith was as manipulative as the rest of us and that a sneaky move like that was absolutely in her wheelhouse, something about Chaos’s suggestion rang false to me.

“Lilith hates Lucifer. Why would she do anything to help him?”

“He has a point. A woman scorned and all that...” Sin spread his legs wider, and it seemed the satisfied smirk was a permanent resident on his face now.

“If she wanted to help him, she could have simply deposited Merri on Lucifer’s doorstep. She has no quarrel with us.”

“That we know of,” Chaos muttered.

“I think you’re missing the big picture, War. She didn’t drain me. She boosted me. Your logic is flawed.”

“And she didn’t kill me,” Malice offered.

“She fed on us all. Did any of you feel lingering weakness?” I asked, knowing the answer. No. Perhaps I’d been briefly incapacitated, but that could be said for anyone in the throes of pleasure.

Sin and Malice were quick to shake their heads. Chaos took a bit longer.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said eventually, but his expression was still uncertain.

“Enough of this. We’re focusing on the wrong thing,” I snarled. “Merri isn’t a threat to us. She’s ours to care for, and that means we need to all be at full strength before the next Prince is released.”

As one, three sets of eyes landed on me.

“What?”

“Ours to care for?” Malice repeated, one brow raised. “Since when did impregnating the girl require catching feelings?”

My gut twisted. “Care for. Like one would care for a plant. Feed it, water it, keep it safe from harm.”

“Uh-huh,” Sin said.

I growled low in my throat, and a dark shadow flowed from beneath me, moving over the floor like an angry tide.

Sin spun sideways in his seat, lifting his legs off the ground to avoid coming into contact with the oily darkness. “Can no one take a joke anymore? Yeesh.”

“You’re pulling focus from the real issue at hand, Sinclair. The next Prince is due any day. Regardless of how any of us feel about her, Merri needs to be protected. We need to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” Malice asked. “They don’t know where we are. And even if they did, we’re already on an island. They can’t exactly sneak up on us this time.”

“You’ve said that before and have already been proven wrong,” I pointed out. “At the very least, we should look into warding the premises. Making sure nothing can go undetected.”

“My security system is the best available on the planet. It’s already taken care of. Christian is in the process of checking all the sensors as we speak.”

Chaos’s frown and low grumble of dissatisfaction shook Malice’s confidence. I could see it in his eyes.

Mal shot a glare at the warrior, who’d taken a sword off the mount over the fireplace. “Can you please stop touching things that don’t belong to you?”

I snickered. “And you call me fussy.”

“You are the fussiest fuck I’ve ever known,” Sin drawled. “And I was an actor.”

Chaos pointed the tip of the sword in Sin’s direction. “You know the rules, Sinclair. Not a fucking word about the glory days.”

“What are you gonna do, Chaos? Chop off my head?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Sin smirked. “Won’t keep my mouth shut.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Am I seriously the only one who cares that we are in imminent danger?”

“You mean Merri is in danger. We are immortal.” Malice’s tone betrayed his own worry. He didn't want any harm to come to her either. None of us did.

“I have never failed in any of my tasks. I will not fail in this one.”

Sin snorted.

“What?” I snapped.

“Of course you’ve never failed. All of your tasks end with killing something or someone. Pretty easy when all you have to do is touch them.”

“Are we just ignoring the one task that you’ve absolutely failed to complete, Mr. Horseman? Or does it not count unless it suits you?”

“Glass houses, Chaos.”

“I’m not the one making claims of a perfect record, Grimsby.”

“Enough,” I snapped, my ire mounting at Sinclair’s snickers.

They were getting entirely too comfortable and forgetting their places. I was the inevitable one. The oldest among us. The first of our kind. Yes, Pestilence came along moments later, but I had been first. And Death was pretty fucking final.

Malice blew out a breath. “What do you want us to say, Grim? She’s as safe as we can make her. I had this place warded centuries ago, but if it will make you feel better, I can have Christian strengthen them.”

“What would a groundskeeper know about wards?” Sin asked.

“He’s sworn to Hecate’s line. His family is blood-bound to the estate. It’s their wards that protect it. It’s also the reason they can never truly leave.”

