The sharp knock on my office door made me jump. My head smacked against the hanging overhead lamp and I cursed under my breath. Things were crazy since the Horsemen had shown up, and Bandit wasn’t with me today, making me instinctively edgy. I set aside the drawing I was working on and called, “Come in.”

A wave of green hair fell through my office door as Moira pushed past it and closed the door behind her. Her dark green eyes scanned me, her forest colored brows drawn together in what appeared to be worry, but I couldn’t feel it. My empath gifts only extended so far, and while I could usually guess when Bandit got up in arms about something, Moira was more complicated than that.

“Something wrong?” I asked, motioning to the chair in front of my desk. She ignored my offer and walked around to my side. Pushing the papers into a pile, she slid back onto my desk, letting her legs dangle a few inches from the ground.

“I’m worried about you.”

“Okay,” I drawled out, taking a loose breath. “Is this about the Horsemen?”

“Possibly,” Moira said, biting her lip. She glanced at me, looking up and down like she was searching for something. I was the same Ruby I’ve always been: ripped up jeans and unbrushed hair, pulled back to hide my general laziness. “I just feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. Did something happen with them?”

I let out a sigh, considering my answer. Apart from last Friday, when Laran took me to a bar that gave me some kind of demonic high, not much had happened. Sure, the guys were still following me everywhere, showing up at the oddest of times, but I was beginning to settle into a routine with it. Typically, Rysten came first, then Laran, followed by Allistair. I’d only seen Julian a handful of times; unlike the other three, who were giving me subtly stronger fuck-me-vibes with every day that passed. I wasn’t sure how much of their spending time with me was for my actual protection, and how much was them attempting to sink their claws into me.

Moira coughed, and I blinked once. Shit.

“So,” she said with narrowed eyes, “there is something that happened, isn’t there?”

I leaned back in my chair and kicked my feet up beside her on the thick glass surface. I tilted my head back in my chair, relaxing my spine as I stared up at the ceiling, counting the flecks of dust.

“Not something specific, per se. It’s just been a long few days.”

“The Horsemen are getting possessive.”

Well that wasn’t what I expected to come out of her mouth. She hadn’t been around us all that much, and I hadn’t mentioned it. I cracked my knuckles absentmindedly while I asked, “What makes you say that?”

I couldn’t see her face, but I suspected she was giving me a look along the lines of are you kidding me? She huffed under her breath and I smirked just a little, waiting for her answer.

“Josh came by the house before you got home yesterday, as per his usual Sunday groveling routine. I tried to chase him off, but Laran showed up. I think Josh just about shit bricks when Laran told him that you’re theirs and he’ll feed him to the hounds of Hell if he comes near you again.”

I facepalmed as I let out a heavy sigh. Feed him to Hell hounds? Very creative.

“Well, that sounds unpleasant,” I said lamely. Moira didn’t reply. I raised my head from the back of my chair to see her watching me. She was not amused.

“They’ve taken a liking to you, Ruby.”

“You don’t know that for certain…” My words fell short when she gave me the look. The Moira look. She wasn’t buying it. I let out the most unflattering of noises, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, as I slouched back into my chair.

“Yes, I do.”

“Admitting it doesn’t change anything. It just makes the current situation even more messed up,” I muttered, throwing an arm over my eyes.

“Maybe it’s just because they think they need to protect you; maybe it’s more. On the bright side, if it is a passing obsession, they should get over it eventually—” She stopped mid-sentence and examined me carefully. “I’m not helping, am I?”

I didn’t want to be rude. It wasn’t her fault her own anxiety was leaking over into me and made my slightly cautious brain light up like a police siren telling me I should run like hell. I’d been taking on others’ emotions long enough, I knew how to tell the difference between what I was feeling and what they unintentionally pushed on me. With Moira, it just seemed that I was more in tune and struggled on where to draw the line.

