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“In that perfect, Disney-prince boring way that no one likes!” she fired back, trying to bury herself further into the paper files next to her electronic device. Her face turned red though, belying her emotions.

Lust looked like he’d just been given tickets to one of Adonis’s orgies. “Handsome and perfect? All in one conversation?”

The way she sputtered and fidgeted was so adorable, I couldn’t look away.

“Uh, Juniper, would you excuse us? Family business,” Lust said, pulling her chair out from his desk, and slapping a crisp twenty in her hand. “Here, take a break and get some coffee, as an apology for the interruption to your schedule.”

Juniper looked like she wanted nothing more than to get away anyhow, but clutched the money in her hand and stalked out of the office, clinging to whatever shreds of dignity she had left.

The moment she was gone Lust and I spoke at the same time.

“What were you going to say–”

“She doesn’t know she died?—”

I froze, taking in what my brother had just said.

“She doesn’t know she died ?” I parroted, my voice going an octave higher.

Lust threw himself into his chair, running a hand through his hair. He gestured vaguely with the other to the open seat next to him.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“She thinks she just lost unconsciousness and woke up, buried alive,” Lust finally said.

I took that in. “Gods. Wouldn’t it be better to know the truth? That sounds just...traumatic.”

Lust shrugged, trying to appear casual. But I noticed the tension in his shoulders, and the hard tic in his jaw.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DIED?”

My stomach dropped into my feet as Juniper stormed back in the office, fists clenched. If I thought her face had been flushed, it was nothing compared to the blood red rushing into her cheeks and ears now, her entire face turning puce, almost purple.

Like a fig, I thought wryly.

Magick sparked and curled in the office, like a smoke that we couldn’t see, only feel.

Lust laughed, but it was a nervous sound— not like him at all.

Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Did Lust have feelings for Juniper?

She was my mate. Mine. I saw her first. I gave her life. Lust got everything, especially when it came to women. Well, not this time! I would tell her just how much she owed me, and not him.

“I am Pride, and I am Undersecretary of Hell. As my brother so crudely put,” I shot him a glare, and he made a face at me. “You turned up in the Underworld some time ago. I re-animated you, and sent you back.”

She just stared at me.

I waited for the gratitude to come flowing forth, but...nothing. I cleared my throat, my collar feeling tight around my neck.

“I...brought you back,” I said again, unsure if she hadn’t heard me, or didn’t understand.

Her face stayed blank for another awkward moment, before twisting into anger. Puffing up, she strode right up to me and stuck her finger in my chest. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”

Ow, her finger hurt! I resisted the urge to recoil from her anger. “I–”

“My brother is Pride, and out of all of us, has the worst sense of humor,” Lust stated.

I turned and glared, then belatedly realized he was trying to help, in his own way. I grabbed her finger and pushed it away, straightening my jacket.

“Damon, may I bother you a moment?” I asked the empty air.

Howling sounds split the air and the shadows lengthened, the lights dimming. Lust rolled his eyes but Juniper tensed, arms out and glancing around as if expecting an attack.

The lights flickered back to normal, and the sounds ceased. And perched at my side, already purring and rubbing against my legs, was Damon.

“Who’s a good boy?” I said in a baby voice, scratching under his chin.

“Where...where did that black cat come from?” Juniper asked, taking a hesitant step forward.

“Oh ho, Damon isn’t a cat,” I informed her smugly. “He’s a shadow demon, one of Hades’s. He actually is the familiar of his daughter, the goddess Melinoe. Though she goes by Aggie. Also a witch, believe it or not.”

I shrugged my shoulders as Juniper frowned, utterly baffled.

Sighing, I withdrew my hand from Damon’s nose.

“You’ll have to show her, and then take a message for me if you don’t mind?”

Damon grumbled and hunkered down on his paws, as if he were about to pounce. But he didn’t pounce, he changed.

“Ah! Oh my gods!”

Indeed.

Juniper scrambled to get back behind Lust’s desk as Damon stood next to me in all his glory, a massive black demon with razor-sharp fangs and red eyes. He was bigger than a wolf, but not quite the size of a horse; suitably terrifying and hopefully convincing enough.

“So we are all in agreement about the very real Shadow Demon?” I asked calmly.

Juniper nodded frantically, even as Lust snorted and took a seat in his chair. Juniper shot him an exasperated look.

“Thank you, Damon. Can you pass a message along to Aggie that we’ve run into some problems, and gauge how Hades would react to an interruption? If I don’t hear back my brothers and I?—”

I stopped as Damon walked in small circles around a spot on the floor, shifting back into his black cat form. He hopped up onto Lust’s desk and curled into a ball, promptly falling asleep.

I tried again. “Damon, I must insist–”

A small snort of fire shot from his nose at me, stinging my fingertips. I hissed from the pain and stuck the hurt appendage in my mouth, sucking on it.

“And that’s why we don’t use Shadow Demons as messengers or servant boys,” Lust laughed, even as Juniper frantically snatched at the mounds of paper around the cat, as if afraid he’d set them on fire.

Which was a definite possibility.

“The point is,” I continued, “I am from the Underworld, and I can assure you that you’ve been there, very dead, and were re-animated.”

I studied her reaction as she meticulously stacked the papers on the other side of the desk, away from the mercurial demon cat. Her lips trembled, betraying how she really felt.

“Am I some kind of fucking joke?” she snarled, her hands shaking.

I moved closer, but kept the desk between us. Lust shot me a look, his hand flat on the desk toward me in warning. If he thought I was a threat, he’d deal with me like he dealt with anyone else.

He did care for her. Has he even realized it yet?

A kind of desperation thrummed inside of me. I’d had little to no lovers, especially compared with Lust. I could say I hadn’t had the time or inclination, but the truth was, I lacked the confidence.

But Juniper was different. I couldn’t just let Lust have her, like everyone else. No, I wouldn’t do that.

“You’re not a joke, Juniper,” Lust drawled, because I continued to stand there and gawk like a dying fish.

Her focus didn’t shift at all to him. It stayed on me.

“Why?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes.

This was it.

I was about to do something stupid.

I don’t care.

Leaning over the desk I captured the back of her neck with one hand and leaned in, only a hair’s breadth separating our lips. If she pulled away, I’d disappear into the Underworld and never surface.

“Because of this,” I whispered and kissed her.