Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“Do you remember me?” Azroth inquired.
Matteo jerked, eyes blinking rapidly. Yes, the fire was lit again. “Yes. You’re Luke’s landlord. Azzzzz…” The Z sound stretched as his now-working brain likely put two pieces of information together. He was Luke’s landlord, and he was a demon.
“Azroth, actually,” the demon corrected with a tight smile.
Matteo stopped breathing, but Azroth could hear his heart racing. The poor human was going to give himself a heart attack, which would not make Luke happy.
With a sigh, Azroth lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. In a flash, everything and everyone in the library froze. He put the world around them in a bubble so that no one could hear them or disturb them.
“There. Now you can panic and not worry about anyone else,” Azroth said.
“Are you here to kill me?” Matteo demanded, his voice cracking.
Azroth glared at him. So tedious. “Tell me, how would killing you make Luke happy? That’s pure nonsense.”
“Oh.”
The human appeared disappointed. Azroth suppressed the urge to shake the man. Humans were so confusing. How in the hell had they gotten so lucky when it came to locating Luke?
Not that Matteo was normally this dense, and he did make Luke happy. Those were powerful arguments in his favor. Maybe it was all this studying and the threat of exams. Were they rotting his brain?
“How is Luke?” Matteo inquired softly, his eyes dropping to his notebook where he’d had almost nothing written.
“He is terrible.”
Matteo’s head popped up, worry digging deep lines into his face. “Really? What’s wrong? Is he sick? Does he need to see a doctor?”
It was so very tempting to tell Matteo just the tiniest white lie that Luke was sick with…oh, what could he give Luke? The plague! Humans still got the plague, right?
But no, Luke wasn’t the type to maintain such a lie just to keep Matteo close to him. He was too honest. He would instantly tell Matteo he wasn’t sick, undoing all Azroth’s hard work.
“No, he’s not ill, but he is very sad. He misses you.”
“I miss him too,” he mumbled. His shoulders slumped, and the pathetic human looked as if he’d shrunk several inches under the weight of his misery.
“But you’ve chosen to stay away from him, making you both sick, because you have an issue with demons,” Azroth stated.
Matteo raised his eyes again. “Well, it is a lot to take in. First, there’s the magic aspect.”
Azroth waved a hand in the air, motioning to the frozen students around them. “You mean this magic?”
The student huffed. “Yes, that magic.”
“Still not believe in it?”
“Well, obviously I do now.” Matteo squinted at the people, his brow furrowing. “Are they okay? Do they know they’re frozen?”
“They’re all fine. They have no idea anything has happened to them. Next?”
Matteo shot him a disgruntled look that secretly pleased Azroth. There was some of the spunk and sass that Luke was so fond of. It hadn’t been scared out of him yet. “There’s the whole demon thing.”
“As in you don’t believe in demons?” Matteo opened his mouth to say something, but Azroth didn’t allow it. In the blink of an eye, he lost his human exterior and turned into his true form. Horns, wings, and blood-red eyes.
“Shit!” Matteo lurched to his feet, knocking over his chair. He backpedaled until he banged into another table, but Azroth ignored him.
The demon waved his hand again, and this time, a teacup and saucer with a delicate rosebud pattern appeared before him with a steaming pot of tea. He poured himself a cup and held up the pot toward Matteo. “Would you like a cup?”
Matteo panted, his eyes wide, but he at least had enough presence of mind to shake his head. Azroth nodded and set aside the pot. He picked up his teacup and enjoyed a careful sip.
“You really are a demon. I-I-I can’t believe it.”
Azroth lifted an eyebrow and held his teacup in front of his mouth. “Do you need a demonstration?”
“No! No!” Matteo waved both hands at him. “I believe you. I…I’m just confused.”
“About which part?”
“All of it! Like, like…all of it!”
Damn, he’d broken him. Azroth had been sure that if he just revealed himself, Matteo would adjust and they could work on getting Matteo back with Luke where he belonged. He wasn’t adapting to this new development nearly as fast as Luke had.
Azroth placed his cup on the saucer with a little click and tried to keep the irritation out of his tone as he said, “I will need you to be more specific.”
“Demons are supposed to be evil!”
“We are.”
“But you saved Luke! You saved me. How can you be evil and save people?”
“If it helps, we did have lots of fun tormenting those monsters who attacked you and Luke. That did help to temper the saving part,” Azroth argued.
The fear seemed to wash out of Matteo’s face, and he became very still. “Did you kill them?” Matteo mumbled.