Lumi

“Pacing back and forth isn’t going to make him come any sooner,” Wren said to me as I stripped Isaac’s bedroom floor with my feet. She sat comfortably on his bed, reading her black leathered spell book. I didn’t know how she could be so calm with Isaac missing! It was almost eight pm and there was still no sign of our sugar bun!

“You’d think for a man who’s used to living alone that there’d be more porn,” Ruby said, rummaging through the corner of his closet like a nosy raccoon. She brought one of the naughty books to her eye level and flipped through the pages with a giggle. “I see he has a particular taste for these oriental girls.”

“Can you stop looking through his stuff?!” I barked at her.

“What’s wrong, Lumi? I have every right to learn more about the man we are to marry.”

Wren craned her eyes over her book, deadpanning her sister, before I heard crunching. Lots of it.

“Trista!” I cried, rushing over to her neck-deep in Isaac’s snack drawer.

“What?” she said with her mouth filled with Twix bars.

“Can’t you put a lid on your gluttony for five minutes and help me think of a plan to get Isaac back?!” I hissed. “I seem like the only one around here who is worried about his safety!”

“Our master is a big boy, he can take care of himself,” Ruby said while she inspected more of Isaac’s books. “Clearly,” she purred. “I’m sure we can do this position with whips and chains. Make it a little more interesting…”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to Trista. “Tris, please!”

“What’s the matter? You know where to find him.”

“And I made it clear that we should give him his space,” Wren bit back.

“He’s had his space,” Trista said. “It’s time he came home to us.”

“He’ll come home when he’s ready.”

“I think he’s in trouble! His scent hadn’t been as strong for a while now.”

“Maybe your sense of smell isn’t as strong as it was back home,” Ruby commented as she sat on the foot of the bed, strumming through porn.

“The both of you are a little too lenient with him! It is our job to make sure that our master is safe! And this extended separation is giving me anxiety!” I clenched my chest and panted. “I just know something is wrong, and if we don’t go out there and find him, I’m going to lose my mind!”

“Wren isn’t your keeper,” Trista said. “She might be the head of our fake club, but I’m the one who was in charge before Isaac showed up, remember?”

Wren closed her book when she heard Trista speak against her. She got up, looking down at the pink-haired mage. “I’m not doing this to give Lumi here a panic attack. Isaac needs this. He needs to grow up as a demon. He’s acting too much like a human. The faster he sheds his human skin, the better for all of us. I’m sick and tired of all of you thinking we need to baby him. The old Samael grew codependent on his wives. I’m not going to let that happen again. With or without us, he needs to be able to walk on his own, to fight on his own, and to write pacts on his own! Let’s give him a chance to prove he could finally own up to his title.”

“Own up to his title?” I pouted. “Samael was an amazing prince!”

“Samael was a cocky egotistical bastard who couldn’t see a lost battle even if it slashed him across the face.”

“He was brave! And courageous! And you have no right talking about him like that!”

“Was it courageous when he stormed into that faction blind? Was it courageous when he told his domain to sit back and get slaughtered?”

“He was protecting us! He didn’t want us getting hurt! My sugar bun wasn’t expecting to lose and leave us stranded!”

“With the number of buffs you and the other girls gave the House of Samael, I doubt losing his team was what was on his mind when he recklessly attacked the opposition. Take it as it is, Lumi. Samael was weak without his harem, and he didn’t want to admit that. So in the final stand, he put all of his money on doing it on his own. And guess what? It backfired. In such a critical moment such as war, I wouldn’t call that being brave and courageous. It was stupid.”

“If you don’t like his leadership so much, then why don’t you take Ruby and just leave?!”

“Heeeyy, why is my name being brought into this?” Ruby sang.

“You’re the reason she’s here, right? I made a mistake taking you in! You have no respect for our master! I won’t let that stand! If you can’t see the good he’s done in the Underworld, then you’re a lost cause! Always bringing up the bad, and never the good! May I remind you that he was the only prince who managed to escape the capture spell? He was also the only prince who tethered his soul to the mortal realm, and reincarnated in another body. What about the others? Were they not strong? Were they not brave? They fought too and lost! With or without their domain, the end result was the same! So how about you take in all the facts, not just the ones that make you feel better about bombarding our prince and making him feel bad!”

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Ruby’s lips curled into a smile. “Mmm, Lumi getting all hot and puffy… that’s kinda hot.”

“Shut up and read your porno,” Trista teased.

Wren narrowed her eyes on me. “Look at you. You finally grew a pair. Now, if only you could incorporate that moxie with your master.”

I looked back at her confused.

“That temporary transformation incantation? You allowed him to use it on you. If you hadn’t, Isaac wouldn’t have nearly killed that woman, would he?”

“Now that’s foul, Wren,” Trista said. “Putting this all on Lumi. We both know how Samael gets when he’s hungry.”