“Not really. I know you mean well, but the best I can do is to just roll with it for now. It’s not like I have a lot of choice in getting them to leave me alone. Besides,” I said, placing a gentle hand on her knee, “they really aren’t that bad. Julian is a bit standoffish, and Allistair likes to push my buttons. Laran’s pretty cool when he’s not being all ‘War smash’, and Rysten is—” Her soft smile went sour and she swatted my hand away.

“Don’t do that! You know I don’t like it when you mess with my emotions. It’s weird,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. “It’s weird if I try to help you feel better, but it’s not weird when you make people’s eardrums explode?” I asked, fighting a grin. She nodded without a trace of humor. “Whatever.” I rolled my eyes and stood to gather my things.

“I actually came to tell you Rysten’s here. I just wanted to talk with you before you left. You can tell him, and the rest of his cohort, that I’m taking you out this Friday, and no, they’re not invited.” I slung my bag over my shoulder and grabbed my keys.

“It’s my birthday. Shouldn’t I be the one that says who’s invited?” I asked absentmindedly. I already knew the answer. It was Moira I was talking to, and normal people logic wouldn’t work here. She was just as possessive as the Horsemen and didn’t give a single fuck.

“Nope, they’ve been hogging you since they showed up, and you only turn twenty-three once. I’ve made plans for us. They can find someone else to stalk for the night,” she said as she hopped off my desk and opened the door. I followed her out into the lobby where Rysten was standing off to the side, both eyebrows raised as he watched us approach.

“It took you that long to tell her I’m here?”

She bristled instantly, and he grinned like a fool. Out of all the Horsemen, he was the only one that truly seemed to take pleasure in tormenting her. Not that she was all that innocent either.

“It makes sense that you’re Pestilence. You’re more of a pest than the other three,” Moira responded icily. It wasn’t even very funny, but the venom with which she said it made Rysten let out a dark chuckle.

“I’ve heard that one a time or two. You might want to get some new jokes, banshee,” he said holding his hand out for me. I ignored the invitation and proceeded towards the door.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I called over my shoulder without waiting for a reply. The chill in the autumn air hit me full force and swept the strands of my messy bun away from my face. The sky was a dull shade of black that matched the city cement, but the wind howled as it sent dead leaves tunneling down the alleys of Portland.

“What’s on the evening agenda today, love?” Rysten asked, strolling up beside me, his footsteps silent as the grave.

“I’m tired. I think I’m going to go home and watch How to Get Away with Murder with Bandit,” I said.

Rysten frowned. “You’re a demon. I don’t think it’s that difficult figuring out how to get away with murder, but if you need someone taken care of, I can do it for you…” His voice started to trail off as I let out the first true laugh I’d had this past week. I had to put a hand against my car to steady myself as water pricked my eyes.

“I don’t need someone killed, Rysten.” I said hoarsely.

“But you said—”

“It’s a TV show about these law students that—” I stopped at the first hint of a smirk on his lips. He leaned forward and whispered, “Gotcha.”

I groaned under my breath and opened the driver’s side door. That dickwad. He knew exactly what I was talking about. I slammed the door and started the engine, taking my foot off the brake right as the passenger side door opened and Rysten got in beside me.

“Don’t be mad, love. You said you were tired. I thought you could use a laugh,” he coaxed me, batting his eyelashes.

“Uh huh,” I grumbled under my breath. The words were sweet as sugar, but I didn’t believe the sincerity I heard there.

“I’ll have you know that Viola Davis is one of my favorite actresses,” he continued. I rolled my eyes as I pulled out onto the main street.

“How do you even know who she is? I thought you spent all your time in Hell until Lucifer”— I searched for an adequate word that didn’t sound dickish, given that they thought he was my father.  They’d guarded him for thousands of years, and I had no idea how their relationship had been with the King of Hell—“uh…died. I mean, isn’t that your entire job?”

Rysten went quiet for a moment, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer. “While we did serve in guarding him, he was not who we were created for. When you came along, it was like we finally saw the purpose for our existence. We were supposed to stay in Hell so that no one knew Lola smuggled you out, but instead, we ended up taking turns coming to earth. We didn’t know where you were, and we weren’t supposed to look until the time came. Being here on earth, though, we were closer to you than in Hell—” He stopped abruptly, like he’d said more than he intended.