“So he’s not loyal to you at all, then?” Chaos asked.

Malice’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Why would you say that?”

“Because you are keeping him bound here. He’s forced to serve you.”

“Well... no. Not me, per se. I snagged this land from Hecate after a wild night of gambling. All I had to do was get rid of the occupant, spread a little plague to her enemies, and then it was mine forevermore.”

“What’s so special about this place?” Chaos asked.

“Ley lines.”

“What about them?”

“The five main lines all intersect here. It’s a place of immense power, which is why Hecate claimed it in the first place.”

“You’re not a magic user though, so why did you want it?” I asked.

Malice shrugged. “It’s picturesque and secluded.”

I raised a brow, not buying that for a second.

“What? You never know when you’re going to need an ace up your sleeve. I saw the potential.”

“You’re not wrong,” Chaos said. “And aside from things with wings, the ability to fortify and defend an island is much greater than a penthouse.”

I took umbrage with that. My penthouse was a fortress. Mostly. But now it was so much rubble, so perhaps he had a point.

“Are the wards strong enough to protect from above as well?” I asked.

“Technically speaking, yes. But the Knights are a different breed. It may not hurt to give them a boost. As I said, I’ll have Christian look into it.”

“Does he know what we are?” Sin asked.

Malice shook his head. “His family has been led to believe that I—or as they assume my family—descend directly from the goddess Hecate herself.”

“And the fact that you have no magical ability?” I pressed.

Malice sneered. “Have you seen what I can do with a virus? I am magic.”

Sin snickered and whispered, “I am the night.”

“So his loyalty is misplaced, he’s blood-bound to remain here, and he’s potentially serving you against his will. Sounds bloody perfect. What could go wrong?” I said dryly.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Malice countered.

“Where has faith ever gotten us?”

“Christian’s loyalty is to his goddess and the land she’s tasked his line with protecting. As far as anyone cares or is concerned, his values and mine are aligned. Anything that could threaten this land is something that must be dealt with. Therefore, a request to strengthen the wards against demonic entities seeking to claim this seat of power for their own nefarious deeds is not simply a request from me, it’s an obligation to his goddess. There will be no issue.”

Sin, who had finally donned his shirt, stood and walked over to the bar cart, poured himself a generous helping of whiskey—not Brimstone, unfortunately—then knocked it back.

“There better not be.” His voice held such a serious note we all sat up and took notice. “You may not want to admit it, but Merri is important to us. She’s important to me. Even if she wasn’t the vessel, I’d care about what happened to her.”

The declaration was so novel the three of us were rendered speechless. We were horsemen. We didn’t care about mortals. They were sometimes tools, but always casualties. In other words, they were dispensable. Necessary evils. And while Merri was a succubus, she was still mortal in the sense that she could truly die. We would survive the apocalypse. She would not.

There was no happy ending here. Even if we did stop Lucifer, we were still who we were. All of this would start again. What place did she have in our lives?

I cleared my throat, not sure what to say to Sin. No matter how he felt about her, he couldn’t keep her. It wasn’t in our nature.

“She’s not yours, Sin,” Malice said softly.

“Not yet, but she could be.”

Chaos and I exchanged a look, recognizing the mulish set of his shoulders. Sin was a child who’d just been told he couldn’t have a toy. Now it was the only thing he wanted.

There was no winning this argument. Not now. Time to redirect.

“She can’t be anything if she’s dead.” I trained my stern glare on Chaos. “Sin did his duty. It’s time for you to do yours.”

Sin smirked. “Not if I got one past the goalie already.”

“That remains to be seen. But every day that passes is one day closer to Lucifer getting what he’s after.” I made a point to meet and hold each of their gazes. “It is imperative that we do not fail.”

“Again with the we, like he’s gonna step up to the plate,” Sin said with a roll of his eyes.

I ground my teeth together, needing more effort than usual to keep myself in check. Sin was begging for a beating, and I wanted so badly to deliver it. But that would encourage his bad behavior. If he knew it got a rise out of me, he’d only redouble his efforts to do it again.

Chaos must have sensed the violence simmering within me. He moved across the room and snatched the highball glass out of Sin’s hand, drinking the remains of the whiskey in one go. “Leave it to me.”