Page 48 of Guarded (Hopeless Blessed #3)

Jeremiah

I was on cloud nine after leaving the Seraphim compound with Nox, but entering the house I shared with the others had me crashing back to earth.

It was eerily quiet. Not just an absence of talking, but all noise. No one was shuffling around. No one was moving at all.

Nox and I exchanged a confused look.

“Hello?” I called out, releasing some of my power at the same time. It bounced back, telling me that Darius, Dahlia, and Quill were all upstairs.

“Up here,” Dahlia called.

When Nox and I entered Quill’s bedroom, it became apparent why it was so silent. Quill was unconscious on the bed. Dahlia was sat on his desk and Darius was leaning against the wall. They were staring intently at Quill’s unmoving form.

“Oh Satan.” Nox froze in the doorway. “Not again.”

I bit back my groan. Fuck. This had happened a while back too, and we’d all thought Quill had been getting better. Not well, but better .

Evidently, we were wrong.

“I got home last night and realised Quill was refusing to leave his room,” Darius said. “This morning, after I reached out to you all and said we needed to do an intervention, I came in to find him like this.”

“It didn’t last this long before,” Dahlia added, worry shining in her blue eyes. “He should’ve woken up already.”

I asked the question we were all thinking. “When was the last time he was around sin?”

There was a long silence while everyone tried to figure out the answer, myself included.

Like all higher demons, we needed steady access to sin to keep our powers and strength running at full capacity.

Unlike more powerful demons, such as the sons of Lucifer or the Grim Reaper, we needed a lot of sin.

Down in Hell, it hadn’t been an issue. Fuck, even walking around London it wasn’t an issue. Humans sinned as often as they breathed, if not in their deeds then in their thoughts.

But Quill had been refusing to leave the house for months now…

“Micah and I had sex on the roof, but that was probably several weeks ago,” Nox admitted. “With the conference and everything, we haven’t had a chance to…”

“It’s fine,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “This isn’t all on you, Nox. It’s not like I’ve been bringing my one-night stands here anymore either.”

Contrary to ignorant beliefs, homosexuality wasn’t a sin. Lust, however, was. Made fuck all sense to me, if I was being honest. But us bringing people to the house to sleep with was an easy way to expose Quill to sin without him needing to go anywhere or do anything.

I wondered if Noah would be down to fool around in my room here? Lust from an angel was like getting a superhit of sin, which was one of the reasons Micah and Nox fucked on the roof so often.

The other was because it apparently held ‘ special memories .’I tried not to think about that too much.

Noah wouldn’t think it was weird if we were helping my friend, right?

Regardless, that wasn’t something we could do right now, and it was a temporary solution for an ongoing problem.

“I could be doing more too.” Darius sighed. “I’ve not been around nearly as much.”

“Me neither,” Dahlia said softly.

I wondered for a moment where exactly they’d both been. Neither of them had been forthcoming on their whereabouts, and they sure as shit hadn’t been bringing anyone home to fuck. Which begged the question…

Were they fucking their mates away from the house? Not that we knew who or where they were. Neither Darius nor Dahlia was ready to share.

Mind you, I wasn’t any better. I’d been too busy gallivanting around the world or spending time with Noah to consider how Quill was doing. “Nor me.”

“Didn’t you put him in touch with that supe therapist?” I asked Darius.

“I did.” His lips pursed as he stared at Quill. “He told me he’d been speaking to him weekly via video chat. It’s why I felt more comfortable leaving him.”

“Either Quill has been lying, or he’s not finding it useful.”

“We could contact the bloke to find out,” Darius said, pulling out his phone. “Tyler, I think his name is. He’s based in Southampton, but I’m sure he could be persuaded to do a home visit.”

A bell rang in my mind. “Is he a vampire?”

Darius’s eyes met mine. “He is. Do you know him?”

“We’ve met,” I said shortly. I didn’t want to get into the nitty gritty of Noah’s past with them. It wasn’t my place to share it. “He’s been away the past couple of weeks, but I believe he’s back home now.”

Darius nodded, fingers tapping at the screen. “I’ve texted him. Let’s see what he comes back with.”

“We can’t leave Quill like this,” Dahlia said, bracelets jangling as she wrung her hands. “We need to do something.”

“But what?” I went to pull my hair back before remembering it was short now. “Even if we can wake him up, what do we do then?”

Nox clapped his hands together. “Right, enough of this moping. We’ve let this issue slide for too long, but we’re here now. We’re good at thinking on the spot and problem-solving, so let’s solve this.”

We all stared at him. “Since when are you so positive?”

Nox huffed at my question. “Micah’s been trying to get me to ‘reframe’ my thinking and focus on the good things Hell gave me.”

Dahlia gave a disbelieving snort. “Good things? What good things? Shit, Nox. Weren’t you there?”

“Not actual things, ” Nox said impatiently. “Skills, stuff like that.”

“I’m very good at removing bones without using weapons,” Darius said drily, “does that count?”

Sensing this was going to get off track very fast, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Focus. We need to wake Quill up, so someone needs to get to sinning and fast. ”

Dahlia stood up with a grin. “It’d be my pleasure.”

None of us had a chance to blink before she ran her dagger across Darius’s throat. He fell to his knees, blood spurting between his fingers as he clutched at the gaping wound.

