“Told you.” She turned her attention to scrambling eggs, because eggs rarely scrambled themselves.

“Wait!” I said, causing another spasm to seize my fine motor skills for a split second before I could finish my thought. “Even though this is decaf, will it help my headache?”

“No,” she said over her shoulder.

“Darn. You know, you really don’t have to quit caffeine just for me.”

“Are you kidding? I’d do anything for you. Although quitting caffeine is going to be hard. I’d be more inclined to sell my firstborn.”

“Word.”

“Want to help me with this tape?” Reyes asked as he strolled into the kitchen in nothing but pajama bottoms. Was there anything sexier than a shirtless man in pajama bottoms, even one covered in duct tape? I doubted it.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” I asked in alarm as Cookie dropped several items in concert with his entrance. I was pretty sure a couple of them were eggs. And something splatty, like bacon. “Three-second rule!” I shouted without looking back at her. I didn’t want to draw attention or anything. Or embarrass her.

Reyes tossed her a playful wink before saying, “Sure as I’ll ever be.”

I imagined the tape ripping off the skin, and another seizure hit. After a long, eventful recovery, we went into the living room and he sat on the coffee table as I went to work. I peeled ever-so-slowly, worried I’d rip the flesh from his bones. But it was incredible. The skin was pink where it had been injured, but completely closed. There wasn’t a single open wound.

“What about the inside? The muscle and tendons?” I asked him. It had literally been shredded the day before.

He tested it, lifting his elbow slightly and flexing his muscles from different positions. They swayed and rolled beneath his perfect skin like a swimmer’s. “They all seem to be back in working order. Just really sore.”

“I can’t imagine why. I’ve never seen anything like this.” I rubbed my fingers along the newly formed skin. Even more bizarre was the fact that his tattoos, for lack of a better word, the marks he’d been born with that formed a map to the gates of hell, had re-formed in perfect symmetry with his uninjured side. Not a single line was marred or misshapen, and his flesh had been laid bare. It was a sight I would never forget. “That’s how you healed so fast after getting shot that time.”

“It is.” He stood, tested his back before turning toward the recliner and its occupant.

“Breakfast will be ready in ten,” Cookie said, “with a few added nutrients from the floor.”

“Attagirl. Can’t let that stuff go to waste.”

Reyes was studying Osh, whose name I was still having difficulty applying to the Daeva sleeping so soundly in the plush chair. But when I thought of him as a kid instead of a thousand-year-old demon, it worked better. I tried to focus on that, because he really did look like a kid. His shoulder-length black hair needed brushing and his lashes fanned across youthful cheeks. He had a perfectly straight nose and a full mouth, as though caught between the stages of teen and adult. I had to remind myself at times what he was. And, possibly more important, what he was capable of.

“We should let him sleep,” I said to Reyes.

“He’s coming out of stasis now.”

“You can feel it?”

“Yes,” he said. “And once he’s out, I have some questions for him.”

“What kind of questions?” I asked, worried at the turn of events.

“He has ulterior motives. I can feel it.”

“Doesn’t matter. He fought with us side by side yesterday. We owe him our trust.” Then I thought about Reyes’s words. He could have fought for an ulterior motive just as easily as anything noble. I had no idea what that motive would be, however. “Okay, but just in case,” I added before he came out of stasis completely, “what’s his real name?”

“What did he tell you?”

“Osh. Osh Villione.”

He nodded. “The Villione is new, but his name really is Osh. It’s short for Osh’ekiel.”

“Osh’ekiel. And because I know this, I have power over him?”

“You do. Just like you do me.”

I grinned, never believing for a minute I had power over a man named Reyes Alexander Farrow. Or an offspring of Lucifer named Rey’aziel. Either way. “What’s on your plate today?” I asked him.

He gave me a once-over, his dark eyes shimmering in the early morning light. “You.”

“Do I need to leave?” Garrett asked from the sofa.

Reyes and I answered simultaneously, one with a yes and one with a no. Three guesses as to who said what.

Garrett shrugged and went back to reading the news on his phone.

“No,” I said to Reyes. “I mean workwise. I have several stops to make today, and if you’re going to insist on tagging along, we need to get our schedules straight.”

“I don’t think now is a good time to be leaving your apartment,” he said.

“It’s daytime. The perfect time. I still have a job to do, Reyes.”

“I figured as much. I cleared my schedule. I’m all yours.”

“Sweet,” I said, offering him a flirtatious wink.

He bent to offer me a kiss on my earlobe and whispered, “He’s out,” a microsecond before he pushed me out of harm’s way and lifted Osh out of the recliner by his throat.