“You don’t seem too worried about Zylas killing you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I worry about it every day.”
That gave me pause.
Robin busily gathered her papers. “We don’t need to worry about Eterran yet. We’ll be summoning him into a circle, and he’ll be trapped there until we free him.”
“Trapping him in a circle isn’t much better than leaving him stuck inside Ezra.” It was better for Ezra, though. “I don’t see him agreeing to a regular contract-infernus-type deal.”
“We can cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said reassuringly, returning the grimoire to her backpack. “There may be options you haven’t considered.”
“Options like what?”
She shrugged mysteriously. “We—”
A muffled shout erupted from beneath our feet. I looked down at the floor in alarm. “Where are the guys?”
“Where’s Zylas?” Robin yelped.
Another male voice exclaimed loudly from the basement, and I launched across the dining room. Robin and Amalia were right on my heels as I careened down the stairs and burst into the workout room.
Aaron, Kai, and Ezra stood amongst the exercise equipment—and Robin’s demon was with them. Relief hit me—no one was fighting, bleeding, or dead—but it was swiftly followed by confusion.
For some reason, they were all standing around a barbell loaded with what looked like four one-hundred-pound plates—on each side.
“No way,” Aaron declared. “It’s impossible.”
“But he just deadlifted six hundred pounds like it was nothing,” Kai replied, his gaze flicking between the demon and the barbell.
“He’s shorter than you.” Aaron folded his arms. “It just isn’t physically possible.”
Ezra shook his head. “You have no idea what a demon can do.”
Zylas’s tail snapped back and forth, then he leaned down and grasped the bar. The hard, lean muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched. He heaved up, lifting the barbell. It bowed under the weights as the demon lifted it to his chest.
“Holy shit,” Aaron muttered, inching away from the demon as though doubting whether he wanted to stand that close.
Puffing out a breath, the demon wrinkled his nose. “What is the point of this? Lifting heavy things?”
“Humans do it to make themselves stronger,” Ezra explained dryly.
“This makes hh’ainun stronger?”
“Can you lift it over your head?” Aaron asked in a way that suggested he hoped the answer was no.
The demon braced his feet, then pushed the bar up over his head. It didn’t look easy for him, but he wasn’t struggling all that much either. My gaze ran along his arms, then down to his tense, defined abdominal muscles.
I glanced at Robin. Standing beside me, she was staring at the demon, mouth hanging open. Pink stained her cheeks.
As Zylas returned the weights to the floor, I nudged her with my elbow and whispered, “What did I tell you? Perfect abs.”
She shot me a glare, her cheeks going even redder. “I dare you to say that to his face now that he can talk back.”
I blinked and glanced at Zylas—only to find crimson eyes locked on mine. The demon bared his teeth from across the room. Er, maybe I shouldn’t comment on his physique. Last time, I’d done it without thought, like he was a highly realistic marble statue—but statues didn’t get angry when you ogled them.
“Okay.” Aaron strode over to the weight rack and grabbed another big plate. “Let’s find your limit, demon.”
“Why?” Zylas adjusted a leather armor strap on his shoulder. “It is stupid.”
“You can prove how much stronger you are than a human,” Ezra told him.
“I already know hh’ainun are weak.”
Robin cleared her throat. “We, uh, should probably get going.”
“Just one more,” Aaron cajoled, passing a plate to Kai to slide onto the bar’s other end. “All males like to show off their strength. Whoever can lift the most wins.”
“Ch,” the demon scoffed. “There is no victory in this. It is only strength. Hh’ainun are stupid.”
Robin cleared her throat again.
Aaron and Kai loaded up every weight they could fit onto the bar, then stepped back. Zylas peered at it, and I wondered if I was imagining uncertainty in his demonic face.
He grasped the bar, set his feet, and lifted. The weights rose off the floor—slowly. This time, the demon struggled. With a grunt of effort, he heaved it up to his chest, teeth bared.
He held it for a second—then one of the clips holding the weights in place gave out. The bar tilted and a plate slid off, crashing to the floor.
As Zylas pitched to one side, the three mages leaped forward—Aaron and Kai grabbing each end of the bar to stop more plates from falling, and Ezra bracing the center to take some of the weight off. The four of them lowered the bar to the floor.
As Kai counted the weights, totaling them up to see how much the demon had lifted, I glanced uncomfortably at Robin. She was watching her demon in a concerned sort of way, but when I shifted my gaze to Amalia, I found a pair of gray eyes tight with the exact same reaction as me:
The quiet, prickling fear of prey in the presence of its ultimate predator.
Chapter Six
I planted my hands on my hips. “When I asked for a discreet location, this wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Beside me, Justin pushed the brim of his service cap up to peer at the two-story building across the street, its brick façade featuring lovely arched windows and old-world charm. A sign hanging by the wooden door read, “Police Museum,” and below that, a temporary sign warned, “Closed for Renovations.”
“Who’d expect mythic activity in a police museum?” he asked. “No one. Plus, the renovation won’t be starting anytime soon. The whole roof needs replacing and they’re having trouble getting funding for it.”
“But …” I eyed his dark blue uniform, then waved at the one-way road between us and the museum, a steady stream of traffic rushing past. “You can just walk right in. How are the rest of us supposed to get in and out of there without the whole street noticing?”
“The back door. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led me to
