Page 91 of Dancing With Demons

Dead, empty eyes dismissed the naked fear in mine, and it was still a better sight than those eyes turning away from me... leaving me behind.

“The nightmare’s over, Hunter. You can now remain in the company you prefer.”

“Yo.” I jumped when a plate of food clanked down in front of me. The aye-aye demon dropped a mug of tea in front of me too. “There. Don’t choke on it. Or do,” he drawled. “I don’t give a shit.”

With that, he moved to the side so that the guy and the gal coming up behind him could serve Ronin and Dora.

Ronin reached across, picked up my plate, and smashed it on the floor. The tea mug went after it to the tune of my screaming.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Ronin growled at him, standing my neck hairs on end. “She doesn’t drink tea, you ignorant fuckwit. Bring her coffee with two spoonfuls of honey, no sugar. She also wants the hazelnut chocolate biscuits, eggs with hollandaise, and a side of mixed fruit—diced, not sliced.”

I stared at him, my shock overcoming my discomfort. How does he know how I like my coffee? Nobody’s ever guessed that I prefer honey over sugar.

And the diced-not-sliced thing? That was leftover childhood trauma from when a baby Dora snuck an apple slice from my plate when I wasn’t looking. She choked on it, and even though Mom rushed over, got it out, and everything was fine, I’d been cutting up my fruit small enough for a toddler to eat ever since.

But how did you notice that? I thought, gazing at Ronin. Not even Dora ever knew why I was so insistent on small pieces of fruit.

“And if you spit on her food again,” Ronin hissed at the aye-aye demon as I spun around, looking at the food on the floor in new light. “I’ll rip your tongue out of your head next.”

“Next?” he repeated.

Ronin snapped his fingers.

“Ahhhh!”

I clapped my hand over my mouth, muffling my shout or keeping down my bile—I wasn’t sure which.

The fingers on his left hand bent and twisted in almost half a dozen directions they were never meant to go.

“Ahh, fuck! I got it!” the aye-aye belted out. “Diced, chocolate, hollandaise, honey, no spit!”

There was definitely spit on my leg after he shouted that. And I had a feeling there would still be extra added to whatever he brought out next.

“He says he’s got it...” Ronin nuzzled my cheek, shifting me and my body back to him and returning me to his thrall like a sunflower reaches for the sun. “But what should I do to him if he’s lying? What do I do to anyone who defies me when it comes to you?”

I knew the answer, for there was never going to be another one. Grasping his cheek, I stroked his lips—tracing his shock as his mouth parted in surprise.

“Why, kill them, of course,” I replied without hesitation. “It’s no more than they deserve.”

Ronin just looked at me, face expressionless. He drew away from my touch and flapped an irritated hand at the aye-aye demon. “You heard her.”

Grumbling to himself, the demon went off to fetch a plate of food that I was one hundred percent not eating. On my other side, Dora tackled her meal with gusto.

The doors flew open, and the princesses blew in on a cloud of perfume, pomp, and bickering.

I shook my head at them. For five women who fought and cursed each other out as much as they did, they couldn’t seem to help going everywhere together as a group. Seriously, they were the weirdest band of frenemies I’d ever seen.

And once again proving they had more in common than not, they all took one look at me and Dora at the Sins table, and broke out in matching glares and grimaces.

“What the fuck are those two doing here?” Raven demanded.

Ronin picked up his glass of wine and swirled the contents, gazing into its crimson depths. “You conjured seven chairs for seven sins, didn’t you?” he drawled. “Who else was the seventh chair for if not her?” He motioned at Adora.

“That was before she glued herself to the mortal bitch!”

“A mortal bitch who”—Ursula stomped over to me—“is not one of us.” She pointed to the tables before the platform where the lackeys were sitting down, getting comfortable, and waiting for their food to come out. “Get down there with the rest of the bootlickers.”

“Hmm,” Ronin hummed, flicking my gaze to him. “Is that where you belong, Charlotte? Down there?”