Lucas laughs. “You hated me the day after we met.”
“That is true.”
“Though I knew you wanted to fuck me the second you laid eyes on me.”
“Lucas! Don’t say that so loud and in public!”
“It’s not like it’s a shock,” he goes on.
“Nearly everyone wants to fuck him,” Eliza says, picking a fry up off my plate and looking at it curiously.
“I don’t want to fuck him,” Julian says seriously.
“I’m glad,” I reply, laughing. “Because I don’t want to have to fight you for him.” I pat Lucas’s thigh. “He’s all mine, and he’s very okay with that.”
“I am,” Lucas agrees, nodding. “Because you are mine.”
“Gross.” Eliza drops the fry back onto my plate and rolls her eyes. “I’d rather be discussing demons than listening to you two profess your love. It was bad enough to sit through it at your wedding.”
“The wedding you had a lot of fun planning.”
“Fun? I had to throw together an elegant wedding in days. That was not my definition of fun. Though I do enjoy a challenge.”
“We should be discussing demons,” Julian says, somber as usual.
“Right. You think the dark prophets might be looking for me.” I dip a fry in my milkshake and then sandwich it between two pieces of my chicken. It’s weird, I know. Thanks, baby. “What is a dark prophet?”
“A prophet who is evil.”
“That doesn’t help,” I say and eat my chicken tender and fry sandwich. It’s even better than I imagined. “Prophets see the future, right?”
“In a sense,” Julian explains. “They are humans who are able to hear divine messages. Sometimes they simply need to record them so the word can spread. Other times, it might come as a warning. Centuries ago, demons kidnapped six prophets from all over the world and sacrificed their souls to Lucifer in exchange for their powers and immortality. The demons possessed the prophets, and have remained inside the same vessels ever since, with the keen ability to detect anything in the cosmos.”
“Lovely.” I reach for my milkshake and take a drink. “So, these dark prophets were reading the energy, detected a surge, and then what's their plan?”
“To try and harness the surge,” Julian answers. “One thing is certain with all demons: they want more power and are willing to do anything to get it.”
“Like make me their child bride and kick my uncle off the throne.”
“You’re too old to be a child bride,” Eliza tells me. “And now you’re pregnant so you can’t even pretend to be a virgin bride.”
“That doesn’t matter to the demons,” Julian tells her, brows furrowing.
“She was joking,” I explain. Julian doesn’t always grasp sarcasm. He’s spent years studying humans from afar, but his actual interactions with them have been minimal, and it’s obvious. Endearing, but so fucking obvious. “How do I kill them? Will my little hand-trick work?”
“Hand-trick?” Julian asks.
I hold my hands out in front of me, curling my fingers in slightly toward my palm.
“Lucifer taught it to me, actually.”
“The devil taught you a trick to do with your hands?” Eliza purses her lips. “Oh, the jokes I could make with that one.”
I give her a look but go on. “It’s a spell, and the last time I used it on a demon, they went poof, like an instant exorcism. The body remained, unfortunately, but the demon was gone.”
“Lucifer taught you that?”
I nod and lower my hands, feeling a little full yet still starving at the same time. “Yeah. It’s, uh, the only way I would have survived when I was attacked by the demon the day before our wedding. It’s why he sent me Scarlet. He knew I’d need her.”
Julian gazes at me curiously, and I think back to the conversation I had with Lucifer. I asked him why he allows demons to attack me when he’s the King of Hell and can command them. He explained his hands are tied—literally—while he was bound to Hell. He had no way of stopping the demons on earth, which is why he sent a hellhound who is obedient to me and me alone.
“I suppose that spell will work,” Julian says. “They are demons, but much stronger than any you’ve encountered before.”
“I’ll decapitate them, you perform the exorcisms,” Lucas says, and I smile, wrinkling up my nose.
“We work so well together.” I rest my head on his shoulder and he kisses me. My heart flutters, and I’m reminded yet again how fucking grateful I am for this vampire…which makes me all the more terrified our future together is dark.
“Do you think he’s going to take our baby?” I ask, question tumbling out of my mouth. I need to hear him say no. Lucifer doesn’t want a baby. Then I can get back to my regularly scheduled programming of hiding bad things from my friends and fighting demons or evil witches who want to kill me.