“You need to sleep,” Lucas tells me, shutting the door behind us. I lazily seal it up with a simple spell, take off my boots, and collapse onto the couch.
All that’s left of the fire are several glowing embers, reminding me of our romantic night we were about to have.
“I’ll carry you upstairs,” Lucas says and goes to scoop me up. I’m hungry and still want a pickle.
“Can I get something to eat first?”
“You don’t have to ask,” he chuckles. “What do you want? I’ll bring it to you.”
“Pickles. I’m like ninety percent sure I have some in the fridge. And can you put some mayonnaise in a bowl? I don’t know why but I really want to dip the pickle in mayo.”
Lucas smiles. “Is this another weird craving?”
“Yeah, I think so. But is it weird? People put both mayo and pickles on sandwiches so it’s not like I’m dipping it in soy sauce.”
Lucas kisses me and goes into the kitchen. My familiars keep me company while Lucas finds the pickles and mayo, and I’m almost asleep when he brings me a bowl full of each. I eat my fill, finding it oddly satisfying and so fucking delicious, and then go upstairs. I run a damp washcloth over my face, doing a half-assed job to take my makeup off but too tired to do a more thorough job.
Finally, I crash into bed with Lucas. “If it weren't for this baby,” I start, having a hard time keeping my eyes open. “I’d be too wired to sleep.”
“I know,” Lucas agrees, kissing the back of my neck. “Talk about a long night.”
“Yeah.” I snuggle a little closer and run my nails up and down Lucas’s back. I’m asleep in a matter of minutes.I wake up a little after nine-thirty, needing to use the bathroom. Lucas isn’t in bed, leading me to believe he’s downstairs making breakfast. I’m a little nauseous and need to take a few more drops of Tabatha’s miracle potion before I can even think about stomaching any food. But before that, I want to go back into bed and pass out for another few hours.
I’m fucking exhausted.
Lucas comes up the stairs as I’m washing my hands. “You’re up,” he says with a smile, stepping into the bathroom and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“I’m going back to bed,” I yawn.
“I’ll come with you.”
I dry my hands and look at Lucas in the mirror. “You didn’t make anything for breakfast?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I thought that’s why you were downstairs.”
“Your phone was ringing. I went to silence it so it wouldn’t wake you up.”
“Who called?” I asked.
“Ruby.”
“Great,” I grumble. “There’s only one reason she’s calling this early.”
“It’s nine-thirty. It’s not that early for some humans.”
“Hah, for me, though, it is,” I yawn. “I should see what she wants.”
“It can wait a few hours. Go back to sleep.”
I make a face, knowing as soon as I lie down my mind will start racing with everything that could have gone wrong and made her call me. Someone died? Yeah, totally possible. Werewolves are outside the Covenstead door, keeping anyone from getting in or out? Even more possible.
“I’ll just see what she wants and then I’ll go back to bed.” I stand on my toes to give Lucas a quick kiss and then slowly walk downstairs to get my phone. Ruby left a message, and I put it on speaker, listening to it as I walk up the stairs once again.
“Callie, hey, it’s Ruby. We were doing a lesson on detecting negative energy in class this morning and, well, we detected some. Those scrapper demons weren’t here because of some supposed werewolf. I just snuck into my office to try and narrow down exactly what type of evil we’ve detected, and there’s a demon in the woods.”Chapter 23“You’re calling her back, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” I tell Lucas, letting out another heavy sigh. Mentally, I’m wide awake, Physically, I’m exhausted, and it’s still such a weird feeling for me. We go back into bed and I call Ruby back. The call goes to voicemail, which makes sense if she’s back at the Academy, teaching another class. I leave her a message saying to call me when she can, and set the phone on the nightstand.
“Are you all right?” Lucas asks, large hand landing on my back.
“Yeah. Demons show up in the woods all the time.”
“True, but I meant are you all right considering everything that happened last night? We didn’t get a chance to talk about any of it.” He slips his arms around me and pulls me back down on the mattress.
“Honestly,” I start, “I don’t know how to feel.”
“That’s understandable. Do you trust him?” He doesn’t have to say Lucifer’s name for me to know who he’s talking about.
“I want to, but everything I’ve been told my entire life tells me he’s the bad guy. The reason bad things happen.” I shake my head. “I don’t know. He’s here, though, and even before he was here on earth, he was there in my dreams or whatever weird reality it was. I’ve spoken to him more than I’ve spoken to my own father. And if he wanted to hurt me, he had a great opportunity to last night.”