Page 41 of Indecent

Ira blanched. “Oh. Well, then… spoilers?”

Daniel mustered a small smile. “I appreciate it. I needed the reassurance.”

Chaol leaving had ripped something vital from him. Knowing he wasn’t gone forever was a small comfort, better than nothing. He rubbed absently at his chest, and Nicolas gave him a gentle nudge.

“Hey, everything okay?”

Daniel shook his head, but he didn’t know how to put it into words.

“Hurts,” Ashmedai croaked in that rattling voice of his, gesturing to his own chest with one clawed finger. “Hurts to be apart from each other.”

Dismay hit him. “That’s what it feels like for you guys?”

“For us guys,” Ashmedai said, waving a hand toward Daniel. “You’re one of us now.”

“I guess I am.”

He wanted nothing more than to chase after Chaol, hunt him down and pin him still and force him to soothe all of Daniel’s insecurities. But no matter how much he longed for that, he had other things to take care of first. He needed to warn the Sentinels about the coming threats. The angel had followed them to Earth, and eventually, he would find them again. They needed to be prepared.

Carding his fingers through his hair—and feeling dirt and grit against his scalp—he sighed and said, “I have some stuff to tell you guys.”

“You know what? How about a shower first?” Nicolas suggested kindly. “You just rained dirt out of your hair when you did that. We still have all your stuff stored at our apartment—uh, the apartment you were staying at before, that is. Ash can teleport over there and get some clothes for you to change into. What do you say?”

Yes, that sounded nice. It would be nicer if Chaol were here to join him, but that wasn’t to be.

The Rink’s bathroom was just as he remembered it, cream-colored tile and soft white lighting. A handful of toilet stalls and urinals lined one wall, and the other wall, beside the sinks, housed three shower stalls. He chose the left one at random and slipped inside, pulling the curtain shut and undressing mechanically. Just as Nicolas said, dirt fell from his hair and clothing as he stripped down to his skin. The ache in his chest hadn’t abated, and he resisted the urge to give in to the despair and anger he felt. He’d show Chaol exactly how he felt the next time they saw each other. He’d pin him down and prove they belonged together, keep Chaol riding the edge until he promised never to leave Daniel again.

Some part of him recognized that that wasn’t a normal way to feel about someone. It was possessive and controlling, but he didn’t care. Chaol was his, and god, was this how all the demons felt when they laid eyes on their human? How did they stand it long enough to actually win them over? How did they not just grab them and take?

Shaking himself, he stepped into the shower and turned the water on, pulling the second curtain shut as cold water spat out of the shower-head. He shivered until it warmed up, scrubbing shampoo into his hair and soap across his body with blank focus.

He wanted Chaol. The man’s name beat like a drum in his chest. Chaol, Chaol, Chaol. How would he even focus long enough to warn the others about the angel?

“Danny?” Nicolas called out. “I’ve got your clothes. I’ll just set them on the seat inside your stall, okay?”

“Thanks, Nic. I’m almost done.”

“Great. Take your time.”

He didn’t want to take his time. He wanted to dress and hunt down his demon. Shaking himself, he rinsed the last of the suds from his body and shut the water off with an aggressive twist of his wrist. The metal protested with a grating sound, and Daniel felt momentarily bad for abusing it. The last thing these guys needed was to have to replace the shower fixtures because he was pissed off and didn’t know his own strength.

A fluffy towel waited for him on top of his new clothes. He dried, then took a look at the clothes Nicolas—or maybe Ashmedai—had picked out for him. Soft black joggers, a white T-shirt, green boxer briefs, ankle socks. One of them even thought to grab a pair of sneakers for him. He put it all on and then paused with his hands on his knees. His left ring finger still had a tan line. How long exactly had it been since they buried him? Had his body rotted before he returned to it?

Pushing himself to his feet and those thoughts from his mind, he slid the curtain aside, grabbed his pile of ripped and dirty clothing, and tossed them in the trashcan on his way out of the bathroom.

Daniel couldn’t stop the way his eyes roamed the room as he emerged, but there was no sign of Chaol among the humans and demons congregated in the room. He’d known better, but he was still disappointed.

Talon met him with a fresh beer, pushing it into his hands and gesturing for him to take a seat on the secondhand couch up against the wall. Daniel flopped down in the middle, and Nicolas followed soon after, sitting sideways to look at him.

“You look better,” Nicolas said. “Still miserable, though.”

“I’ll find him and make him pay for leaving like that later,” Daniel grumbled, and Nicolas’s brows rose at the implication.

“Ah, young love,” Talon crooned, reeling Alex in and planting a smacking kiss to his temple.

“How long was I… gone?” he asked, aiming the question mostly at Nicolas. He was the one who’d been suffering the most since Daniel’s death, after all.

“A little over a month,” Nicolas said. “Five weeks, something like that.”