My knuckles turned white against the red fur that lined the steering wheel.

Bit by bit, the pieces were falling into place about the Horsemen, and while I didn’t know where attraction played into all of this, I was pretty sure I just figured out the possessiveness. If they were created for Lucifer’s daughter, whoever she is, it made sense for them to feel so attached.

“So, you spent your time here watching TV, and that’s how you discovered Viola?” I turned the subject right back to what we were supposed to be making small talk about. I didn’t want to think about the real heir of Hell, or ruin Rysten’s mood by pointing out for the hundredth time that I’m not her.

“Yeah, sometimes. I spent a lot of time going to concerts around the world, meeting people, learning about humans. I knew that you’d be raised like one, and the others were too daft to think that when this happened, it might be scary for you. I wanted to be the one you got close to.” He smiled a little, not quite his brazen confidence I was getting used to, but something more genuine. We didn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive home.

As I killed the engine, I couldn’t help the words from popping out of my mouth. “You want to come inside and watch TV with me?”

Rysten grinned. “You sure the green one will be okay with that?”

“Moira will live. She’s already staked her claim on Friday night. We’re going out and she said none of you are invited,” I replied, throwing my door open. I was pleasantly surprised that Josh wasn’t waiting on my driveway when I got home. Maybe Laran really did scare the shit out of him. The thought brought me an obscene amount of glee.

“I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. She heard me on the phone with Laran before she went back to get you. He wanted us to take you out for your birthday,” Rysten sighed. I thought back to Moira’s adamant insistence. Yeah, she was sneaky enough to pull that. Not that I was shocked or upset about it. For the most part, I only saw one or two Horsemen at a time. The four of them together were overwhelming, and I was more than happy to avoid that a bit longer.

I trudged up to the front door and Bandit peeked his head through the blinds. I smiled as I swung the door open and got mauled with his hugs. He jumped from the corner of the couch onto my chest, wrapping his arms around my neck.

“I missed you, too,” I murmured, flicking the light on. I tossed my bag on one of the couches and carried him into the kitchen. Pulling out a Tupperware of cooked chicken, I proceeded to heat it in the microwave and feed Bandit his dinner.

While he was eating, I excused myself back to my room and changed into yoga pants. As I pulled the dark red sweater over my head, I noticed something strange in the mirror. Between my breasts were two little black dots. I moved closer, running my fingers over them. They weren’t large or bumpy, but they were placed in a straight line. I frowned.

What the hell is it?

A sharp knock on my bedroom door startled me. “You okay, Ruby?”

I rolled my eyes, already somewhat regretting inviting him inside. I dropped my sweater and turned away from the mirror. I’d deal with it later when I didn’t have prying eyes watching my every move. I slipped into the hallway and closed my bedroom door behind me, not realizing how close Rysten was until a breath of warm air brushed the back of my neck. My skin broke out in goosebumps. I spun around, trying to keep a modicum of distance between us, but it was hopeless in the narrow hallway.

Rysten’s dark green eyes stared down at me. Intense and mischievous. My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard.

“See something you like?” he rumbled. There was a challenge in his voice that had me imagining how soft his hair would feel tousled in my fingers, his head... I blinked, pushing the thoughts aside.

“Yep”— my eyes slid right past him just as he began to grin—“my couch.”

Rysten clutched his chest. “You wound me.”

I snorted and squeezed by him, holding my breath so I didn’t inhale his scent. It was unlikely he’d smell like post-gym body odor, because that would be way too convenient, wouldn’t it? I settled in the corner of my oversized sectional couch, the grey microsuede upholstery welcoming me to lean back. I stretched across the couch for the remote, and Rysten sat cozy, flush against me. Of course. Out of all the spaces he could sit, he would pick the only one that is literally right next to me.

