Awkward silences were not reserved for mortals, Adam had just discovered. Mouth working in vain to say something, anything, he looked down at Ryka from his spot perched on the edge of a hotel bed. Chin resting in his cupped hand, Ryka stared back. “Well?” the demon asked, looking bored. He was sprawled out across the mattress, tail coiled loosely around one of his legs, and wings hanging carelessly onto the floor.

“Uh ….” Adam shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Ryka’s gaze. Hoping Ryka wouldn’t notice, he scooted just a little farther away.

“Keep going and you’ll wind up sitting on the floor.”

“I mean, it’s your room, so ….”

“Relax.” That was easier said than done when Ryka grabbed his arm and pulled him onto his back. Now, Ryka was the one looking down at him. “Stay a while.”

“Right. Of course.” He knew he had no real reason to be afraid of Ryka anymore - or to be as afraid. Sure, Ryka could still inflict damage, but there was a limit. Besides, they’d had a good enough relationship when Adam had first met him. Apparently good enough that Ryka had developed feelings for him. To Adam’s immense relief, Ryka didn’t seem angry that Adam hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t returned his feelings.

But he still couldn’t help being nervous. Especially without Kyle around to make sure his partner behaved himself. A few minutes earlier, Jinx had thrown an impressive tantrum, and Kyle had been forced to take him for a walk to calm the imp down. They all knew he was just desperate for Kyle’s attention, and Kyle couldn’t resist giving in.

Which left Adam and Ryka alone. The only comfort was that Ryka seemed nearly as unsure about what to say as Adam did. “Food’s good here. Want something to eat?” Ryka inquired, motioning behind him to the meal Jinx had abandoned – a cooling, bloody steak and a massive tower of pastries.

“I don’t need to.” Demons subsisted on fear and hate, angels on love and compassion. No immortal needed more.

“Me, either, but it still tastes good. You can still taste, right?”

“Maybe?” Honestly, Adam hadn’t tried. He’d watched Kyle and Ryka enjoy food and drink - alcohol, mostly - but had never felt the urge to do so himself. Muribelle never did, so he had avoided it, too.

Rolling his eyes, Ryka sat up and grabbed a cookie. “Open up.”

“I can eat it myself,” Adam assured him, reaching for the treat. But Ryka easily dodged him, and Adam soon found himself with an entire cookie stuffed in his mouth. He hadn’t eaten anything since he was alive, and it was strange. Mostly because it didn’t taste anything like he remembered.

“No good?”

“I can tell it’s sweet, but only a little.” He chewed a little more, and his eyes went wide. Suddenly, it had gone from tasting like sugared cardboard to the best cookie he had ever eaten. Ryka had been right - this hotel did have good food. Too busy enjoying the taste to focus on anything else, he let Ryka feed him another.

“You’re cute.”

Adam nearly choked on said cookie when Ryka pulled him onto his back and rolled on top of him, one hand on each of his shoulders, pushing him into the mattress. It gave Adam the chance to appreciate how much heavier the demon was. But it wasn’t just his physical weight that kept Adam pinned under him; it was the mass of his power.

With other angels, Adam didn’t notice the difference much. And he and Kyle, both being former mortal souls, were pretty evenly matched. Ryka was different; Adam felt the disparity in their strength like a palpable thing. A chasm that somehow seemed to be growing wider every time he encountered Ryka. “Whoa, wait.”

“What? Is this so bad?” With a lascivious grin, he leaned in close, whispering, “You got hard for me once. Remember?”

How could he forget? It had taken him decades to admit to Kate what had happened the night he’d said “good-bye” to Kyle and Ryka. And he’d never fully unpacked his own feelings on that incident. Now didn’t seem like a good time, either.

“Ryka ….” His tone was pleading.

“I’ll get you to say my name with more enthusiasm than that. Because I think we have some unfinished business.”

Hoping humor wouldn’t fail catastrophically, Adam countered with, “You finished, as I recall.”

That did earn him a chuckle, and he could feel it rumbling in Ryka’s chest. Which was pressed against his. As was Ryka’s stomach. And his hips. “Then it’s your turn, isn’t it?”

