“What do you need me to tell him?”
“This,” I say, sliding a piece of paper across the table.
Zodiac opens the note and instantly making it turn into flames until the embers fall around his hands on the countertop.
“The llama is wicked?”
“It’s a code word. Something he’ll know,” I respond.
We came up with dozens of code words when we worked together as partners in the DHT last year.
“All right. Fine,” he says with a sigh before clicking his fingers for the demon bartender to come over.
The demon, something from the pixie demon line by the looks of the pink shade to her skin and bright glowing eyes that appear like she is underwater, comes over. Zodiac orders us three more drinks, and we both stay silent until she drops them in front of us.
“I hope whoever you’re protecting won’t fuck up your chances with the DHT,” he tells me, pushing a whiskey tumbler towards me.
I drink it in one. “Always good seeing you, Zodiac. Tell my father to fuck off when you see him, won’t you?”
“Caspian—” he calls after me, but I’m already walking out of the bar.
I suck in a deep breath of smoky air when I get outside and glance up. What in the name of the Crescent Goddess am I doing?
I’ve always been a sinking ship and I never should have let Lilith on board with the promise of protection. A sinking ship can’t save anyone from a tidal wave.
I head down the busy streets away from the bar, knocking into dozens of people, as I always do in this city of far too many. Eventually, I get to the ley line and jump through it back to the DHT. I pass a few overachievers practice fighting in the courtyard on my way to the building and roll my eyes at their poor form. Heading inside, I go up the stairs and open the door to our apartment without using my key, pissed to find it isn’t locked.
This woman just wants to be fucking killed.
I storm in to find Lilith sitting on the sofa, sorting through a load of random things from a box on the coffee table.
“Hey, Caspian,” she cheerily states, her smile disappearing when she looks at my face.
I walk around and lean over her, placing my hands either side of her head on the sofa when she rests back on it. I don’t sense fear from her, just a tiny bit of nerves. Sucking in a deep breath of her scent, a feminine mixture of fire and fresh snow. Two things that should never exist together but explains Lilith perfectly. Her bright grey eyes stare up at me as her peachy-pink lips part. My body, my demon, and wolf both react to her like she is the first female we have ever seen.
Lilith Caeli is drop-dead gorgeous, and she doesn’t even try. Her red hair reminds me of silk, falling in locks I want to thread my fingers through as I fuck her until she can only beg me for more. Her body is curvy, smooth, and way too sexy for a wolf.
Fuck.
“I thought I told you not to answer the door to anybody, and why wasn’t it locked?”
Her eyes, like daggers, cut through me. “This box got delivered for us from the demon-hunting trials.”
“It could have been a bomb from other hunters or the alpha coming for you.”
“It wasn’t,” she cockily replies with a breathtaking smile.
Her sassy reply makes me want to kiss her and smack her ass all at the same time.
“Are you ever going to listen?” I slowly say, trying not to stare at her for too long, which seems physically impossible. Lilith was not this hot when she was younger; in fact, I barely even noticed her. She was funny but still just the kid sister of my best mate who would fucking kill me for the thoughts going through my head right now.
Damn, I never even liked redheads. They are batshit crazy, especially the short ones.
And this one won’t get out of my head.
I lean back and run my hands through my hair, shaking my head. I’m losing my mind. Lilith doesn’t care about my internal freak-out. She goes back to the box and pulls out an enormous diamond. My stomach drops as she throws it into the air, and I snatch it before she can catch it.
“You don’t get to touch this yet, songbird,” I warn her.
She pouts. “Why not?”
I’m not about to tell her it’s a demon bomb and would blow up this entire building. Why the fuck do they give new hunters this?
“Because you’re a newbie,” I reply, but she is already back in the box, dragging out four daggers with the DHT logo on the hilt. Next she finds eight guns, with two hundred iron bullets in a smaller box.
“Can bullets kill demons then?”
“Did you listen in any of your classes at the Caeli academy?” I demand.
“There is a specialist class on demons, and you can’t sign up for it if you’re female,” she frowns. “I tried dressing up as a boy and using a fake name, but it didn’t work.”
“That’s fucked up,” I respond, rubbing my chin. The Caeli definitely hid a lot of their sexist shit from me when I was there, or I just wasn’t looking for it. “The iron in the bullets and daggers will kill lower-level demons, but nothing over a level two.”
“Levels?”
“It will be explained tomorrow before our first mission,” I tell her, needing to get away from her scent, from her, period. I pick the box up, placing the diamond demon bomb gently back in it,