“Whoops,” Dahlia said cheerfully as he died. “That was a bit messier than intended.”

“You cut his throat,” I said, exasperation filling me. “Of course it’s fucking messy. Why didn’t you break his neck instead?”

She flashed me one of her hands. “Because I’ve just had my nails done. I don’t want to break one.”

Nox peered at them with a frown. “Looks like you’ve broken two already.”

“Where?” He tapped her middle and index fingers and she laughed. “No, babes. Those are kept shorter intentionally.”

Nox was still frowning. “But why?”

She patted his cheek. “Oh, my sweet summer child.”

Unlike Nox, I was fully aware of why, but now wasn’t the time to get into it. “It was also pointless, given demons don’t generate enough sin to restock each other.”

Dahlia sucked on her teeth. “Balls. Didn’t think of that.”

Nox muttered an oath and pulled out his phone. The video call sound echoed through the room before a familiar human voice came on the line. “Hello? Is everything okay, Nox?”

“Everything’s fine, Sam,” Nox said reassuringly, “but could you possibly do me a favour please?”

After they hung up, Dahlia shot Nox a quizzical look. “Why not one of the angels?”

“They’re in a meeting,” he said curtly. “I will interrupt it if needed, but I figured we’d try with Sam first.”

It took five minutes for Sam’s knock to come on the front door. Nox ran down to answer it, returning with Ezekiel’s mate.

“Hello,” he said cheerfully, before spotting Darius on the floor. His pale cheeks went a couple of shades lighter. “Oh dear.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Dahlia said, standing in front of his body and opening her arms wide. I didn’t know what she was trying to achieve, given that did fuck all to hide him. “He’ll come around in a moment or two.”

“I see demons are as bloodthirsty as angels,” Sam said faintly. “Nox isn’t too bad, so I assumed the rest of you weren’t either.”

Hilarious . Nox was the worst of us. There was a pause, during which Nox glared at us as if daring us to correct Sam.

Listen, usually I would, but I’d seen Ezekiel pissed off. The last thing I wanted was more bloodshed. That’d only lead to an upset Sam, and in turn a wrathful arch hell-bent on giving me a pounding.

And not the fun kind that Noah gave me.

Sam’s attention fell on Quill. “Did someone murder him too?”

“No,” I said quietly. “He’s unconscious because he’s not been exposed to enough sin.”

“What do you mean?”

While Nox gave Sam a quick rundown on demon lore, I brushed some strands of hair back from Quill’s face. Down in Hell, he’d been the strongest of us. He’d hated it as much as the rest of us, but he’d coped well enough.

What was it about freedom that was causing him to struggle so?

“You need me to sin?” Sam’s tone was wary as he fidgeted with the ends of his sleeves. “I’m not sure my brain will let me do that.”

“It doesn’t have to be a big sin,” Nox said quickly. “Just a funny lie will do.”

“Oh.” Sam blinked. “Like saying that I really love clowns?”

I felt a tiny pulse of sin filter through the air. “Perfect. Can you think of anything else?”

“Um…” Sam scuffed the toes of his shoes on the carpet. “The twins are so well behaved.”

Another pulse. Quill’s eyes fluttered.

Sam spotted it too, the lies now falling from his tongue with ease. “I hate playing video games. I love exercise. I never make angels take laps. Chicken makes me gassy. I can’t swim. Climbing is my favourite hobby.”

Pulse after pulse washed through the air. Quill stirred and then groaned.

“He’s coming around,” I said.

Nox quickly thanked Sam and ushered him from the room. That was smart. None of us knew how disorientated Quill would be. It was safer to take Sam out of the firing line.

When Nox returned, Quill still hadn’t fully come to. “Anything?”

“Nearly,” I muttered, leaning closer to my friend. “Come on, Quill. Come back to us.”

His eyes were glazed as he blinked slowly. When they finally focused, he frowned. “What are you all doing here?”

“Saving your arse is what,” I said darkly. “To be fair though, Sam and Darius did most of the work.”

“Hey,” Dahlia protested, hands on hips, “I’m the one who murdered Darius, thank you very much. ”

Quill lifted his head to peer at Darius’s inert form. “Did he do something to piss you off?”

“Nope,” Dahlia said, lips thin as Quill dropped his head back to the bed. It was like that tiny action had cost him all his energy. “It seems someone has been neglecting his needs so much that his body can’t cope.”

Quill hummed, eyes flicking between us. “Oh yeah? Who’s that then?”

Dahlia snarled, and I grabbed her arm to stop her from stabbing him. Usually I didn’t bother—the two generally fought like cats and dogs. But unlike Darius, I wasn’t sure Quill was capable of recovering from a stab wound right now. “Calm your demon, Dahlia.”

She bared her teeth at me but stepped away to gather herself. Darius, meanwhile, was sitting up with a groan, glaring at Dahlia as he muttered about his ruined clothes.

“You’re the one who’s been neglecting himself,” Nox said. He was standing at the foot of Quill’s bed, glaring at him with arms folded over his chest. “You can’t get enough sin from us alone. Shit, we had to get Sam to come over and tell some bullshit lies just to get you to wake up.”

I wasn’t sure Quill even heard, but that didn’t stop Nox from continuing his rant. “This can’t go on, man. I know you’re struggling, but you’re going to end up permanently dead if you carry on this way.”

Quill blinked at the ceiling. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”