Demon’s Test (Demon Mates #4)

Chapter Three

The back office of Sammy’s bookshop was as cluttered as always when they entered it through the rift Quirion had created. The ancient desk on which Quirion had found a crying Milo four years ago looked even closer to its final day than it had back then. That Sammy hadn’t switched it out for a newer model was no surprise to Milo. His employer was loyal to a fault, even to furniture. But why Dre hadn’t gotten rid of the health hazard was a mystery to him. Yes, Sammy’s mate had a very hard time saying no to Sammy no matter what, but his protective instincts should have kicked in and helped him find a way to send the desk on its last journey to the junkyard.

And there lay the problem, Milo realized. Even if Dre managed to convince Sammy to depart with this particular desk, his sweet mate would insist on accompanying it on its last journey—leading him directly to a vast amount of other, probably even more damaged furniture in dire need of rescuing. For the same reason, it wasn’t a good idea to let Sammy go to an animal shelter. The one time Dre had made that mistake, it had taken about a dozen demons roughly a month to find new homes for all the animals there—fifty dogs, sixty-seven cats, a hundred rabbits, two parrots, and four donkeys. Luckily the demons had been more than happy to help but afterward, Sammy had been banned from going anywhere near an animal shelter.

Quirion had watched the drama unfold from the safety of his library, where Milo had had to keep him abreast of everything going on. And maybe, just maybe, Milo had dropped a hint with Sammy that Quirion could use a furry companion or two. Of course Sammy had jumped on the idea and decided his brother-in-law could take on some cats or rabbits. Then it had been Quirion struggling to find good homes for these animals as well. As he had told Milo in all clarity, he had no intention of expanding his menagerie. In his opinion, a gigantic toad was more than fulfilling his quota.

Milo stepped around the desk toward the door, announcing their presence. “Sammy? Are you here?”

“Milo?” He heard rustling then Sammy came running down the narrow hallway toward him. Milo quickly stepped over the threshold before he was caught in a cuddle. “Milo! I didn’t know you wanted to come today! You should have told me. I could have saved you some muffins.”

Sammy was a bit smaller than Milo, which hadn’t stopped him from yanking Milo down into his hug. He smelled of books and coffee beans and everything sweet and right in the world. Milo still couldn’t believe his luck having gained the friendship of somebody so special.

Now Sammy lifted his head and spied Quirion, who was looming behind Milo. In the beginning, when they had just met, having the huge demon at his back had made Milo nervous. Now he felt twitchy when there wasn’t over three hundred pounds of demonic muscle mass somewhere in his vicinity.

“Quirion! How nice of you to drop by!” Sammy changed hugging partners, gently shoving Milo out of the way to reach the green demon. “Dre has just popped out to get me something to eat. He should be back soon, and he will be so happy to see you.”

Milo doubted that. The relationship between Quirion and his two younger brothers wasn’t bad per se—they rarely fought openly. It was more like a wire under constant strain. They knew how to be civilized with each other and, since Sammy, they had apparently started to get even better with their interactions because nobody wanted the human to run to Alerion when he thought the family wasn’t getting along, but Quirion maintained a distance to Dre and Barion that Milo couldn’t see between the two younger brothers. It only drove home the fact that he himself was much too young to even think about becoming Quirion’s anything . The huge demon saw Milo as a protégé, perhaps another little brother, nothing more.

“I’m happy to see you as well, Sammy.” Quirion patted Sammy’s back. “Milo and I are here because we need your help.”

“Oh, whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

How can anybody be so sweet and trusting? Milo had no idea. Life at MIT had taught him to expect a backstabbing at any moment, especially when precious funding was on the line. The usual response to a plea for help at MIT was always ‘What’s in it for me?’ or, depending on how seasoned the recipient of the plea was, ‘That’s going to cost you’. Sammy, on the other hand? He would give and give and give and never once think about asking for anything in return.

“We, I mean, I need your help with a letter.” Milo held the letter from the SBW out to him. Sammy took it with a curious expression. Before he started to read, he glanced at Quirion.