“Don’t compare the new and old prince. Isaac was manageable before he fed. Blood psychosis or not.”

“Oh, I would have tamed him all right.” Ruby giggled. “See? I should be the one bunking with Isaac instead of Lumi.”

“I’m doing my job!” I declared sternly. “And my job isn’t to put my foot down before my master!”

“It is when it means protecting him. And you need to learn that.” Wren leaned into me intimidatingly. “And if you don’t have the heart for it, let me know. We can swap you out.”

My head went low. I didn’t want to admit it, but Wren was right. If I’d been more aggressive with Isaac feeding off of me instead of finding a source in that restaurant, he wouldn’t be in this mess right now. I had to be more assertive in protecting my master, even if he might get mad at me, or shun me. The fact that it’d happened before was making me hesitant with Isaac, but I had to remember that things were different now, and my master didn’t have the same demeanor as he did before.

Maybe this time he’d listen to me…

“I’ll do better,” I whispered, then looked back up to Wren. “But right now, I need to follow my guts. Our man is in trouble. His location hadn’t changed in the last few hours!”

Wren cocked an eyebrow up, intrigued.

“Here’s a map of Ether City,” Trista said, pulling one out from Isaac’s desk. “Can you pinpoint where he is on this thing?”

“There,” I said, pointing between Truffle Street and Shepard’s Way.

“That’s the New Apostle Church grounds,” Wren whispered. I turned my head to her, the expression on her face making me even more anxious!

“What is it, Wren?”

“I’m not sure if the intel is solid, but… I heard rumors of a fallen angel running a guild in the base of that church.”

Trista gasped. “What? Are you talking about the Founder’s Grace?”

“Yeah…”

“Wait a minute, why haven’t I heard about this guild?” I asked, confused.

“Because, I didn’t think it was true.”

“See, their entire motive is to summon the darkness, so that he may dismantle heaven. The darkness is an entity of pure evil, one summoned with the cost of demonic souls. When the number of souls is satisfied, a summoning spell is spoken, and out comes Jorbius, a creature strong enough to match god himself.”

“Jorbius? But Jorbius is just a myth.”

“No, he is real,” Wren confirmed. “The followers of darkness are in a great place right now, hidden in the bosom of the church. They fool God’s worshippers into believing that they are on their side, fighting the demons, pushing evil away. When in reality, they are planning to destroy everything in the name of revenge.”

“And they say us demons are bad,” Ruby scoffed.

“You show any God loving human a few angelic magic tricks like healing and glowy eyes and you have yourselves a cult ready to follow you through the ends of the Earth. They make a deal with a demon, and the fallen angel swings by and terminates that pact by extracting the demon who made it from their vessel.”

“Bait and switch.” Trista grinned. “Makes our lives a living nightmare.”

“The demon soul is stored until the summoning ritual is ready.”

“Oh my god!” I cried. “So that’s what they are really up to?” I turned to Trista. “I thought angels were working with demons for the human souls.”

“Some of them still are, but there are worse plots out there. Which means that Isaac is actually in trouble. The longer he sits in that campus—”

“I have to find him!” I shouted, ready to storm out until Wren snatched my arm. “Wren, let me go! Our master is in trouble!”

“You’re not going anywhere. You’ve done your job and located him. I’m going to get him back.”

“Then take me with you!”

“I can’t risk that. It’s too dangerous.”

“Are you serious?” I blurted. “You’re a hypocrite! You mock Samael for doing the same thing!”

“I can’t fight and worry about you at the same time. Besides, going in a group in a place possibly populated with fallen angels is a terrible idea.”

“And you think you could handle them on your own?!”

“I have stealth on my side.”

“Who is the cocky one, now?” Trista added. “I’m coming, too.”

“No!” Wren roared. “This isn’t a wholesome team Samael moment! Friendship isn’t going to give us any perks in battle! What we’d be doing is giving them more souls for their god! By default, angels are stronger than demons. Which means that we have to work a way around that by being strategic and tactical with our planning.”

Wren turned to Ruby and no words were exchanged. However, I could tell they were having a conversation telepathically. After a few quiet seconds, Wren moved toward the door, taking her hip dagger on the dresser with her. “The two of you better stay here,” she said, addressing Trista and I.

I pivoted to Ruby, who giggled and said, “What can I say? She likes to hog all of the action.”

“Things are different now. Wren’s not going to be the only breadwinner. It’s an all hands on deck situation,” Trista said as she crossed her arms and plopped her butt on the desk chair. “I know Wren is used to handling the demons that get in our way, and I’m the one in charge of pact deals. But the House of Samael is sitting on a goose egg. We’d work up the ranks faster if we could get Isaac ready. And we’ll only be pushing his process bar back by having him die again.”

“Have faith in Wren, and have faith in Isaac, Trista,” Ruby said. “After all, my little sister is the strongest out of us four. She has never failed us. I doubt she’d start slipping up now.”