Exquisite

His Demons

~Neith~

"I don't believe it, man." Vivienne exclaimed loudly, waking me up from the the half-slumber I had dropped into.
Shaking my head to get rid of the grogginess, I took a huge gulp of the coffee in front of me as she pleasantly continued chattering about something I couldn't tune into.

"You okay?" Damen nudged me from where he was sitting to my immediate right, his brow lined with concern. "You don't look like you slept very well."

"Just tired, nothing much." Was Cassien right? Did I really mean that much to him?

"Sure." He didn't look convinced in the least. "I'm going to help you with whatever work you have today and then you're taking a nap."

"But I -" I began to protest but he held up a hand, a rare spark of mischief in his light eyes. "Viv, Nieth has just recovered from her injuries and needs rest to function properly, right?"

Vivienne chuckled, her eyes flitting from her brother to me fondly. "Damn right she does. She gets so cranky if she doesn't get her eight hours of sleep that I'll forcefully put her to bed if need be."

Damen shrugged, a smile playing at his lips. "Doctor's orders. Can't beat that, Goddess of the Hunt."

Cassien gave me a meaningful smile and I rolled my eyes to hide the heat on my cheeks. "Fine then, but you're not getting out of the offer now. I have a lot of work today."

"Try me." He raised an eyebrow and for a moment, my breath caught in my throat.

This would be so much easier if he wasn't so hot.

"What is it that you're doing anyway?" Vivienne piped up. "I didn't exactly get it yesterday, you just said something about newspapers."

I cleared my throat. "When we were kids, Shotgun and I used to solve a lot of crossword puzzles; he used to say that it was like building castles, only with words."

"Before leaving, he left me a message. It meant that if I need him urgently sometime, I call out to him from the castles. From the newspapers we solved the puzzles from."

Vivienne's brow creased a little. "So you'll put an advertisement or something? How will you know which corner of the world he's in; what if the newspaper you send the ad in doesn't get circulated where he lives?"

I smiled faintly. "He'll know."

Damen's hand tightened on the glass of orange juice in front of me, his knuckles turning white as he got up abruptly. "I'll uh - I have a meeting, online. I'll see you later."

As he walked away, Vivienne coughed suggestively. "I sure am excited to have Damen meet Shotgun, though." I shot her a glare as Cassien laughed into his cereal. "I have a feeling they'll get along very well."

"I'm sure but," Cassien smirked at me, "Just to be safe you might want to tell Damen that Shotgun is your friend. Just a friend."

I narrowed my eyes at both of them. "You're enjoying this way too much, aren't you?"

The siblings shrugged innocently. "No idea what you're talking about." "None at all, even the slightest."

"Do I really need to talk to him?"
I exhaled, my head throbbing from lack of sleep. "If he doesn't trust me, then that's something he needs to figure out on his own."

"It's not that he doesn't trust you, silly girl. He just feels he's not good enough for you." Vivienne explained gently, all traces of humor disappearing from her face. "He'll tell himself that Shotgun is what you want and walk away from you, thinking it's what you need."