“Why don’t we go to the store and get comfortable on the couches? By the way, Quirion, how is Mildred?”

Quirion shot Milo an I told you look before he answered. “Well, she’s fine. Why would you ask?”

Sammy was clearly already thinking about the letter while leading them to the couches in the store, or he would have picked up on Quirion’s tense tone. Or not. Sammy wasn’t always that attentive.

“Last time I saw her, I got the impression she was growing restless.” Sammy had reached the turquoise couch and was gesticulating for his guests to sit down. “I would hate for her to leave without getting a chance to say goodbye.”

Quirion shot Milo another look, this one worried. While Sammy might not always be attuned to other people’s reactions, especially when he was pre-occupied with something else, when he was paying attention, he was always spot-on.

“What makes you think she was restless?” Quirion tried for nonchalance without being able to quell the anxiety in his tone. Despite his blasé attitude when he talked about Mildred, he truly cared for the toad, as evidenced by the crease between his brows.

“I can’t really put it into words. I just thought she was…waiting for something. The right time? It’s just this feeling I had when I looked at her.” Sammy sat down only to jump right up again. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thank you, Sammy. We had something before we came here.” Milo pointed at the letter. “We’ll keep an eye on Mildred if you take a look at this.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry, I just thought…” Sammy’s gaze finally landed on the pretentious letter and a few seconds later he started squealing. “Milo, that’s wonderful! Just imagine, getting all the funding you need. That should propel your research about nanobots forward like the silver leaves did for these dragons in The Last Hero , I think? You know which ones I mean. Sir Terry.”

Milo had no clue who Sammy could referring to. He had read Terry Pratchett’s books but not with the same zeal as most other people he knew. Still, he knew better than to answer with a negative. That would only make Sammy start searching for the right book and passage to prove he wasn’t making things up. They didn’t have time for that. He wanted to get this letter written and back into the mail, and allowing Sammy to follow his usual workflow meant they would be still sitting here in three hours, no letter written, but with quite a lot of completely unrelated questions answered. So he nodded with a knowing smile, as if he were in on this particular reference.

Sammy beamed and went back to reading over the letter again, a habit of his to ensure he got everything right. Milo caught Quirion’s gaze. The green demon was doing his best not to smirk and was failing miserably. Milo shook his head in silent warning and Quirion mimed zipping his lips. He, too, wanted to get back to the library sometime soon.

“Oookay. What I get from this is that you want to answer in kind, to show how seriously you’re taking their proposal. Who is the Society for the Betterment of the World anyway? I’ve never heard of them.”

“Uhm, they are a group that—”

“They’re a group of stuck-up, arrogant scientists and businesspeople who think they know the answer to everything,” Dre’s voice cut off Quirion’s attempt at explaining what his former fellow scholars were doing. Milo turned his head and saw Sammy’s mate standing next to the coffeemaker with a linen bag of deliciously smelling food in his hands. He shook his head. “So that’s why Zenobia insisted on giving me four portions instead of the two I ordered.” He shrugged and turned around to find plates and cutlery.

Milo felt his stomach grumbling. Quirion treated him to Zenobia’s cooking—current high priestess of the goddess in unbroken line since before the pyramids were built—but not as often as Milo would have liked.

“They’re dedicated.” Quirion defended the members of SBW even though he’d said something similar not two hours ago. Apparently, sibling rivalry trumped scholarly antagonism.

Dre snorted. “Dedicated is one way to describe it. I’d say pig-headed and so in love with their sense of self-importance, they can’t see anything past it. The money’s good, though. Deep pockets.” He furrowed his brow, or rather, the scales above his eyes did a strange wriggling motion that could be interpreted as furrowing. “Weren’t you one of their founding members? I think I can remember something.”

“Yes, I was. We had differing opinions on some core elements of the society.” Even though Milo had no siblings, he had seen enough interactions between the demons to recognize a warning elder brother tone when he heard it. Following the universal law of annoying little brothers, Dre blithely ignored it and kept on needling.

