Chapter Eighteen

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Theo's POV

I was not at all surprised to hear the soft footfalls of my human after only a few minutes of being without him. The part of me that my father surely would not approve of was delighted that he'd come to find me.

"Thee?" he questioned, squinting at me. "Please tell me that's not holy water."

I continued dumping out the water and reminded myself that I was mad at Cyrus. Cyrus, who smiled at me and plotted against me at the same time.

"I refuse to talk to traitors," I growled.

He groaned and sat down next to me. He didn't try to stop me from dumping out the bowls I had collected, so I took that as a slight apology in itself. "Theo. I've already said I'm sorry for lying to you instead of being honest, but I can't support destroying humankind."

"They wouldn't be destroyed," I growled. "Simply brainwashed."

Cyrus fell silent, so I looked at him. It was always slightly concerning when Cyrus opted to remain silent rather than blabber on about random and endearing things. He was scowling at the ground, so I took the moment to admire his jawline and the way the sunlight lit his brown eyes to pools of honey.

My heart warmed even more, against my wishes.

"Aamon was talking to my mom," Cyrus disclosed, sending a flash of concern through me. "I don't know what he said to her, but she looked seriously freaked out after. But then pretended like it was no big deal to me."

I had no idea what to say. I was horrible with emotions. "Um." That was humiliatingly ineloquent; a child of Lucifer would be laughed at to the end of time if something like 'um' were ever to be heard come out of their mouths. But this was just Cyrus. "I don't think you need to worry. He isn't stupid; he wouldn't have told her. I think humans can sense, a little bit, that we're not one of them."

"So that's why she was freaking?"

"Yes, I would say so."

Cyrus leaned against me and dropped his head to my shoulder. "Okay, good. It's not really fun trying to navigate this whole demon thing without you, you know."

A sick little twinge in my stomach; was that guilt? Father would be ashamed.

I cleared my throat, uncomfortable by Cyrus' proximity and air of sadness. "I'm... I apologize... Yes. I apologize."

Cyrus looked at me with what I liked to call his judgmental look. "That's it? Most people say why."

That was tedious.

"I apologize for ignoring you," I gritted out. "And I accept your apology for lying, under the conditions that you do not do it again. It was very hurtful and rude."

And then I had a whole bunch of Cyrus leaning on me and surrounding me. I made small noises of protest, but Cyrus didn't seem to care and continued to wrap his arms around me. "Thank God! I missed you so much. I honestly was worried you'd never kiss me or talk to me ever again!"

I had missed kissing Cyrus. I smiled just a little and pulled back enough to see those beautiful eyes. "Kissing comes first?"

"Well no, obviously not, but—"

I kissed him.

And all of the hurt I'd felt about my Cyrus lying to me disappeared. I would rather have him here—in my arms, practically lying on my lap—then not have him at all.

"Wow! What a show!"

I broke away from Cyrus and growled at the voice of another one of my annoying siblings. This time it was Jerome, leaning up against the brick wall like he owned the place. He was wearing some kind of suit and sunglasses.

"Are you James Bond?" Cyrus blurted. "Whoa— you're hot. Who are you?"

I wrapped a possessive arm around Cyrus. I was hot too. Rude human.

Jerome scoffed and lowered his sunglasses. "Sup, lil' bro. I heard you and idiot Empusa came to the mortal realm naked. You're young and dumb, she's just cocky. You have to really get to know the complexities of a culture and respect them, rather than try to conform them to your own."

"Yeah," Cyrus nodded. "Are you also the antichrist? Because you're, like, way more sensible."

Ugh. That was going to go straight to Jerome's ego.

Jerome smirked and winked at him. "You're a cute little human. Although you must be more than just cute, for Theo to ditch his family to make out with you." Jerome's next smirk was directed at me, and had a little bit more kindness than cockiness. "This little stunt you pulled is pretty dramatic, for such a small thing."

Huh. It released a bit of the knot in my stomach, knowing that Jerome didn't care.

Jerome was the second-oldest, which was obvious with the way he acted like he knew more than any of us. I loved Jerome, but then again, he was always the know-it-all goody-two-shoes child of Lucifer.

"I know what you're going to say," I said bitterly. "But I don't want to go home and nothing you'll say can change my mind. Father can bite me."

Jerome studied me with a little bit of a sparkle in his violet eyes. He had blonde hair like I did, but it was buzzed to his scalp. "Hey, little 'mon, that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say that you have trouble ahead of you, because Aamon just came into my place with a message to send to you."

I desperately tried to pretend that he hadn't just called me 'little 'mon,' a goofy word short for demon, in front of Cyrus.

But, unlike with Empusa, Cyrus sat up straight and gave Jerome his full attention. "What was the message?"

Jerome grimaced a little. "He told me to tell you that he was making his way to Lucifer's palace right now with every intention of telling him where you are. And that if you want him to keep quiet, you and the human will have to teleport to Hell to make a deal."

Shit. Aamon was a slimy-faced weasel, ready to do anything short of sucking my father's cock in order to impress him. Or maybe even that.

"My wards won't hold up in Hell," I said. "He must know that."

Jerome nodded, face pinched with sympathy. "He said to mention that his home is warded against any unintended visitors, including Lucifer. That's why it's the meeting spot."

Which didn't mean that Lucifer couldn't just teleport outside the house, if anyone were to alert him to my presence.

Cyrus leveled Jerome with a suspicious glare, which increased my nerves. Jerome had killed hellbeasts for less. "And why go to you, not any other demon in Hell?"

But luckily the question made Jerome smile. He tipped his sunglasses back up and settled a hand on my shoulder. "Because I don't baby the baby brother. The rest of our siblings would probably be kicking Aamon's ass right now. But I believe in your ability to handle yourself, right, little 'mon?"

He was so embarrassing. I patted the hand on my shoulder and grimaced. "Yeah, Jerome. I can handle this."

With that, my older sibling nodded and vanished. I tried my best not to be a little jealous of his teleportation abilities.

Cyrus gave me a surprisingly put-together look for a human with no concept of what Hell was like. "Well. Looks like we have a douchebag to track down."

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