I need to get working on how to ward myself, like yesterday.
Echo snorts and then looks at the clothes I threw at him. Stuck to one of my knit sweaters, he finds a purple lacy thong that comes away with a crackle of static electricity. His brow arches as he drops the rest of the clothes and balances the thong on his finger. “These are definitely going in the pack pile.”
“What is?” Crux asks, appearing next to him in a blink. He just finished bringing my must-have snacks from the kitchen over to the mansion.
Echo holds up my panties to him. “These,” he says helpfully.
Crux’s blond brows raise up. “Sexy,” he says, grabbing them from Echo’s hands so he can hold them up at a better angle. “How come you haven’t worn this stuff for us before?”
“Because all of my clothes have been here,” I say with exasperation as I jump to my feet. “Hand them over,” I tell him, doing grabby hands.
Crux grins. “I think I’d rather hold on to them.”
I reach up and snatch them from his hands, my cheeks slightly pink. “Aren’t you supposed to be popping these bags out for me?” I ask pointedly.
Crux and Echo share a look. “Mmm, she gets bossy when she’s embarrassed,” Crux muses.
Rolling my eyes, I stop Crux before he picks up the bags next to Echo’s feet. “Not those ones. Can you take the ones across the room? Those are all for Goodwill.”
Crux sighs. “Why do I have to drop them off and be forced to walk amongst the mortals?” he says with a petulant tone that makes me giggle.
“You have to walk amongst the mortals because you look the most human out of all of us,” I remind him. “And the other guys need to recharge a bit more before they can ward and handle possible trouble.”
“Echo looks human,” he argues.
We both look over at Echo, whose shadow tattoos are moving all around his skin like they’re head banging to some music we can’t hear. Crux frowns. “Fine, maybe not him. But Jerif could pass as a human.”
“Jerif has orange eyes and hair that looks like it caught on fire. Plus, he’s grumpy. He’ll probably make the people at Goodwill cry for no reason other than looking at them with that glare he has.”
Crux tilts his head. “Yeah, that’s probably true.”
“Time to face facts, Crux,” Echo tells him with a smirk. “You’re the most basic out of all of us. Even Delta, now that she has those pretty wings.”
At hearing him call them pretty, my wings immediately flare out and start to shimmy a little. I shake my head at them. They have no concept of subtle.
“I don’t look that human,” Crux insists before sticking out his long forked tongue and showing off his piercings as if to prove a point. “Thseee?” he lisps.
“I do like that tongue,” I tell him with a coy smile as I remember all the things it can do to me. I walk over to him and place a kiss on his cheek. I know he’s sensitive about how human he looks. If I had to guess, he probably got teased about it a lot when he was growing up.
“Damn right you do,” he says.
“Yep,” I nod. “I like your tongue as much as I like the rest of the way you look,” I tell him before giving him another kiss, this time on the other cheek.
He narrows his green eyes. “You’re buttering me up.”
I smile. “Is it working?”
He sighs. “Yeah.”
“Thanks, Crux,” I tell him, patting him on the back.
“Yeah, thanks, Crux,” Echo says with a shit-eating grin.
Crux punches him in the arm before turning and grabbing the bags and the box of shoes I’m also donating and piles them into his arm. He gives me a pointed look. “I get to lick you later.”
I hold up my hands in surrender, because I’m a martyr like that. “Okay, okay, you win,” I say with a cheeky grin.
He nods tersely like he just came out victorious in this round, but we all know I’m the real winner here.
In a blink, he disappears, leaving Echo to grab the bags of clothes I’m keeping. He looks down at them with a frown as he balances eight full bags. “Damn, we might need to build you a bigger closet.”
I walk back over to the dresser and grab the last drawer, dumping the entire thing into a bag. I was going through each one and deciding what to give away and what to keep, but I lost my mojo and now I just want to be finished. “Don’t be silly, I’ll just infiltrate all of your closets. It’s more relationshipy that way.”
“Relationshipy?” he teases as he picks up the last bag for me.
“Yep.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan.”
His tone makes me pause, and I look over at my shadow demon. “You’re going to keep all my underwear in your room, aren’t you?”
His teeth flash in a devilish grin. “Yep.”
He disappears in a blink, and I snort and shake my head.
“What’s funny?”
I look up to find Iceman in the doorway. “Hey you,” I smile as I walk over to him. I don’t even have to step and weave anymore, since the guys cleared out all the last of the bags and boxes. “What were you doing?”
“I went back to the mansion to drop off Fern and to give Strut your list of things you like to eat. And Jerif and I are working on something, so I had to help him real quick.”
“Oh, what are you working on?” I press, curious.
“Secret things,” he teases before leaning down and kissing the top of my head. I tilt my head back to look up at him. “I also called your next-door neighbor, Maria. We worked out an agreement. For a