I didn’t say anything as I pulled up the TV guide and turned on the fifth episode of season one, but just as I leaned back, Rysten put his arm across the back of the couch. I glanced sideways out of the corner of my eye, and the devilish grin I found on his face made me bite my cheek.

I crossed my arms over my chest as the show started. My thick sweater made it so we weren’t touching, but a pleasant warmth radiated from him. Unlike Allistair’s presence, that caused a scorching heat and spurned a need in me, Rysten’s was a comfortable steadiness that made me ache. It was delicious and frustrating at the same time.

After forty-five minutes of sitting still as a rock, I shifted to try to get more comfortable—and farther away. Rysten chose that moment to scoot even closer, pinning me between him and the couch as I sat crisscrossed beside him.

I bit my lip hard and gasped when I tasted blood. The tangy scent of ichor and something else caught me off guard.

“You alright?” Rysten asked. I turned my head a fraction of the way towards him and nodded, not trusting my mouth to work.

“You’re bleeding.” His eyes dropped to my lower lip as I freed it from my teeth. He raised his other hand and ran the pad of his thumb across my lower lip. A burning started in my chest, hot and scorching, as it spread throughout my limbs. Adrenaline spiked my system as he drew his hand away, a single drop of dark blue blood staining it. He brought his thumb to his lips, and his tongue flicked out, licking the single drop away.

I don’t know why the hell that turned me on so much. Maybe it wasn’t the act. Maybe it was the look in his eyes; the way he watched me while he did it.

Frozen in my spot, I could do little more than watch as he reached out again and ran his thumb across my lower lip. I found myself leaning into him as he slid his cool fingers along my jaw.

I shivered as his warm breath hit the sensitive part of my ear. His lips brushed against me, barely making contact, as he whispered, “Tell me when to stop.”

Heat pooled low in my stomach, but my brain didn’t seem to be working. I unraveled beneath the curve of his lips as he trailed them down my jaw. The last thing I saw as my eyes fell closed was his expression: hungry, but vulnerable. A moment passed, suspended there as our breath mingled. That scent that I couldn’t define filled the air around me; intoxicating as I breathed it in.

It was wrong. I knew it was wrong, because nothing this good was ever right. It was rare that I found someone who so fully captured my attention as he and the Horsemen did. I was a damn fool for caving, and I almost pulled away. Until he said, “You’re everything I didn’t know I wanted.”

His lips met mine, smooth and sweet, but the gentleness didn’t stay for long. He shifted his arm from the back of the couch to wrap around me as I uncrossed my legs and turned into him. His fingers tangled into my hair, cupping the back of my head, pulling me closer as his tongue parted the seam of my lips. Coaxing me. Claiming me. I reached out, fisting his shirt, pulling him closer than I’d dared to with anyone in such a long time, the other night notwithstanding. That was because I was high. This was exhilarating and frightening, but the air crackled with a tension that couldn’t be denied.

I kissed him like my life depended on it, but that was nothing compared to the way his lips destroyed me. Fuck living. He kissed me like he was dying. Like this was the first and last kiss we’d ever have—and maybe it was. But he was doing an awfully good job at branding it into my memory.

He broke the kiss just when I realized I needed air or I’d faint, but his lips didn’t leave me. He kissed his way back up my jaw, and left stinging bites all down my neck. I arched into the little dose of pain, silently urging him on. Pushing him to give me more. He pulled the crook of my sweater to the side, exposing my shoulder so that he could taste every inch of me. He left a string of reddened skin, slight purple teeth marks to the very edge of my shoulder before making his way back. A low moan escaped my lips as his teeth scraped the sensitive part of my neck, just beneath my ear.

His hands moved to my hips as I straddled his lap and ground myself into the hard bulge beneath me. The breath hissed between his lips, and he bit down on my earlobe.

“What do you want?” he asked. My hands seemed to move on their own accord as they slipped beneath the edge of his shirt. He bit my earlobe again, a touch more pressure. I let out another breathy moan as he said, “What. Do. You. Want? Tell me. Soon enough, I won’t be able to stop.”

His breath was cold against my burning skin.

