I wasn’t sure, but it looked like Lugh was counting backward from one hundred. I had that effect on him, and it wasn’t exactly by accident.
“At this point,” he said when he overcame his apparent desire to strangle me, “I can think of only one other demon I would trust enough to draw into my inner circle.”
I don’t know if it was an out-and-out premonition or whether I just made an assumption based on the look on Lugh’s face, but the stupid corset suddenly seemed to be squeezing the air out of my lungs.
“Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” I begged, and the regret in his eyes told me I’d guessed right.
“Saul was particularly targeted because of his loyalty to me, and he and Dominic proved to be compatible. There will be. . complications if he joins us on the Mortal Plain once more, but I need more allies.”
I shook my head as I struggled to breathe. Never mind that this was just a dream, and I didn’t actually need to breathe. “No!”
I had never met Saul. I don’t consider the short time we spent together while I was exorcizing him as a real meeting. But despite my sometimes bad attitude toward Dominic, I had to admit I considered him a friend. I didn’t want to lose him, as I’d lost everyone else who’d ever mattered to me.
Okay, that was melodramatic. I hadn’t actually lost Brian, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. But I’d lost my best friend, my father, my brother. . It was enough.
After my moment of self-pity, I allowed myself to think of others. “You can’t do that to Adam!” I protested. I might not like Adam, but even the most clueless idiot could see that he loved Dom. He’d been in a relationship with Saul before, but from everything I’d observed, I knew that relationship hadn’t had the same emotional intensity.
“I know Adam will be unhappy,” Lugh said, “but he will understand it’s for the greater good.”
I thought I’d been angry before. Now I knew what angry really was. “You cold-blooded, cold-hearted bastard! What about Dominic, huh? You’ll just volunteer to sacrifice him for the common good?” I dragged up the hem of my skirts and petticoats or whatever the hell it was I was wearing and stomped up the steps to the dais until I could glare down at Lugh. “How dare you?” I suppose I’d gotten over being awed by his kingly mien. I dropped my handful of skirts and seriously considered throwing a punch, fat lot of good it would do. But it might give me a little outlet for the rage and hurt and, yes, fear that boiled in my gut. Every time I started to think of Lugh as a pretty decent guy, I’d get some kind of a reminder that he was a demon, and that demons don’t think like humans.
“Calm down,” Lugh said, looking up at me and showing no outward reaction to my outburst.
I doubt there was anything he could have said that would have calmed me less. I decided to throw that punch after all. He made no attempt to avoid it, but then it wasn’t like I could hurt him. His head jerked back with the impact, and his crown slid sideways, but his facial expression didn’t change.
“When you’re through having your temper tantrum, let me know and I’ll finish saying my piece.” He crossed his arms over his chest and affected a pose of exaggerated patience.
I was sorely tempted to continue my “temper tantrum,” as he called it, but I fought that temptation. Maybe I’d misunderstood what he was trying to say. Maybe he wasn’t planning to offer up Dominic like a sacrificial lamb.
Nah. That was exactly what he’d meant, and I knew it. But as satisfying as yelling, screaming, and otherwise making a fool of myself might be, I knew it wouldn’t do me—or Dom—a bit of good.
I sucked in as much air as I could manage, my head feeling light and fizzy from lack of oxygen. “Get me out of this damn corset,” I snarled at Lugh.
Once the words left my mouth, I wished I could suck them back in. Whenever I complained about the way he’d dressed me, I always seemed to end up in something worse. I braced myself for something embarrassingly flimsy, but for once he declined to torment me.
My breathing came easier, and when I glanced cautiously down at myself, I saw that I was now dressed in loose, comfy gray sweats. The outfit didn’t exactly blend in with the grand hall or Lugh’s kingly red and gold, but it was definitely more me than the Marie Antoinette getup. I clamped my jaws together to stop myself from saying anything else as I glared at Lugh, who remained calmly seated on his throne.
When he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to light into him anymore, he spoke again.
“Adam is one of my subjects. If I command him to step aside while Saul takes his lover, he will do it.”
If I ground my teeth any harder, they would break. However, I managed to keep my temper in check, waiting for him to finish.
“However, Dominic is not one of my subjects, and I have no authority to give him orders. I will request that he agree to host Saul once more, but in the end, it will be his decision.”
Dominic, like most legal demon hosts, had a hero complex. He might agree to take Saul back even if he knew it would mean losing what he now had with Adam. And even if losing him would break Adam’s heart. But I wasn’t one of Lugh’s subjects. Perhaps I could conveniently “forget” to mention his request.
Lugh shook his head at me. “Would you rather I take over the next time you’re asleep and give Adam a call myself?”
My heart sank at the thought. “You’re probably doing that right this moment, aren’t you?” It would hardly be the first time.
Slowly, Lugh unfolded from his throne, forcing me to take a couple of steps back to maintain my personal space. I’m a tall woman, but Lugh is at least six foot five, and he towered over me. He reached for me, and I’d have backed up farther if I didn’t think I might fall off the edge of the dais. His hands landed on my shoulders, and he gave them a firm squeeze.
“I’ll do you the courtesy of giving you the chance to do it yourself, first. But the request will be made, one way or another.”
I swallowed past a lump that had formed in my throat. “I hate you.” I couldn’t stand to look up at him anymore, so instead I stared at one of the ornamental gold buttons on his waistcoat.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why does it have to be Dominic? Can’t someone else host him?” I was still staring at the button, but it didn’t seem to bother Lugh.
“Do you have someone else in mind?”
I scowled, because, of course, I didn’t. We no longer had anyone on the inside with the Spirit Society, so it wasn’t like we could get Saul into a legal host. So just who would I “volunteer” for the role?
“Keep in mind also what you know of Saul’s. . inclinations, shall we call them?” Lugh said, forcibly reminding me of the kind of relationship he’d had with Adam. I didn’t know—and sure as hell didn’t want to know—what kind of S&M “play” they’d engaged in, but I knew it was brutal enough to be too much for Dominic—and to require a demon’s healing ability.
“Many, if not most hosts would have trouble coping with his particular tastes,” Lugh continued, hammering away at me. “I know his union with his last host before Dominic was not a happy one.” He frowned. “I’m afraid Saul can be most abrasive when he doesn’t like someone.”
“You mean more abrasive than Adam?” I asked incredulously, and I forgot to stare at the button and looked up into his amber eyes.
“There’s a reason he and Adam are friends.”
“You mean because they’re each the only creature in existence who can tolerate the other?”
Lugh smiled crookedly. “A bit of an exaggeration, but fairly accurate.” The smile faded, and his grip on my shoulders tightened. “We already know Dominic and Saul get along well. Any other host might. . suffer.”
I wasn’t keen on the idea of shoving a demon, especially an abrasive one, into any human host. If Saul ended up in another host, I’d feel guilty as hell at the idea that the host was suffering and being ill-treated. But better some stranger than Dominic. I suppose that was selfish of me, but I didn’t care.