Page 67 of Demon Dating Service
“Don’t kill them, but can you scare them? Make it so they never bully or torment anyone again. Make them forget about Matteo and me. And I never want to see them at Ravenwood again. Make them…go somewhere else. I don’t care where.” He paused and tipped his face up to the demon, a smirk playing on his lips. “Can you do this, or are you not up to the challenge?”
Azroth’s anger fizzled in a flash, and he grinned at Luke. He booped the tip of his nose with a talon. “You’re such a sneaky little human. I knew you were perfect for us. Scaring can be just as much fun as killing.”
The fear and tension that had nearly choked Luke unwound, and his legs almost gave out under him. He’d been afraid the demons wouldn’t agree to his request and the weight of four dead students would have crushed him, even if these were his own would-be murderers.
“Luke is right!” Azroth announced to the other demons. “Killing is easy. Keeping them alive for a lengthy torment is far more difficult and requires all our talents. Let us prove our skills haven’t gone rusty.”
Before Luke could state that he didn’t want to see what they did, Azroth waved a hand at him and the world went dark.
Luke awokeand sat up to find that he was in his own bed at the mansion. Thin sunlight leaked through the one window in his room as the sun had just started to rise. A low murmur drew his attention as Matteo shifted next to him, stretching his arm across Luke’s lap as he slept.
Was it all a dream?
Had he fallen asleep with Matteo after they’d had sex, and he’d suffered a nightmare?
“It wasn’t a dream.”
Luke’s head snapped up, and he found Azroth seated in the same high-back black leather chair he always sat in when they were in the library. The demon was in his human form, wearing a tidy charcoal gray suit. On the palm of his left hand, he balanced a delicate china cup and saucer, as if he’d been sitting there enjoying some tea while he watched over Luke and Matteo.
“What?” Luke whispered.
Azroth smiled. “You don’t have to whisper. He won’t wake until I allow him to do so.”
“Oh. But…what you were saying…”
“It wasn’t a dream,” Azroth repeated. He paused to take a sip of his beverage. He motioned with the cup and saucer as if he were intending to place them on a nonexistent table, but as soon as he released them, they disappeared. “Those four fools who dared to attack you have been dealt with. They are still alive,” he tacked on as Luke drew in a breath. “Their memories don’t contain you or Matteo, but they are very vivid about the consequences of what happens when they harm others. They are not quite as sane?—”
Luke held up a hand and squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop. I can’t. I…I don’t want to know. Even if they deserved it and more, I’ll still feel guilty. I don’t care if that makes me a coward.” He could all too easily imagine Azroth and the others turning the brains of his attackers to useless pudding. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t remember Luke. It was more likely that they didn’t recall their own names.
“You’re not a coward. You are a very good person, Luke. Never doubt that. Too good for the likes of us, but we don’t care. You are stuck with us.”
That didn’t feel like a bad thing. Luke had found a home and a strange friendship with these demons that he had no desire to lose, even after last night’s insanity. Maybe they were a little overprotective, but they also listened to him. And he liked that they were just as protective of Matteo.
“The reason I am here is Matteo.”
Shit. Maybe I’d spoken too soon.
Azroth grinned, and Luke glared at him.
“You need to stop reading my thoughts.”
The demon chuckled. “Then stop thinking so loudly.”
“Whatever.”
“We will never harm Matteo unless that is your wish. My concern is that he currently remembers last night. However, I can wipe his memory, making it so that he believes you and he fell asleep after making love. He won’t even remember those college students at all.”
Luke stared at his handsome face relaxed in peaceful sleep. It felt kinder to take away those horrible memories. Let their first date be unmarked by anything negative.
Except he wasn’t a fan of mucking around in Matteo’s mind. It wasn’t right to change his memories, even if it was done out of kindness.
And what about the demons? If Luke continued to live with the demons, it was only a matter of time until there was a slipup and Matteo encountered one of them or some other magical weirdness. Would he have to get Azroth to change his memory again?
Unless the demons intended to leave him now…
“The competition is over. Matteo and I are dating. We’re officially boyfriends. At least for now. What happens now? Do I need to move out? Will you wipe my memory of ever having met you?”
Azroth blinked several times, and his lips parted, but no sound slipped out. It seemed he hadn’t considered that yet. “Oh. Yes. I’d forgotten about that. The game. Well…” He licked his lips, appearing to stall for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “Do you wish to move out and forget about us?”