Why did I even bother trying to communicate with them? From day one I’d learned it was impossible to argue with any of the demigods. It didn’t even matter if he was an asshole or not.
“Hands off, Axel,” Héctor warned. “I need to get my lamb dressed.”
See, why did I bother correcting them about pet names? The demigods weren’t accustomed to taking advice from anyone.
I had a very bad feeling that they’d all already become set in their ways before I was even born, except for Axel. But he was just as hopeless as the rest of them.
Axel reluctantly released my hand. He hadn’t been this clingy last time. Seeing me beaten to within an inch of my life and then disappear must have snapped something in him. He looked terrified of losing me.
Zak was less hard-assed as well.
“Aren’t you going to snap your fingers and dress me now, Héctor?” I asked.
“We’ll do it the traditional way,” he said, scooping me up and carrying me toward his upstairs bedroom. “I’m a man who holds to tradition.”
“I don’t even know what traditions are anymore,” I murmured. “We live in the age of the Great Merge, don’t we?”
He gave me a chastening look. “But it doesn’t mean we have to lose ourselves.”
“What are your traditions then?” I asked curiously.
“When it comes to you, it’s about respecting women and cherishing them by doing things like opening doors and pulling up a chair.”
I grinned. “I have no issue with you keeping those traditions.”
“Respecting and cherishing women is my forte,” Axel said, following us up the stairs.
Zak pulled him back.
“Let Héctor have some time with her,” the sky demigod said. “He’s earned it.”
“I won’t let him have her all to himself,” Axel said in a hard, unforgiving voice. “That asshole is a fucking schemer.”
“If it hadn’t been for Héctor, the demons would have gotten her before we found her,” Zak said. “And we’d have lost her forever.”
I peered a question at Héctor. How had Zak known about me encountering demons?
“The four of us don’t get along,” Héctor said. “All demigods are notoriously territorial. It’s our nature. Zak is our arbiter. He opens part of his mind to us, and in return, he can get into our minds to retrieve information that isn’t personal. With the open channel running, he’s kept us from having a civil war amongst ourselves while we fight Lucifer and his demon army. Ares is the ultimate leader, but the four of us all have our own armies.”
“Thanks for explaining,” I said, beaming at him for not keeping things from me.
He stared at my smile, his throat bobbing up and down as he swallowed, and then he pressed me tighter against him, his heat radiating to me.
I hadn’t known that my smile could have such an effect on him. I made a mental note that I could use my smile as a lethal weapon, instead of leading with scowls and a tough attitude, which no one appreciated or listened to anyway.
He strode into his bedroom and reluctantly put me down.
I darted my gaze to the vast bed, which could host at least seven big guys.
Pink spread across my cheeks at the picture of tangling with Héctor and possibly Axel and Zak between the sheets, and Héctor’s eyes grew hooded at my reaction. He was thinking of sex, too.
“Why is it taking them so long?” Axel’s shout from downstairs shattered my wild imaginings.
“Marigold needs time to pick an outfit,” Héctor barked back harshly. “She’s a girl!” He murmured more to himself, “One day I’ll punch all his teeth out, and he won’t think himself so pretty.”
“You can try,” Axel shouted in challenge.
“Ignore him,” Héctor told me.