“Tell me more about what it’s like to be an incubus,” I said sitting on the bed next to him.

“What do you want to know?”

I wanted to know everything—more about the Kingdom of Lust, more about the path to Hell, more about sinning. But, instead, I said, “How many lovers have you had?” And I nearly slapped a hand over my mouth when I did. He’d probably had hundreds, while I’d only slept with cheater-turned-demon Trevon and a lousy kid in high school who thought that 10 seconds of jackhammering would make me cum.

All emotion faded from his face. “I’ve had many sexual partners—too many to count, to be honest with you.”

I played with the hem of the blanket. “Is that… normal? Kasey has an open relationship, and Zane told Maria that he wanted one too.”

He sat up, thumb playing with his ring. “Yes, it’s normal to have multiple partners at the same time. Most sex demons participate in open relationships, and it’s common to practice polyamory.”

My heart nearly dropped. Of course, they would desire more than one partner. They had needs. But did that mean Eros was seeing someone else right now too? I didn’t want to believe it, but after Trevon cheated on me, I couldn’t shake the thought of being with a man and not knowing if he had someone else on the side.

“Oh,” I whispered, my gaze falling to the bed. Maybe I should’ve waited to tell him that I was sure I wanted us, until that lustful feeling went away, and I truly understood what came along with dating a demon.

It wasn’t just amazing sex. It was wondering if I was the only one in his life or if he had been hiding someone else from me this whole time. It was wondering if I could ever compare to any sex demon that Eros slept with before me. I was just human after all.

And he was being more suggestive than usual today with that waitress. Maybe she was his lover or maybe he wanted to gauge whether I’d be okay with him seeing other people.

“Dani, I—”

“No, Eros. It’s okay. You-you don’t have to explain yourself.” My eyes watered as I stared at the city lights which looked so bright against the darkness outside.

“That’s not—”

I held my hand up and pressed my lips together. “Please, I don’t want to hear it. It’ll break my heart.” I grabbed Mom’s pendant in my hand and squeezed it harder than I ever had before and stood. “Maybe we aren’t a good idea. I can’t get into that type of relationship right now and—”

He grasped my face in his hands, thumbs brushing over my cheekbones. “Dani! Listen to me.” His eyes were a piercing green. “I don’t want a polyamorous relationship.”

“You don’t?”

“And, please, don’t think that I’ve been fucking someone else this whole time. Yes, I’ve had multiple partners at once, but only when everyone was comfortable with it. I’ve honestly only desired one partner at a time.”

We sat in silence, just staring at each other. His eyes shifted through a hundred shades of green—each a different emotion—and finally settled into a soft emerald. “When I was a child, there was a couple in the Kingdom of Lust who only had each other for partners and wouldn’t take anyone else. At that time, I thought that being committed to one person was best because I had experienced thousands of years with polyamory and didn’t understand love.”

“You had never experienced love in a polyamorous relationship?”

He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Not personally,” he said. But I knew that it could happen. Kasey had a strong relationship with Aarav and Mycah. “I guess it was just the world I grew up in, seeing my parents around different people—never really happy with any number of them.” His frown deepened. “One day I’m sure that I could care for more than one person at a time, but right now I just need to learn how to care again, and I want to care about you.”

This man. I drew him into a hug and smiled. I loved this side of him.

When I pulled away, he was tense. “You’re okay with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re okay with what I told you—” He hesitated. “That I only want one partner, right now?”

“Hell, yes,” I said. And—to my surprise—the words ‘right now’ didn’t bother me like I thought that they would.

A smile flashed across his face for a brief moment, but then it vanished and turned into something much darker. “In the Kingdom of Lust, it’s seen as a disgrace if you only take one romantic partner. My parents hated me for it.” He pressed his lips into a thin line, suddenly becoming quiet. The only sound in the room being the candle crackling in the corner. “They punished me,” he said quietly.

I clenched my fist. They hated his decision so much that they punished him for it? That was rotten.

“How?” I asked, after relaxing my fist. I didn’t want to bring up painful memories, but Mom always told me that people acted off of past experiences and I wanted to know what they did so I could care for him the way he needed to be cared for.

He stared me right in the eyes, leaned onto his forearms at the edge of the bed, and pulled his shirt over his head. The two parallel scars on his back were a deep red; it was the first time that I could really see his scars for what they were. “First,” he said—voice quiet. “They cut my wings.”

“You… you had wings?” I whispered, imagining him with immense charcoal-colored wings stretching from one side of the bed to the other. My fingers trailed alongside the raised red skin, and he winced. I immediately pulled my hand away. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I just… didn’t expect that.” He gazed back at me. “Most people flinch away from them.”

I crawled closer and hugged him from behind, planting my lips on his cheek. “Don’t feel bad about them.”

“They’re a daily fucking reminder of how much of an embarrassment I am to the Kingdom. How could I not feel bad about it? A lord with no wings, who only enjoys one partner at a time and that partner is—” He tensed and shook his head. “Forget it.”

My brows knitted together. Did I make this worse for him?

“Your scars make you who you are, Eros. And if you think that anybody who shames you for them is worth torturing yourself over, you’re wrong.”

He grabbed one of my hands, still facing away from me, and stayed quiet. When his breathing evened out, he dropped his head in shame. “They banished me from the kingdom.”

I clenched my fists. They shamed him, stole his sacred wings, and banished him from his own kingdom. They deserved to have angels rain down upon them. They deserved to relive all of their sins but feel absolute agony for them—instead of getting off on destroying their own son.

“Have you been back?” I said, trying not to relish in my cruel thoughts.

“No. When I go back to Hell, I stay in the Kingdom of Pride with Lucifer.”

My fingers grazed against the side of his cheek. “Are you happy?”

“Am I happy?” he asked himself, like he hadn’t asked himself in such a long time. “I’m happy now that I can be who I want to be and with who I want to—”

My door was slammed open, and Trevon barreled in with black eyes and razor-sharp teeth, soaked in blood from head to toe.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 36

OceanofPDF.com

Dani

I leapt up—heart racing. Damn it.

Eros pushed me behind him, horns growing from his head and eyes turning black in less than a second. “What the…”

Trevon’s beady little eyes flickered from me to Eros, and a tint of red rose within them. He lurched forward, snarling.

Oh, my God.

Before Trevon could reach Eros, Eros stepped back—nearly knocking me out of the way—grabbed Trevon by the neck with his claws, and held him in the air. Trevon dug into Eros’s wrists with his own claws, making blood pour out of the open wounds. He flung his body in every direction, but Eros held him in place.