Page 71 of Evil Hearts

The Green Room

Dante

“ I didn’t know they were letting lesser demons on this show.”

The only thing that kept me from ripping the soul out of the being who spoke was the familiarity of their tone.

“Leander, still riding on the king’s coattails, I see.” Turning from the refreshments table, I give the fae mothman a glare and my full attention.

Leander Dulcis is as tall and as slim as a birch’s shadow. His reserved and rather blank expression betrays none of the wit, intellect, nor hellish devotion I know him to have. My best friend enjoys surprising people. He holds his hand in front of him, fingers stained with dark ink laced neatly, those long claws of his resting against the velvet fur on the tops of his hands.

“How is Gideon? The coronation was the talk of the nine circles.”

His antennae twitch at the question, a frown pulling at the slash of his mouth. “Happy.” The word is said with regal delicateness that I know is just disguised jealousy.

“I would fuckin’ hope so. Lucky bastard got a crown and a mate at the same damn time—”

“After an assassination attempt seeking to claim the lives of both him and his human mate,” Leander chitters, his small fangs flashing.

I arch a brimstone-black brow at him.

“Jealousy is a good look on you. Keep it up and your soul is mine.” I nudge him as I stalk past toward the questionably clean couches. I plop down and toss an arm across the back. Leander strides over and drops into the seat beside me. We sit in companionable silence, other monsters moving around the greenroom not making eye contact with anyone else, until he makes a soft, exhausted chitter.

“Hey, you know I didn’t mean it…” I sigh. I meant it . I’m a demon and you can’t exactly change your feathers. What I didn’t mean is for it to hit him so deeply.

“You meant it, and I know you did. I don’t care,” he says with a snicker, his antenna flicking slightly as his eyes scan the room. “Besides, shouldn’t we be scoping out the competition? Who is your contestant anyway?” the mothman asks as he pulls his call-in request from his jacket.

The scrolls that every contestant received are old as all get out, but the handwriting is bold and neat enough to stand the test of time. Written by some oracle or some shit while they were absolutely tweaking.

“Mine’s Zenith Calasso,” Leander says, letting the corners of his mouth gently pull upward.

Fuck.

“You?” he asks, that subtle movement of his lips now becoming a smile that makes me want to punch myself in the face.

Double fuck.

Leander’s brow pinches. My expression must be projecting exactly what I’m thinking. “Don’t tell me—”

“Those matched with Zenith Calasso beware. I am hungry.” The voice that tears through the room is little more than a whisper, but it still gives me the willies.

The shiver forces itself through my body, my tail curling around my leg to get out of the way as I jerk my attention to the asshole who dares to claim the person both me and my best friend are supposed to be competing for.

The being that enters the greenroom makes me rethink my take on Leander being skinny. This dude is a fuckin’ skeleton. An admittedly handsome skeleton with pale skin, long white-blond hair and the fashion sense of a pre-teen let loose in a strip-mall goth store.

“Not a fuckin’ chance.” The laugh that tumbles out of me is deep and ridged with a millennium of practiced degradation. The smirk that pulls itself across my face is Cheshire-like with a whole lot more teeth.

The cool eyes of the newcomer lock on me, sending an unpleasant shiver down my spine. His gaze is like the touch of a corpse.

“ A lich?! What are the producers thinking ?” Leander asks in a whispered hiss, moving closer to me. He rests a hand on my arm and tries to pull me back into him. His deep red eyes flick between me and the lich across the room, his already pale gray skin paler.

A lich could fuck us both up ten ways from Sunday, but I’m not standing down. Even if I’m actually sitting down.

The more than half-dead fucker has the nerve to appear in front of Leander and I, his pale gray eyes looking over both of us intensely.

“I take it that you both are also in competition for my soulmate?”

The bastard has an accent that’s like all of Eastern Europe was tossed into a blender on high. It’s giving me a semi and a serious case of the willies at the same time.

“Soulmate is a strong word,” Leander begins, his antenna twitching as he tries to stuff me further behind him. I snort.

“You didn’t read the fine print then. The name on your invite is your soulmate or the closest living match you’ve got, so...thin and spooky over here is right,” I say with a shrug.

Leander blinks at me like I’m speaking Hellick instead of English, but one corner of the lich’s pale mouth lifts.

“The one with terrible insults and fashion sense speaks the truth.” I take that one on the chin as he continues. “If Zenith is your contestant, then she is your soulmate, but she is also mine, and I do not intend to lose her to anyone.”

“Well, I never really signed up for the whole soulmate thing,” Leander says, trying to speak around his nerves.

I can tell he wants to bolt, so I set my hand on top of his.

“I got Zenith as well; there is no running from whatever fate came up with this whole game, so just settle in and suck it up.”

The lich dips his head to me before floating to the other side of the room, a curl of shadow seeming to reach its icy fingers out to wrap around him as he literally shoves himself into the corner. Something about his almost hesitant expression makes me think that maybe there isn’t much confidence in that guy after all.

“My fashion sense ain’t so bad, is it?” I tug at the hem of my shirt to show it off beneath my leather jacket.

‘Yep, it’s a tea-shirt’ is boldly printed on the heather-gray material and is a little more color than I would normally wear, but it’s comfortable as fuck, and if I had to come to this thing, then I wanted all the comfort I could get.

“You dress like some’s dad,” Leander chokes out. The forced smile on his face almost makes me believe he’s trying not to shit his pants.

“You have got to calm down. Sure, we’re under threat of death, but we’re immortal. Wouldn’t hurt more than your last immunization,” I assure him.

“Big words for someone wearing a graphic t-shirt on a dating show,” he hisses, letting me go and fixing the buttons of his jacket.

“Listen here, I don’t need you and that one,” I jab a finger accusingly at the corner that only grows darker as the lich pulls more shadows onto himself, “thinking you can talk shit.”

“Right, sure thing, literal demon from hell.” Leander rolls his eyes and I laugh.