Rev was heaving as if he were about to have a second heart attack since Mike’s death, but Gray was a man of his own and didn’t need Daddy’s approval.
“You should have called me. You ask Jake for help. Then Vars, and Knight, while your father is kept in the dark. I would have been there for you,” Rev growled.
Gray sighed, not wanting to mention that Rev had known something important was to happen last night, yet that hadn’t stopped him from taking part in an orgy. Besides, it wasn’t his skills Gray had been in need of.
“There was no point in engaging everyone. I only asked Jake for help, because of Azog. The others kind of tagged along.”
Knight snorted. “Sure, forget the chauffeur!”
A needle of anger pierced Gray’s heart when his disability was pointed out yet again, and it didn’t help that Knight proceeded to explain Gray had needed to be guided to the trees. He would have found them on his own just fine.
Throughout the whole conversation, Shadow stayed crouched in the corner of the room, looking menacing with wild hair hanging in tangled strands and red eyes shining from underneath the blackout curtain.
“To sum up: you need to take him to one of the trees on the next two new moon nights? That’s all?” Beast asked, leaning his massive arms on the table. “That doesn’t sound like much, but we don’t know where it’s leading, do we? Magpie’s been vague so far.”
Mr. Magpie. The club’s long-time business partner, but also a demon in human skin, who at some point decided to go against the intentions of his brothers on the Other Side. Since Gray had found out what he really was, Magpie’s eccentricities didn’t seem quite so strange anymore.
“I don’t think he knows,” Knight said, leaning back in his chair.
Vars was the next one to speak. “I’m not sure. Sometimes, he fails to mention important things. It’s almost as if he thinks we all share a hive mind.”
Beast’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze settled over Gray’s shoulder, on the dark creature perched in the corner.
“Maybe he knows something?”
Gray snorted. “It doesn’t even know what its dick really is. I doubt it could tell us anything.”
So he himself kept getting it wrong and calling Shadow a he—for obvious reasons—but he was determined to dehumanize the creature, so that no one forgot what it really was.
Shadow rose and slammed his palm against the wall with a growl.
Knight flinched. “I don’t know. He spoke just fine yesterday. Can’t we give him a chair at least?”
Rev’s wrinkles became more intense as he scowled and tapped the table with his smoke-yellowed fingers, intent on supporting Gray in this matter. “Why the hell would we do that? He doesn’t belong here. Not in this room. Not in this club. Most certainly not in this world.”
Knight showed them all his palms. “It’s just really fucking weird to keep him on the floor like an animal. Am I the only one who thinks this isn’t necessary?”
Vars’s nostrils flared, and he briefly glanced Jake’s way. “It would have been more comfortable if we could all see him.”
Beast gestured at Shadow and pulled up a stool, making room for him at the table. Something inside of Gray screamed in protest, but he didn’t want to argue with his prez about something so minor.
Vars leaned back in his seat. “He’s got eyes like Azog used to have when he wasn’t under Jake’s control.”
Jake swallowed hard and crossed his arms on his chest, watching Shadow like a hawk. A shudder crawled down Gray’s back, but he remained motionless and listened to the creature’s breath, to the drag of his feet over the wooden floor. Shadow filled the space behind Gray’s back with his presence, obvious in his size and weight.
Gray exhaled only when Shadow’s black aura moved from behind his back, relieved to have an eye on him again. Clad in Beast’s old clothes, which he filled up nicely, Shadow could have seemed like any other handsome man, despite the long strands of hair falling into his face and the way he held the blackout curtain around him as if it were a medieval cloak.
Beast studied the creature with his brows gathered in a frown. “Do you know what Baal’s plan for you is?”
Shadow glanced Gray’s way, then shook his head.
Rev lit himself a cigarette. “This is pointless. It’s like trying to talk to a dog. It might be wearing human skin, but it doesn’t think like us. It’s Baal’s puppet in whatever scheme this whole ritual is.”
Gray swallowed, deeply uncomfortable. If anyone knew what had almost happened last night, their pity for him wouldn’t have known any bounds. He needed to keep it together. “Shadow. You can tell us what you know.”
It was as if Shadow snapped back to life, his eyes widening, shoulders relaxing. He looked straight into Gray’s eyes. “I need to be close to you. Fill every hole in your body.”