“Sweet Jesus,” Raquel groaned. “You’re right. Let’s just be happy for small favors today.”
“I can do that,” I said as I offered my now fully clothed mate my hand. “Next time what do you say we lock the door?”
“Works for me.”
She grabbed my hand and slapped my ass. We walked out of the room with our heads held high.
I was the luckiest bastard in the world.
The whole wide world.
Chapter 19
Politely ignoring the pornographic scene they’d walked in on, Pam and the King greeted us warmly—although it was very obviously killing Pam not to tease us mercilessly. She kept giving us the evil eye coupled with an enormous grin. Jean Paul was clearly up to speed on the latest gossip. His smile was large and he gave me a covert thumbs up.
The family I’d mated into was nuts… and I was fine with that. Very fine.
“Are we ready to get down to business?” the King asked as he made himself comfortable at the large solid oak kitchen table.
“Looks to me that Heathcliff and Raquel have already been there and done that,” Pam muttered under her breath with glee.
Thankfully, everyone chose to pretend we didn’t hear the reference to the X-rated movie Raquel and I had just starred in.
“Yes,” Raquel said as she seated herself next to me and shot Pam a look that made her simmer down.
“Well my dear, it appears that the Angels were not only told you were not attending the Summit, it was implied that you were ash,” the King said with a disgusted shake of his head.
“They were told I was dead?” Raquel asked shocked.
“Yep,” Pam confirmed. “I wanted to set the doucheheads straight, but amazingly I held my tongue. I decided finding out who spouted such bullshit was more important than shocking my brethren Angels with my creative use of language.”
“Very wise of you dear,” the King said lovingly.
“Damn right,” she agreed. “It was all from that twatwaffle, Vlad.”
Pam confirmed what we had suspected—far more descriptively than any of us would have.
“Vlad is aware of the curse,” Raquel said as she absently stroked my hand. “Someone told him about it.”
“This is true,” the King said tightly. “Or perhaps he placed the curse.”
“But what about Gareth?” Raquel questioned. “And Leila, Nathan and Alexander?”
“We only know for sure that Gareth was cursed. Has Ethan checked in?” Jean Paul asked as he set a platter of chips and a variety of salsa in front of Pam.
She dug in with gusto as we all looked on with amusement and a bit of envy. Angels could eat. Vampyres could not. For a brief moment, I felt Astrid’s pain of not being able to consume food.
“Haven’t heard from Assjacket, Ethan or Gareth yet,” Pam mumbled through a mouthful of food. “We’ve tried to contact them, but we haven’t been successful.”
Pam loved to mess with Astrid’s name. I’d heard everything from Asshead to Assbutt to Asswipe from the Angel’s foul mouth. Astrid didn’t seem to mind. She had many profane endearments for her Guardian Angel as well. To an outsider they seemed contentious with each other, but that was as far from the truth as one could get. Both would kill and die for each other.
“That doesn’t bode well,” I muttered as I tapped out a private code on my cell to Ethan that he should answer immediately.
Nothing. Shit.
“Satan’s with them,” Raquel volunteered hesitantly. “They should be safe.”
The groans of dismay from the King, Pam and Jean Paul were loud and guttural. Again my original plan seemed less appealing by the second. However, it was happening for better or worse. The Devil never failed to deliver.
“Who got Satan involved?” the King asked with a shudder.
“I did,” I replied evenly and waited to be lambasted. “He’s bringing someone who should be able to throw Vlad off his game.”
“Astrid needed the Devil too,” Raquel added quickly, trying to lessen the ire directed at me from her father. “She couldn’t break the Demon spell holding Gareth without caving in Paris.”
“My girl is growing up,” Pam said with pride and nudged her unhappy mate. “Couple of months ago that child would have taken out the entire fucking United States without meaning to. So who owes the sneaky little bastard favors?”
“Obviously Heathcliff does,” Raquel confirmed with a sour expression. “However, Astrid plans to have the Devil owe her by calling Napoleon an assbucket turd knockin’ little shit for brains when she gets to the Summit.”
“That’s certainly going to go over well,” Jean Paul snorted as dropped his head to the table with a thud.
“Napoleon isn’t there,” the King informed us with a slight wince. “I hear he’s hung up at the moment.”
“Hung up?” I repeated, confused.
“Hung up.” Pam nodded and visibly gagged. “Pole shoved up his mean, undead ass. Hanging high at Dracula’s pad. Ass harpooned. Butt spiked. Impaled,” she tacked on at the end of her colorful diatribe just in case all her other references had flown over our heads.
They hadn’t.
“Well, that’s certainly some piercing news—heinous pun intended,” Raquel said with a half giggle-half groan. “Will he live?”
“People that mean never die.” Pam shook her head and went to the refrigerator. “Damn,” she bellowed happily. “You undead people sure keep a nicely stocked fridge for people who can’t drink anything but blood.”