Belial scoffed. “This is so like him, the idiot. Always wanting what he can’t have. The last time he got involved with a single human female, he decimated a whole village and got saddled with this fucking curse.”
Eva gritted her teeth. They made it sound like Ash was stupid for wanting to spend time with a person he shared common interests with, and she didn’t like it. And, though she didn’t condone his actions in the least, blaming him for what had happened to get him cursed didn’t seem fair either. She’d bet money his brothers had done worse in their lifetimes.
Drying her hands on a dishtowel, she marched into the dining room, silencing their whispered conversation. “Ash is on the balcony?”
They all nodded.
“I’ll go tell him the plan.”
She turned to go, heading toward the patio door in the living room.
“Neither of you should be outside,” Bel said. “The wards—”
“I’ll just be a couple minutes, and then we’re leaving the province altogether, right? It’ll be fine.”
“Just make it quick. Oh, and Eva?”
“What?”
Something flashed in his eyes. “Ask Ash to tell you how a human can travel through a gate.”
She frowned. “How?”
“Just ask him.”
She found Ash sitting on a plastic deck chair in the sun, dark sunglasses over his eyes, Meph’s headphones on his ears, smoking like a tree. The ashtray beside him was piled full of butts. At least she knew the cigarettes didn’t affect his health now, but it was still super gross.
He was wearing a pair of sweats and a black tank top that looked sexy clinging to his muscular upper body. Still wet from a recent shower, his hair hung over the back of the chair like a black waterfall, almost brushing the ground.
Eva sat on the other flimsy chair beside him, and he glanced over, pulling the headphones off his ears and then looping them around his neck under his hair. She could just make out the sound of a sultry trumpet solo coming through.
Actually, the melody sounded familiar. “Is that... ?”
“Miles.”
Of course he was listening to Miles Davis. Because it wasn’t enough that he was the most perfect male specimen she’d ever seen. He had to have impeccable taste in music to go along with it.
He smokes. And he’s a demon.Right. Not so perfect.
“Nice,” she said lamely. When he said nothing, she blurted, “I told my mom everything, and Belial stole my phone and asked her to draw the other sigil thingy. So we’re going there.”
Ash just looked at her, giving no indication he was even listening.
She kept talking to fill the silence. “It’s all ready now, and we should get going. I mean, no one else seems to be in a rush, but I thought we were worried about Mist finding us, and I don’t see why we’re not taking this more seriously. It’s making me nervous, honestly. So, I came out here to tell you we’re leaving.”
He nodded and took a drag of his cigarette. “All right.”
“Are you feeling—”
“I’m fine.”
Okay, then.She fell silent and focused on her hands fidgeting in her lap. Miles wound his way around the notes of a sultry scale from the headphones around Ash’s neck.
“You told your mom everything?” he asked eventually.
“Yeah.”
“What did you say about me?”
