"No," Ace said.
"What?" I hadn't meant to shriek, but I totally shrieked. "He's one of your own! How can you be so..."
"Evil?" Ace filled in, a brow arching up.
"Well, yes. Evil. But Drex was evil too, and he was kind to me. He took care of me. He was selfless in the end, demanding I leave without him. What?" I hissed when the men shared a look.
"Hey, what's your name?" Jo asked, climbing off of Ace's lap.
"Nova," I supplied.
"Nova, why don't you come with me to get some coffee? Let the men growl at one another for a bit, okay?" she asked. But it wasn't much of a question because she grabbed my hand and started pulling me along with her.
I didn't want to get coffee.
I wanted to start banging demon heads together to make them go save Drex.
But I was also acutely aware of the fact that I would never be able to do that. And since Jo knew them better than I could, I figured she understood that they needed some time to hash things out.
"So, Drex was nice, huh?" she asked, going over toward the coffee pot in the massive kitchen while I took a seat at the table, eyeing the herbs growing on the windowsill. "Those are from Lenore. She will be back in a few. She's putting out mason jars for moon water."
"Moon water," I repeated, confused.
"Tomorrow is the full moon. Apparently, the moon is more powerful then? I'm not sure. She says that when you put water out in the moonlight, it gets powers or something."
"Not quite," Arick said, drawing our attention to the doorway. "But something of the sort, I guess. Is this a ladies-only meeting, or can I join? They're all snapping at one another out there."
Jo waved toward the table, and Arick moved to stretch his insanely long legs out.
"But, ah, yeah, Drex was kind. I mean, not sweet. Because, well, I'm not sure demons can be sweet, but kind. And generous. And selfless."
"Hm," Jo said, pressing her lips together as she glanced at me.
"What?"
"Did you and Drex, you know..." she said.
"She means fuck," Arick explained.
"I got that," I agreed. "We, well, no. I mean... no."
"You did things but not that thing," she clarified.
"Yes. Why?"
"Just a theory I am working on with them. You know, them as a whole," she clarified. "Have you noticed anything... otherworldly about Drex?"
"Aside from the eye thing?"
"How they kinda glow sometimes?" she clarified.
"Yeah, that. I mean... I don't think so? He's really, really warm. And I'm always cold. So that's nice."
"Nothing else of note?" she asked.
"I don't think so. What do you mean?"
"Did anything very dramatically change about his—" Arick started.
"Don't," Jo snapped. "It's nothing bad," she added to me. "I just... if or when it happens, it's really neat. And I don't want us to spoil it for you."
"Oh, ah, okay," I agreed, much more curious than I was willing to let on.
What could happen to them physically?
Well, they were demons, I guess.
And demons had, you know, demonic physical attributes. Like vampires with their fangs.
If the depictions of demons I'd seen were accurate, then I guess I could possibly expect, you know... horns? Maybe a tail?
"Oh my God, does Drex have a tail?" I blurted out, both amused and horrified at the idea.
A loud almost hiccuping laugh escaped Jo at that.
"What's so funny?" another woman asked, coming in from the back door in a cloak with the hood pulled up, masking her features.
"Just picturing our men and their friends with tails, is all," Jo managed between laughs.
"Oh, my," the other woman, Lenore, if I recalled Drex's description correctly, said, letting out a small giggle. "That would be..."
"Hilarious," Jo supplied, recovering, then turning back to pouring cups of coffee. "I can't imagine watching Ace walk away with a little tail swishing around over his ass."
"In my defense, I imagined a long, you know, Satan-like tail," I said, giving her a smile as she handed me the coffee.
"That's even better," Jo declared, shaking her head.
"Lenore, this is Nova. Nova, Lenore."
"I've heard a lot about you," I told her, giving her a smile as she pushed off the hood of her cloak, revealing a gorgeous face and stunning, long, dark hair. Then there was her little crescent moon tattoo at the top of her forehead, the edges of it sticking into her hair. Drex had been short on physical descriptors of the women in his men's lives.
Jo is blonde, pretty.
Lenore is dark-haired, pretty, and a witch.
Men.
Always leaving out the most interesting parts.
"Oh, so you're the one making Ace miserable which is making Lycus miserable which is making me spend a lot of time outside... 'setting out moon water.'"
"I thought you were actually doing that," Jo said, "not just trying to get away. Otherwise, I would have joined you. The air has been tense around here lately."