“I -”

“Oh, but tell me: did you finish yourself off that night on your way home?”

As an immortal himself, his mind wasn’t open to the demon’s the way a human’s would have been. But it didn’t need to be when he was unable to control his expression. His wide-eyed horror and crimson cheeks said it all. Really, he hadn’t wanted to relive any part of that evening.

But now Ryka was panting into his neck and grinding against him. Relive it they would, though, if Kyle didn’t hurry back. Trying to squirm away, Adam squeaked out a desperate, “H-hold on.”

“Don’t try to give me the whole ‘angels are abstinent’ spiel. I know they won’t fuck mortals, but they will screw around with each other. And they’ll sleep with the saved.” It wasn’t like it was a secret, but it also wasn’t something that needed to be common knowledge. Heaven wasn’t the sexless place Hell often painted it to be. Angels enjoyed each others’ company, and the saved were free to do as they pleased.

But angels didn’t typically mess around with the souls under their care. Adam was a strange exception; he hadn’t started his eternity as an angel. And no one was going to stop he and his wife from doing whatever they pleased. It wasn’t taboo the way an angel pursuing a mortal would be. Or the way an angel and a demon being together would be.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“We’re not. Abstinent.”

“Good. So then let’s have some fun.” Before he could avoid it, Ryka kissed him once, quickly on the lips.

“Ryka! Stop, I-”

Ryka didn’t give him the chance to finish his thought. With one hand covering Adam’s mouth so he couldn’t protest, the other gently caressed his cheek, neck and shoulder before tracing a path out along one of his wings. Adam tried to turn his head, afraid of where that hand would wander if he didn’t keep an eye on it, but Ryka grabbed him by the jaw and turned his face up towards his own. “Don’t worry; I’ll make you feel good,” Ryka told him quietly. “Just look at me.”

His eyes couldn’t help but follow the movement, and Adam glanced over in time to see Ryka pluck a single feather out of his wing. “Ow!”

“Did it really hurt?” Ryka asked, sitting up and twirling the feather between his fingers.

“Um, well, no. But … I know it should have.”

“The only other angel that remembers pain died nailed to a cross.”

“And one of the two demons that feels pain put him there,” Adam quickly replied.

But Ryka shook his head and held up three fingers. “Because we shared a body, I remember, too. I suppose other parasites do, if they made it long enough.”

Eyes wide, Adam stared up at Ryka. “Kyle knows about this, right?” Ryka looked away, and Adam sat up, nearly shoving Ryka off the bed in the process.

“Don’t look so shocked. He knows I could feel pain back then. I just don’t think he knows I remember what it was like. It’s not like I feel it now. Thankfully.” With a half-hearted grin, Ryka ran a finger along the scar that crossed his right eye.

Adam winced. Kyle had told him that story, and thinking about it now, he was a little frightened. Part of him still feared the demon, and thinking that something had defeated him without any real effort was disturbing. And Ryka wore the signs of his devotion all over his body – his wings weren’t in tatters like Jinx’s, but they were mapped with gray lines, and more welts were visible on his arms and chest. “It’s good he has you to protect him still. And you take the brunt of it, too. He only has a couple little scars.”

Eyebrows raised, Ryka replied, “I take all of it. No one’s stupid enough to really hurt him. So if you mean the ones on his neck, I gave him those.”

Adam opened his mouth to respond, but quickly closed it when Ryka flashed him a sly grin, complete with wickedly sharp teeth. Those were marks of possession then, Adam realized, feeling himself blush.

Ryka seemed amused - and maybe a little excited - by Adam’s embarrassment, and decided to see how far he could push the angel. “So cute. Now, how do you plan on keeping me entertained until they get back?” When Adam only gaped at him, Ryka suggested, “Let’s fool around.”

“Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” All this time later, he still remembered Kyle’s advice on not pissing Ryka off. One piece of which was never to blatantly say “no.”

Wearing a seductive smile, Ryka forced Adam back down on the bed, pinning him down with the full weight of his body. “Why not?”

