Page 77 of Indecent

Chaol opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“He’s got you there,” Julian said, and Daniel glanced around the living room to see several others nodding in agreement. Daniel didn’t know how long they’d been listening in, but it seemed like the demons had been keeping the humans apprised of the conversation before they were in mortal earshot, since no one looked surprised or confused.

Chaol threw his hands up in mock despair. “Fine! Fine. We’re married. I’d have liked to know that was what we were doing before we did it, but fine. We’ll call that our marriage.”

“He makes a good point,” Nathan said. He was on one of the big sofas with Storm, slouched into Storm’s side with his socked feet on the coffee table. “Ira’s really the only one who knew what he was getting into. The rest of us stumbled into our relationships with no idea what to expect.”

“But we all did reach a point where we knew we were making a huge life decision,” Alex said. “We weren’t totally blind.”

“But it might’ve been nice to be able to have an official ceremony,” Nicolas agreed, looking up at his sin eater with stars in his eyes.

Daniel couldn’t quite picture Ashmedai standing under a flowery arch in a tuxedo, though. Hell, he couldn’t picture that for most of these guys.

Ashmedai’s claws brushed Nicolas’s jaw. If Nicolas wanted that, Daniel had no doubt Ashmedai would do it.

“I don’t need a ceremony,” Isaac declared, looking at Shadrach with heated eyes.

“We’ve had a ceremony,” Shadrach corrected. “A very private and sinful ceremony.”

“Well, in that case, we all have,” Julian said. “We had a ceremony right upstairs a little while ago.”

“Oh god,” Talon grumbled.

“Don’t worry, we took the sheets off when we were done,” Valac said.

“We didn’t,” Daniel said helpfully, and Talon shot him a halfhearted glare.

“It’s a problem for the housekeeper,” Talon said dismissively. “Surprised we didn’t hear a symphony of fucking all through the night.”

“Catch us on a day where we didn’t almost die,” Nathan said glumly, and Storm hugged him closer.

“Shadrach was too tired for that last night,” Isaac said with a pout. “I’ve never heard him snore before. He slept pretty hard.”

Shadrach harrumphed, covering Isaac’s mouth with his hand. “Don’t tell people that, killer, it’s embarrassing.”

“Which part?” Isaac asked, muffled behind his hand.

“The first part, obviously. I don’t care if they know I snore.”

Isaac’s eyes crinkled with amusement.

“We need to go back, don’t we?” Daniel said, looking around the room. “We need to find Menadel and tell her what happened, get her to ward our homes. Otherwise we’ll have to stay inside the Rink until the angel is dealt with.”

“Yeah, and I think we can all agree we’d rather not be forced to live there for the foreseeable future,” Talon agreed. “I don’t suppose she has a phone number she could give us, for future reference.”

“Unlikely, but we could force her to take a burner with her,” Malachi said. “As long as she’s on Earth, we’ll be able to reach her.”

Talon pointed at him. “Good idea.”

“I doubt we could force her to do anything,” Luke said.

“No, not literally,” Malachi said, flapping a hand, “but it’s in her best interest to stay in touch, if she wants to stop the angel that’s coming after us.”

“I have my doubts about that,” Luke groused, and Malachi passed a hand across his back.

The cheerful jingle of someone’s cell phone broke the silence, and Ira grunted, pulling it from his pocket.

“Oh, it’s Cyrus.”