“Ha! I can’t imagine. I don’t know all of them, but I dare say that Nyx woman and this ice elf, what was his name again? Something from a song, I think—ah, yeah, I remember, Rasputin Icebringer,” Dre snorted. “They’re worse than you when it comes to everything scholarly. And that’s saying a lot .”

His mission of aggravating his older brother fulfilled, Dre came around the counter with two plates full of steaming food in each hand. He put them on the table with Smaug and Drogon before sitting down next to Sammy. When his mate didn’t immediately start eating, Dre gently pried the letter from his hands, put it on the couch next to him and held the cutlery out to Sammy. “Eat, mo grah thu , you need your strength if you want to help your friends.”

Without protest, Sammy took the knife and fork and started eating his spaghetti vongole . Whatever else Dre was—and Milo knew for sure Quirion had a lot to say in that regard—the attentiveness and love he showed his mate was absolutely heart-warming.

Milo decided to table the topic of SBW and how to write that blasted answering letter in favor of the deliciousness that was Zenobia’s cooking. He had gotten carbonara , his favorite, while Quirion was feasting on penne a la putanesca , his preferred dish when he was in Rome. How Zenobia always knew these things was a little unnerving. Then again, Milo was working for an over seven foot tall demon with claws that could rip him in half in one go and an allergy against spelling and grammar errors in books, so what did he know?

They ate in companionable silence and when they were done, Milo got up to tidy the dishes. He put them in the small dishwasher Sammy had in the store and was just about to return to the couches when the windchime above the shop’s door sounded and several teenagers poured in. They were the early afternoon crowd, consisting of bookworms who loved the tranquil atmosphere in Sammy’s shop and those who didn’t have a stable home to go to after school.

Sammy got up and greeted them with a smile, pulling out a tray laden with sandwiches, bowls with salad and fruit and, today, warm slices of pizza. About half of the teenagers fell on the food, thanking Sammy while already chewing. It hurt Milo’s heart knowing that if it weren’t for Sammy, these kids wouldn’t get a decent meal all day.

While Sammy was busy distributing the food and making sure everybody was comfortable, a few of the kids sat down on the couch next to the one Quirion and Dre were on. Milo glanced at the two demons. The teenagers simply saw two very tall and muscular men and were by now familiar with Dre, but they kept a distance to Quirion, who got up, taking Milo with him.

“Perhaps we should come back later,” he suggested.

Dre shook his head. “No, Sammy wouldn’t appreciate it if you took this from him now.” He looked at his mate, who was chatting with two boys in skater clothes. “Give him five minutes, then you can go upstairs, and I’ll hold the fort here.”

Quirion nodded. “Come on, Milo, we might as well see what new books Sammy has gotten.”

Before he followed Quirion, Milo gathered the letter and the draft, winking at Dre, knowing as well as the red demon that Quirion couldn’t wait to see what book he would buy from Sammy today. Because even though he wasn’t a centuries old demon, Sammy had an uncanny knack for finding those rare treasures Quirion loved.

* * * *

Three hours later, Milo was chilling on the couch in Sammy’s and Dre’s living room, listening with one ear as his two employers were discussing the history of ink. Apparently ink wasn’t just a means to convey meaning by putting symbols on various surfaces but also a cultural phenomenon in its own right, not that Milo had ever doubted that— yawn . He flinched only a little when Dre appeared in front of the TV. The huge red demon cocked his head toward the dining table halfway between the open-plan kitchen and the living room, listened for a moment, then grinned. “Let me guess, the letter isn’t even half written?”

“Try not even one-fifth. We’re stuck at ‘Dear Madame Nyx, I want to sincerely thank you for the kind and generous opportunity you have presented me.’ That’s as far as we got before Sammy made some comment about how the ink on the letter had an interesting shade of royal blue and how he wondered if SBW was using a special mix and then off they went discussing the history of ink and the different shades possible by using I-don’t-know-what.” Milo tried to sound annoyed, which he was, to a certain degree, because he hadn’t seen his technically free afternoon and evening going this way, but he also couldn’t keep the fond smile from his lips. After all, his two mentors and friends were going to all this trouble to help him.

