Page 64 of Craving Demons

Everyone was tense.

Then Freyja let out a long and heavy sigh and stepped back, hands falling away from Donny. “It’s done.”

Donny opened his eyes and looked at me. “Anais?” He blinked, looking around as if everything was new. “Ohhhh,” he breathed softly. “I can… remember.” He looked down at me with a giddy grin and repeated, “I can remember!”

“Great!” I said, truly happy for him. Except there was also an urgent matter which needed addressing which meant celebrating had to wait. “Can you remember where you hid the fifty million for Tommy Two-Toes? He’s come collecting.”

“Tommy…? He’s not due to get out for another half-dozen years or so. Although…” He looked at me intently. “What year is it?”

I told him.

He blinked in surprise. “Jiminy Cricket! I’ve lost so much time!” But he quickly regained control of himself, like the Donny I’d known as a kid. “Well then, yes. Tommy’s money is safe. I registered it under a shell company called Chocolate Cosmos.”

“Oh!” I breathed, remembering all the times he’d spouted that odd phrase. “So, youweretrying to help!” Then… “What in hell is a Chocolate Cosmo? Is that some old-timey drink?”

He laughed. “Not Cosmo, Cosmos, it’s a type of flower that smells roughly like chocolate.”

“Oh.”

“The account is set up at the Premier Bank of Commerce,” he continued. “Here in town and—”

“Fuck!” Ramsey’s curse was so loud we all looked at him. Except from everyone’s expression, it was clear Grey and Fen knew the reason the other man was cursing.

“That’s not good,” Ramsey said, looking from me to Donny.

Donny only then noticed the three large men in the room and frowned. “Who are you?” he asked.

I bit back a sigh. That was going to take a lot of explaining, but then it seemed Ramsey had something to explain as well.

Perhaps it was time we all talked openly.

ANAIS

We were all hungry,so food came first. Reia had covered all the bases with the three extra-large pizzas she’d ordered: one meat lovers, one vegetarian, and one plain cheese. Donny and I didn’t care which we had. Grey and Freyja didn’t eat meat though. Ramsey and Fen loved meat. So, the division worked well between us.

After we ate, Freyja left. She wasn’t a part of this. I thanked her thoroughly. There was no way to repay her for what she’d done for Donny.

Donny retrieved his little laptop and furiously typed away, while the rest of us waited, sitting or standing around the small kitchen.

Things were just a little too quiet, so I thought I’d start the conversation off with something easy. “Freyja seems nice.”

“She was working,” Fen said with a grimace and a sigh.

“Working?” I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Is she not nice when she’s not working?”

Ramsey answered. “Sometimes.” He gave a breath of a laugh. “She has a bit of a bad-girl streak in her. It’s not that she’s not nice, more that she’s got absolutely no inhibitions.”

“If there was a goddess of infidelity, it would be her,” Grey added as he paced the length of the room.

“Heh! Yeah, well put,” Ramsey said with a smile that said all too much.

“Wait, you’ve slept with Fen’s grandmother?” I asked Ramsey, a bit disgusted.

“Sort-of grandmother,” all three of them said at exactly the same time, in the same tone.

Fuck me! “Have youallslept with her?”

Grey stopped pacing, seeming to realize he might be in trouble. “Ah… to be fair, it was hundreds of years before you were born.”