“Yep,” Delta confirms. “And I know how to shift places now, so if anything happens, we’ll be back in a wink. Besides, look at us,” she says, comin’ to stand next to me. “We both have scythes. We’re badasses.” She shoots me a reassurin’ smile. I manage to give her a shaky one in return.
Alder’s butterscotch eyes go to me. He hands me my scythe, the blades once again gone. I immediately feel better with it in my hand. “You want to go with Delta to relax for a bit?”
I love that he checks in with me, and my heart warms. “Yeah,” I answer honestly. Standin’ in this room with eight demons and an angel is intense, but knowin’ two of them are your biological parents and one your sister, is overwhelmin’ to say the least. The thick cloud of rage in the room isn’t helpin’ anythin’ either. I feel like fury and pain are slowly sinkin’ into me, and all my body wants to do is hurl it out.
“Okay,” he says quietly, just like that, givin’ me what I need.
Flint comes forward and places another kiss to my hair before pressin’ his phone into my hand. “Use this if you want to talk to us.”
I slip it into my back pocket. “Thanks,” I murmur.
“I’ll take good care of her, I promise,” Delta tells them with a smile.
“Don’t stay long,” fire-haired Jerif tells her.
“Don’t boss me around,” she counters. “Medley and I have twenty-eight years to catch up on. You guys figure out the shit with Morax and our missing sister. The two of us are gonna take a fucking well-deserved pause.” She turns back to me. “Come on.”
With one more look to my guys, I follow Delta out of the room and down the stairs. I might not know her, but she’s right. I absolutely need a damn pause right about now. And to not puke in front of Flint and Alder. I can’t puke in front of them before we’ve even had sex. There’s no way they could get that image out of their heads.
So even though I just met Delta two hours ago, I find myself immediately relaxin’ as soon as I follow her out of the room.
Maybe it’s a sister thing.
I guess I’ll find out.
23
Delta and I walk in silence all the way out of the mansion until we’re in the middle of the driveway. I wonder idly if her house is within walkin’ distance or somethin’ when I remember she talked about shiftin’.
“Y’all can’t shift inside your house?” I ask curiously.
She shakes her head. “Can’t shift within a mile of a portal to Hell,” she explains. Her hand comes down to hold mine. “Ready?”
I nod numbly, tryin’ to take deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth, while my other hand grips my scythe. I felt better, lighter, as soon as we left the mansion, but I’m still tryin’ to digest the load of information that just got dumped in my gut.
“Whoops, forgot about these fucking things,” she says, lookin’ over her shoulder. Her wings ruffle, and she grimaces. “Sorry, wings,” she says grudgingly to them. At my curious expression, she shrugs with an embarrassed smile. “We had a rough start. I’m still getting used to them.”
“Gotchya,” I reply, because I don’t know what else to say.
Delta does somethin’ then, I’m not exactly sure what, but I can feel it. She closes her eyes for a moment, and a sort of haze falls over her.
“What was that?” I ask, shudderin’ off the weird feelin’ it gave me.
“Glamour,” she replies, openin’ her eyes. “Gotta hide these from human eyes before we get to my neighborhood, or my neighbor Maria will get an eyeful. She smokes weed, but I don’t think she smokes enough to shrug off big purple wings.”
Alder sayin’ purple wings flashes through my mind again, and my lips press into a thin line.
“Alright, here we go.”
As soon as her hand squeezes mine, the breath whooshes out of me as the world bleeds out. I don’t even have time to blink before Perdition Estate is gone, and then we’re suddenly standin’ in a backyard with patches of grass and mud, encased by a chain link fence.
“Here we are,” Delta says as she drops my hand with a smile. “We’ll walk around to the front so the neighbors see us go in,” she tells me as I follow her to a gate at the side of the yard.
She has to kick up the bottom of it with her foot, and she struggles with the stuck latch, but she manages to yank it open so we can walk through. “I’m gonna fix that,” she tells me.
I nod absently as we walk around the side and I take in the house. It’s cute. Just a house in the middle of a street, with other houses all around. It’s so...normal.
“This is where you used to live? Before…”
“Before I answered a job listing and got told I was a demon? Yep,” she answers with a smile as we step up to her front door. She makes a show of stoppin’ at the door and jigglin’ the knob, makin’ it look like she’s strugglin’ with a key, even though she’s not usin’ one.
At the sound of a door squeakin’ open, we both look over, and Delta raises a hand. “Hey, Maria!” she calls.
Her neighbor, Maria, waves back, watchin’ us as she smokes.
“That’s not a cigarette, is it?” I whisper, watchin’ as fifty-somethin’ Maria takes the longest suck on a stick I’ve ever seen.
“Nope,” Delta answers before she waves one more time and then shoves open the door and steps aside for me.
I walk through, and she closes the door behind me before stuffin’ her scythe in an umbrella holder nearby. I follow suit, the tall staffs lookin’ out of place there.
Delta presses her palm to the closed door, and a faint black light starts to glow between her