Dre winked at him. “That’s more than I would have bet on, so be grateful. It sounds like this is going to take some time. How about you go down and take care of the shop? It’s another hour till closing time and you know we usually see some traffic about half an hour before that. I’ll take care of dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Milo got up. It had been some time since he last closed the shop for Sammy and he figured it would be more fun than staying on the couch, teetering on the brink of sleep. “I have a hankering for Mexican food, and I know Qui loves seafood from Crete. La Poisson Royale I think is the name of the restaurant.”

Dre nodded. “I know that one. Mexican food for you, fish for Quirion and I can sort Sammy and myself out. See you in an hour.” Claws sprang free from his hand and a moment later Dre was gone again.

Milo passed Quirion and Sammy on his way to the door. “I’ll just go down to look after the shop.”

Both looked at him with slightly confused expressions. “Yeah, you do that. As I was saying, ink from Japan…” Quirion kept on monologuing about a certain way to produce ink stones in Japan during some bygone era which Sammy nodded along to, adding a “Yes, exactly,” here and there.

Milo chuckled and went down into the shop. As Dre had predicted, there was an uptick in customers shortly before closing time. At the practically last minute, Troy and Declan, the two werewolf alphas mated to Quirion’s father, Alerion, the King of all Demons, stormed into the shop. Both of them were wagging their reusable gigantic to-go cups in the air while exuding an aura of utter importance. Milo started walking toward the counter. “Let me guess, you need another caffeine fix?”

“You must be a mind-reader!” Declan exclaimed as if he and his mate hadn’t telegraphed their need so loudly even a blind person would have picked up on it. He slammed his cup on the counter. “Make it extra strong.”

“For me as well!” Another slamming sound suggested that Declan’s cup had joined that of his mate.

Milo turned to them. He knew he was already at a slight disadvantage because while good, his lattes weren’t as perfect as Sammy’s. Contradicting the wolves could end in them storming up to Sammy’s apartment, demanding he should make the holy beverage. Then again, yanking Sammy and Quirion out of wherever their discussion had by now taken them—which could be anywhere, as Milo was well aware—might not be the worst thing to ever happen. “I’m not sure if you need that much caffeine at such a late hour.” He lifted an eyebrow.

Both wolves stared at him. And stared a little longer. Their stares weren’t exactly hostile, more confused as to why he should think more caffeine was a bad thing. Finally, Milo gave in. Obviously the two had trained with their cat, Mr. Fluffy Sparkle Pants, who could outstare a statue if he so wished. Milo didn’t stand a chance and he knew it. “Two lattes with double-double espresso coming.”

The satisfied rumbling from two predators’ throats wasn’t as reassuring as they might have thought. Although not as terrifying as it might have been for normal people, either. Briefly, Milo wondered when he had stopped seeing himself as part of the normal, aka human part of the population. While he foamed the milk for Declan’s cup, he thought it might have been shortly after Sammy had introduced him to the entire book club. Looking these powerful paranormals in the eyes, knowing they knew that he had tried to sacrifice Sammy to Dre had been a formative experience. Everything afterward was just the proverbial cherry on top. After the terror of that evening, he didn’t think anything could truly frighten him anymore, which had helped him tremendously at various funding meetings with the heads of the faculties he worked in. The only thing he still feared was losing his mother to cancer, and even that had lost some of its horror over the past few years.

Declan and Troy thanked him for their fix with nods and a murmured, “See you soon,” before they exited the shop with their to-go cups clutched to their chests as if they were babies in need of cuddling. Milo hurried to close the shop, tidied up the coffeemaker and switched the lights off before he returned upstairs, where Quirion and Sammy were still perched over the letter like two vultures waiting for prey to stop twitching.