Try as he might, Adam couldn’t push the demon off. He was going to have to try to talk his way out of this. “Won’t Kyle be jealous?”

Ryka snorted. “We’ve learned how to share.” Well, that had backfired tremendously. And given him more insight than he ever wanted into Kyle and Ryka’s sex life.

“We haven’t.” That at least gave Ryka pause. Long enough to save him from trying to finesse himself out of the situation.

Because just then, the door opened and Kyle and Jinx walked through it. Kyle looked exasperated, and Jinx miserable. In fact, the imp ignored them all and started for his room, the only place he could hide without straying too far from his guardians.

“Whoa, hold on,” Ryka said, grabbing Jinx by the base of one of his wings and pulling him back toward the bed. Jinx responded with a vicious snarl, or at least it sounded that way until Ryka replied in kind. The older demon’s threat, an unholy roar Adam remembered all too well, made the imp cower. His fear was short-lived, however.

When Ryka released his grip, Jinx didn’t flee, as Adam had expected he would. Instead, he leaned closer, and motioned for Ryka to do the same. This at least forced the demon to roll part way off him. Now he only had one leg draped across Adam’s thighs.

“Are you gonna tell me what’s gotten into you?” Ryka inquired of the imp.

“It’s a secret. Come here.”

As Adam and Kyle watched, both rather surprised, Jinx cupped his hands around Ryka’s ear and made his quiet confession. Rolling his eyes and laughing just a little, Ryka listened, then turned Jinx’s head and whispered something back.

“Really?” Jinx replied, eyes wide.

“Yup. So quit getting so worked up, okay?”

Jinx nodded. Even though he seemed much less upset, he still went and shut himself in his room. “What was that all about?” Kyle asked, glancing between Ryka and the closed door.

“It’s a secret, dumbass. Didn’t you notice that we were whispering?”

Unfazed, Kyle mumbled, “I’ll get it out of you later.”

Since Ryka was still practically on top of him, Adam could feel the demon’s pulse quicken. Apparently, he was looking forward to Kyle’s attempt to extract information from him. Taking this as his cue, Adam struggled out from under Ryka and off the bed. “Well, I should go find Muribelle.”

Kyle opened his mouth to reply, but his expression morphed quickly into a scowl. “Ryka!”

Without looking, Adam could easily guess what had happened. Still, he peeked back over his shoulder and saw that Ryka was now holding two of his wing feathers. “Didn’t feel a thing, right?”

“Nope. But that’s the last one. They won’t grow back if you pull them out.”

“That’s not what Lucifer told me.”

“No wonder you got kicked out of Hell,” Kyle interjected, noticing that Adam was about to speak. Better he say it than his friend.

With the words taken right out of his mouth, Adam settled for, “Well, that’s Lucifer. I’m not so lucky that I can grow mine back.” As much as he wanted to ask why Ryka had been pulling feathers from Satan’s wings, he refrained. “I’m sure I’ll see you guys soon. Bye.”

“Tell Muribelle we said ‘hi.’”

“See ya, big boy.”

Once Adam was gone, Kyle dropped onto the bed next to Ryka. “Are you going to tell me Jinx’s secret?”

“That’s not right.”

One eyebrow raised, Kyle stared at his partner. “Sometimes I really think you forget what you are.”

“You’re one to talk. Anyhow, I can tell you my secret, and maybe you can guess his.” After a brief pause, Ryka whispered, “I get jealous when Adam’s around.”

Obviously, Jinx shared the same feelings as Ryka. Hence his frequent tantrums when the angel was around. “You two are horrible. I should be the jealous one. You always flirt with him.”

“Just to watch him squirm.” His skepticism must have been written all over his face, because Ryka amended with a shrug and “Well, usually. But, see, I do know what I am.”

“Trouble. That’s what you are.”

“And yet you still love me.” It was hard not to when Ryka smiled at him. Particularly the way he was now, teeth just bared and lust burning in his eyes.

“I do. Now, are you going to tell me why you were plucking poor Adam?”

“Only if you make me talk.”

With a sigh, more amused than annoyed, Kyle shoved him onto his back and told him again, “Nothing but trouble.”