Prisoner

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

"I cannot fucking believe I am about to do this."

I glared down at the slip of paper in my hand. It had taken hours to convince Lucy to give me this phone number and only on the condition that I didn't start yelling over the phone or he'd take it away from me. Annoyed that he was treating me like a child, I closed my eyes and just took a big deep breath to find some level of calm.

Remember. Getting worked up ain't gonna change shit. You need help. Ask.

I blinked my eyes open and looked down at the phone in one hand, the paper in the other before I finally caved and punched in the number before holding the phone to my ear. I thought better of a simple voice call and switched the setting to video and held the phone out in front of me as I watched the dots blink across the screen and the dial tone.

Just when I thought nobody was going to answer, there was a click and the screen went black before an image of Hadrian came up onto the screen. Of course he looked all fucking dolled up in what looked like some kind of female blouse with ruffled sleeves, sparkly pink lipgloss, and two teddy bear hair clips nestled into his hair, almost like he had been getting ready, and judging from his eyeliner, he'd been doing his make up.

Of fucking course.

"Four?" Hadrian asked with an immediate frown.

"Fuckin' who?" Three's voice asked on the other end. There was some rustling and moving around that made me a little dizzy before I realized Hadrian was sitting on some kind of seat at the end of a huge bed. A second later, Three plopped on the chair beside him, his blond hair whipped up into a ponytail and sweat pouring down his face, a towel over his shoulders.

"Hey, aren't you losers missing a member?" I asked dryly, referring to their third partner, Six. Hadrian gave me a deadpan stare and Three scowled.

"Six is in class," he said, making me frown now.

"Class? We already went to school," I said, making Three roll his eyes.

"He's taking cooking classes at the local college. Not that you care."

"You're right; I don't," I said flatly, making Three tsk and push off the seat to walk away, leaving me with just Hadrian, who frowned at me, "Anyway, not the point. I need to ask you a question."

"Of course," Hadrian said, which surprised me, "What would you like to know?" I hesitated, mostly because I didn't expect him to agree so quickly. I expected him to hang up or tell me I didn't deserve to know anything, but he just waited patiently for me to finish. I cleared my throat awkwardly and shifted on the bed a bit, scooting back until my back touched the headboard.

"Is Three still in the room?" I asked after a second. Hadrian looked up and seemed to be meeting eyes with Three. There was a long pause and Three made a disgusted noise, followed by his footsteps and the door closing behind him. Hadrian looked back down at me. I was silent for a moment longer, but Hadrian didn't rush me. He just looked back at me with those piercing blue eyes that reminded me a whole lot of Hades's. I grimaced and averted my eyes.

"Ah, yeah, so a weird thing happened recently and I tried to ask Lucy about it, but he's being a fucking asshole right now and I don't want to ask him," I said and Hadrian simply arched a brow, but remained silent, "I... Well, I guess River sort of kissed me? And I have never fucking kissed anyone before in my entire life. I accidentally cut myself on his fang and it kind of hurt, so I think I did something wrong." Hadrian blinked for a moment, but he had the decency to keep any expression off his face before he inclined his head.

"I see. What kind of demon is he?" He asked. I frowned.

"Does that matter?" I asked. Because I had no fucking idea what kind of demon River was, exactly. I knew his mother was a succubus, but depending on the species, he might not have even gotten any of her abilities. Cypress was a Windstorm, but their species was kind of muddled considering their ancestors were an angel/demigod hybrid and the first Christian demon, which was a completely different breed from other demons. Demon tended to be a category for more subspecies, but Christian demons were their own entity.