I scrambled to get off his lap as fast as I could, but he didn’t let go.

“Let go of me,” I said. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from moaning as his hand slipped underneath my shirt. The circles he drew against my lower back with his thumb sent an inferno blazing through my self-control, but I held strong.

“Why?” he murmured, leaning into me.

“Because we can’t do this.”

“Give me one reason why, and I’ll let you go,” he whispered, his face against my neck, his words against my skin. I’d avoided this conversation for the last week, and again at the diner when Allistair confronted me. Trapped with Rysten between my legs, I had to speak up now, or whatever happened next was on me.

“Tell me why you want me,” I said. Rysten ran his lips along the edge of my collarbone, and his non-answer was point enough. “You don’t even know, do you? That’s the problem. You have no choice but to want me, and I can’t screw someone who has no choice in the matter.”

Rysten froze beneath me, but did not release his hold. I became painfully aware of the slow, steady thrum of my own heartbeat as it reverberated beneath my skin. Rysten slowly pulled back.

“Ruby, have you been torturing yourself this entire time thinking that we could only possibly want you because we have no choice?” he asked, a smile playing on the corners of his lips. I didn’t find this funny in the slightest.

“I’ve never met a man where that’s not the case,” I replied tersely. He slipped his entire hand underneath my sweater and flattened it against my back.

“We’ve already had this conversation before. I’m not a man.”

“Man. Demon. You are still male. You’re all the same where I’m concerned. I’ve had women come onto me before, so it’s not gender specific, really. My point is that if I sleep with you, it won’t be your choice, and that’s kind of rapey, if you ask me.”

Rysten didn’t hold back from laughing at me. I pushed his chest trying to wiggle my way off him, but he wasn’t letting up any more than he was before. His laugh trailed off into a heavy silence, the air between us stretched taut with pressure.

“Ruby, love, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now, but if we need to have it for you to feel comfortable, then we’ll have it. I want you. And not because it’s my job, or because you’re a succubus. You think I can’t see past the draw of a succubus? That the allure captures me and renders me unable to make my own decisions? Yes, I want you because the very smell of your skin makes me hard. Every time you bite your lip, I imagine what you taste like; what it feels like to bite that very same lip and hear you moan. But those are not the reasons why. Those are simply wants.” He paused, letting out a strained breath. “You have a fire in you that I have not seen in anyone in a very long time. A wildness about you. I told you once already: you are not what I thought you’d be. But now that I know you, I don’t know how I could possibly imagine you any different. You are everything that we could have ever wanted you to be, and so much more. When I am with you, I realize how lucky we are that no one ever swept you off your feet, because I don’t think that any of us would have let them live if they had.”

My mouth popped open. I didn’t know what to say to that. His eyes were dark and lustful, but he didn’t seem to have the crazed obsession I was used to seeing. He’d be fumbling a lot more if he did, and he sure as hell couldn’t string his thoughts together so well.

“How do you know you’re not being affected without realizing it?” I asked.

“You do realize who you’re talking to? You know what I am. I’d make for a poor Horsemen if I didn’t have the knowledge or strength to fight off desire. And not even you, Hell’s heir, are strong enough to make me do anything against my will. That’s why we were created: to be the only equals that could protect and balance you.”

Aside for the being Hell’s heir part, he had a point. The legends never told what kind of demons they were, only what you would find if you ever crossed them. I couldn’t argue his logic that my few latent powers weren’t nearly enough to force his hand.

Then the door opened. And Moira walked in. Her eyes wavered between Rysten and me, and she let out a dramatic sigh.

“I see why you’re beginning to think they’re not so bad,” she commented. My face burned as a blush crept across my cheeks. I scrambled back, and this time Rysten let me go. Moira cocked an eyebrow and nodded towards him. “Time to go, pest,” she said unapologetically.

Rysten didn’t argue. He simply stood and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ruby. Get some rest.”

I watched him disappear outside my front door and I turned towards a rather pissed off Moira. She didn’t say anything as she walked back to her room. Her silence spoke louder than any words she could have chosen.