Distorted Affliction

Chapter Twenty Four

As it turned out, the humidity in Louisiana made the fall weather much colder this late at night, and when I stepped out of the bar with Demidicus, I cursed myself for not bringing a jacket. The moisture in the air made the cool forty degrees feel much closer to thirty, and I crossed my arms in an attempt to keep the damp cold feeling from settling into my bones. I only took a couple of steps away from the entryway of the bar before turning to look at him. I didn't want to wander too far away from where Sin had left me.

"How did you find me?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him, though he seemed entirely carefree. "I just got here, which means you must have been right behind. How?"

"An old friend called in a favor," Demidicus answered casually, offering a shrug as his only real explanation. I remembered our conversation back in the large library where Lazarus had turned me into his own personal Mouri buffet for his minions.

"Sin?" I couldn't keep the incredulous tone out of my voice, and his only response was a quick nod and a lazy grin. "I don't understand."

"I have history with the Priestesses here," he offered, though I had a feeling there was a lot more to the story than he was leading me to believe. "I told you, I'm proving myself."

Demidicus had shown up twice now with no warning, and vague explanations. This meeting led me to believe his rescuing me from Lazarus had been less about getting one over on his brother than he had hinted at when we met. It felt like the gears in my head were turning slowly, but when the light came on, the effect was the same nonetheless. The sudden realization made me take a sharp breath, and my eyes searched his face before my mouth decided to ask the questions.

"You weren't at the house with Lazarus for no reason, were you?" It was phrased as a question, but the tone of my voice was accusatory. "Sin sent you to get me out, didn't he?"

It was his turn to hesitate, and he glanced away for a moment, his smile faltering before his brown eyes met my gaze again. Just as I had suspected, there was more to the story than either of them were willing to tell me.

"Sinclair called me," Demidicus started slowly, taking a small step closer to me as his gaze burned my skin. "All he told me was that you hadn't met your coven where you were supposed to and he was worried something might have happened to you. I put the dots together, found my brother, and that's when I stumbled across the horrid things he was letting his..." His words faltered, and I watched as he clenched his jaw. He hadn't even known me for more than a moment it seemed, yet it clearly angered him, the things his brother had done.

"So you took it upon yourself to rescue me?" I asked, my voice barely a breath. "For Sin?"

"I prefer the term liberate," he corrected, his tone playful, though his eyes held a fire in them that seemed very close to the way Sin looked at me. "And I have my own selfish reasons for doing what I did, so don't go handing Sinclair all of the credit on that one."

There were a million questions running through my mind, loose ends I was trying to find answers for, but I couldn't decide which to ask first. I wanted to know how he and Sin knew each other, what their history was and why Sin seemed to trust him enough to give him our location. My mind was trying to prioritize the questions when I opened my mouth and began asking anyway.

"If we just got into town," I started slowly. "And you're already here, that means Sin must have told you where we were going back in Wyoming. But he's never mentioned anything about you to me."

"Oh darling," Demidicus said, his tone playful as he leaned in towards me, pressing his palm against the wall next to my head to hold himself up. His smile was wide enough that I could see his fangs, and a chill slipped down my spine that had nothing to do with the weather. "You don't need to be jealous of Sinclair's relationship with me. We have known each other for thousands of years, but his looks can't hold a flame to the beauty that your ancestors have gifted you with."