Page 71 of Demon Dating Service

At least Luke had some redeeming qualities. Besides, he was their Luke, and nothing else mattered.

Which was why he was standing in the middle of Ravenwood University library in the first place. Their Luke was depressed, and this needed to be fixed now.

It had been a week since those bastards had dared to attack Luke and Matteo. That also meant it had been a week since Matteo and Luke had last talked. Luke said that he respected Matteo’s need to think things through, but all the demons knew they were perfect for each other. Matteo just needed a little nudge.

Ignoring the annoying brilliance of the library, Azroth wandered until he found his prey. After Matteo left the house, Azroth had ordered the crows to keep an eye on the young man. He’d had a feeling he would need to stage an intervention.

It took Azroth only a moment to locate Matteo seated at a table in the middle of the third floor, piles of books surrounding him. A sliver of happiness shot through Azroth to see that Matteo didn’t appear to be handling his separation from Luke any better. The man’s face was sallow, and dark circles underlined his eyes as if he’d not had a good night’s sleep in a week.

The demon marched over to the table, pulled out one of the empty chairs across from Matteo, and elegantly draped his long, slender body across it.

Matteo’s head snapped up, and he just gawked at Azroth for several seconds. It was as if someone had blown out the pilot light of his brain.

“Do you remember me?” Azroth inquired.

Matteo jerked, eyes blinking rapidly. Yes, the fire was lit again. “Yes. You’re Luke’s landlord. Azzzzz…” The Z sound stretched as his now-working brain likely put two pieces of information together. He was Luke’s landlord, and he was a demon.

“Azroth, actually,” the demon corrected with a tight smile.

Matteo stopped breathing, but Azroth could hear his heart racing. The poor human was going to give himself a heart attack, which would not make Luke happy.

With a sigh, Azroth lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. In a flash, everything and everyone in the library froze. He put the world around them in a bubble so that no one could hear them or disturb them.

“There. Now you can panic and not worry about anyone else,” Azroth said.

“Are you here to kill me?” Matteo demanded, his voice cracking.

Azroth glared at him.So tedious.“Tell me, how would killing you make Luke happy? That’s pure nonsense.”

“Oh.”

The human appeared disappointed. Azroth suppressed the urge to shake the man. Humans were so confusing. How in the hell had they gotten so lucky when it came to locating Luke?

Not that Matteo was normally this dense, and he did make Luke happy. Those were powerful arguments in his favor. Maybe it was all this studying and the threat of exams. Were they rotting his brain?

“How is Luke?” Matteo inquired softly, his eyes dropping to his notebook where he’d had almost nothing written.

“He is terrible.”

Matteo’s head popped up, worry digging deep lines into his face. “Really? What’s wrong? Is he sick? Does he need to see a doctor?”

It was so very tempting to tell Matteo just the tiniest white lie that Luke was sick with…oh, what could he give Luke?The plague! Humans still got the plague, right?

But no, Luke wasn’t the type to maintain such a lie just to keep Matteo close to him. He was too honest. He would instantly tell Matteo he wasn’t sick, undoing all Azroth’s hard work.

“No, he’s not ill, but he is very sad. He misses you.”

“I miss him too,” he mumbled. His shoulders slumped, and the pathetic human looked as if he’d shrunk several inches under the weight of his misery.

“But you’ve chosen to stay away from him, making you both sick, because you have an issue with demons,” Azroth stated.

Matteo raised his eyes again. “Well, it is a lot to take in. First, there’s the magic aspect.”

Azroth waved a hand in the air, motioning to the frozen students around them. “You mean this magic?”

The student huffed. “Yes, that magic.”

“Still not believe in it?”