Mist said, “He lost consciousness, and Ash and I carried him to his bed.”
Lily laughed at his look of shock. “Yeah, you missed a lot.”
Evidently, Bel had needed to empty out a whole liquor store in order to reach the oblivion he’d been after. Hopefully it would take the edge off his rage, but something told Raum it wasn’t an experience he’d want to repeat often.
And the aftermath… He shuddered to imagine what Belial with a proper hangover would be like.
“Meph said you left the club with a girl,” Iris said, bending back over the end table to swipe a collection of cans into the bag.
“Yeah.”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“Did you have fun?” Lily asked, smiling.
“Sure.”Fuck no.
Iris smirked. Mist was giving him an odd look.
Now was the time to say his suspicious lie—the loophole Sunshine had accidentally created in the contract.
Lily was too trusting to think he would lie, and she’d probably be too repulsed by his supposed manwhore plans to want to discuss it further. Iris didn’t know him well enough to know if he was acting out of character.
But Mist… Mist had thousands of years of practice hunting down liars and cheats, and he could spot one from a mile away.
This was Raum’s moment to plant seeds in his head and enlist the Hunter’s skills to track down the angel and take her out before she had the chance to ruin their lives.
But when he opened his mouth, all he said was, “I’m gonna shower.”
He couldn’t do it.What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Whatever you do, don’t make any loud noises,” Iris said. “Bel needs to sleep until we’ve cleaned the kitchen or all the good we did will be undone.”
Lily picked up a stack of pots and set them beside the sink. “I hope he doesn’t remember breaking that casserole dish.”
Iris snickered. “Or when he accidentally let his sauce overboil, and it sprayed all over the wall.”
Just as he turned to go, Raum caught Mist’s eye. The Hunter was still watching him with a curious expression, so he raised a brow in question. Mist just flicked his tail and turned back to the sink of soapy water.
The twins’ voices faded as Raum headed down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He berated himself ceaselessly as the hot spray pelted his neck and shoulders.
Why couldn’t I say it?
He should’ve despised Sunshine to the core of his being. The thought of her blood spilling should have thrilled him.
She is the enemy. Get that through your thick head, asshole.
Only a person who’d never felt the bonds of family could use it to manipulate. Sunshine might think herself above him, but she would never know what it felt like to have another person truly have her back.
That was the real reason he’d chosen to escape Hell. Not because of his own desires. Because Bel was losing his mind giving into rage attacks on a daily basis, Ash was slowly fading as his curse made him feel as invisible as he appeared to others, and Meph was losing the fight against his demon every day he stayed surrounded by darkness.
Yeah, Raum had his own shit too. But he had his brothers, and he’d chosen to be there for them. That was more than he could say for Sunshine.
She might scoff at their blood bond and tell him that wasn’t how brothers worked, but that was only because she didn’t understand. Maybe she thought him weak and manipulatable, but he didn’t fucking care.
She posed a threat to everyone he cared about, and he’d do whatever it took to neutralize it.
So why couldn’t I fucking say it?
