Page 96 of Rise of the Queen

I chewed on my bottom lip, trying to come up with answers when I wasn’t even really sure of the question.

“Well, we do know that Sephie can handle insane amounts of anger. In fact, I think it makes her thrive. It would somewhat make sense that the opposite of that would be more crippling for her,” Stephen said.

“I don’t know. She’s so adept at handling her own emotions that I’m still surprised she struggled to get rid of Viktor’s sadness. I think it was the combination of both. It still feels like it’s the combination,” Adrik said.

“You can still feel it?” I asked.

“Not right now, but when you were talking about Ilya, I could. It’s very cold. It has something to do with the cold, which is why I think Ivan’s idea of him being able to stop it next time makes so much sense for you. If his anger is facing outward, it’s burning whatever is coming toward you,” he said.

“And Boss is there for anything that gets past me,” Ivan said.

“Did you notice anything on Ilya, Ivan?” Stephen asked. I could see him starting to try to connect things in his mind. Ivan shook his head no. Stephen looked to Andrei, asking him the same question.

“He was hurting, but I couldn’t see anything. When they came back, I could see his aura, but it was still dim,” Andrei said.

“What are you thinking, Yoden? Does it have to do with red pandas or pancakes?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face.

“Still pancakes, but now I’m also wondering if red pandas even like pancakes. We should really find that out before we move forward with pancake production.”

I couldn’t hold my laugh in any longer. “I fucking love you,” I said.

“I’m still working on my theory. What do you know about the girl Ilya just broke up with? Other than her abuse toward him? Anything?” Stephen asked.

“Not much, other than I’d happily kick her ass,” I said. I was thinking back over what I’d gotten from Ilya, chewing on my lip again. When I looked up, they were all looking at me, slightly amused. I could see Ivan’s black eyes, but this time I didn’t feel his anger, nor did I feel Adrik’s. I turned to look at Adrik, whose eyes were also black.

“Did I do that again?” I asked, confused.

“Yours went black when you were thinking about the chick Ilya broke up with. You told him that she wasn’t entirely human. Your demon confirms it,” Adrik said.

“When did you tell him that?” Misha asked.

“The morning after they got back. She was trying to make Viktor see how serious the situation was. She said it would’ve killed Ilya if he hadn’t fixed him. Ilya was apologetic, but Sephie offered to kick her ass, then told him she wasn’t exactly human and that he was lucky to get away from her,” Adrik said.

“I was trying to be somewhat overdramatic at that moment, to be fair,” I said.

“Okay, dramatics aside, what if there was like a lingering effect from that chick still on Ilya. Like whatever demon that chick had was trying to break Ilya down enough that it could either jump to him or another demon could get into him. Ivan can’t see it because it’s not actually a demon, but we all felt the oppressive sadness from Viktor that Sephie couldn’t shake. What if it was the same sort of thing on Ilya? It just follows him around, wearing him down little by little until he’s finally weak enough that another demon can get in?” Stephen said.

“If I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that there’s a reason for literally everything. Even knowing whether red pandas do, in fact, like pancakes. There’s a reason that Sephie got that cloud from Viktor, and it looks like it was so we could figure out what happened to Ilya since neither Ivan nor I could see anything on him,” Andrei said, grinning at me.

“Do we know what happens when someone’s demon takes over completely and their soul either gets ejected or it dies? Does the demon stick with that body or does it jump to another one? Does it need a soul to work the body?” Stephen asked, looking at me.

“Why are you looking at me when you ask those difficult questions? I’m still working on the simple math problem of red pandas and pancakes. You jumped all the way to quantum physics,” I said.

“If one soul on one side of the universe gets ejected, does that mean a red panda on the other side of the universe also eats pancakes at the same time?” Misha asked thoughtfully.

Adrik turned me to face him, trying to hide his smile. “You did this,” he said, pointing to Stephen and Misha.

It was three more days before anyone saw Viktor again. After the second day, Ivan and I started to get worried about him, so we decided to go check. The guys knew that Viktor was at least in his apartment this time. They could see the light under the door at night. Adrik sent Andrei and Misha with us as well.

“I think he’s fine now,” I said, teasing Adrik about being overprotective of me. “Viktor fixed him. It shouldn’t be an issue this time.”

“I don’t care. You’re still not allowed to touch him and you’re taking all three of them,” he said, very firmly. “Or else you wait until my meetings are done and Ivan and I will go with you. But you’re still not allowed to touch him.” He had the slightest hint of a smile creeping up one side of his mouth as he laid down his ground rules.

“You’re very cranky,” I said, walking to him. Ivan was waiting just outside the door, along with the Wonder Twins.“It makes me want to fuck it out of you,”I thought as I made my eyes go black. His immediately changed to black in response and I was hit with his intense desire for me.

“You do not play fair, solnishko,”he responded. He groaned quietly as he pulled me to him, kissing me deeply. I heard the elevator doors signal the arrival of his next meeting. I pulled back so I could look at his eyes. They were still black. I quickly thought about how much I loved him, trying to make mine change to blue. For the first time, I saw his change from black to his normal blue. The black slowly faded into the background asthe blue mixed in and slowly took over once more. He raised his eyebrow, noticing my look of wonderment.

“I just saw yours change for the first time. Now I understand why you like watching it so much,”I told him. He pressed his lips gently to mine as Stephen walked in with his next meeting.