Chapter 39 Chapter 39
“Oh, that would be great. Thank you so much,” Hunter smiled politely, yet again surprising her. She blushed.
“You’re so polite. Someone else could learn something from you,” she glared at Maxwell.
“Oh, shut it.”
Gareth and Hunter laughed at their antics as she went to the kitchen to prepare the coffee, which didn’t take too long. Returning to the living room, three demons were talking animatedly about something, only looking up when she placed the coffee cups on the table.
“Thanks,” Gareth said, and Hunter smiled at her. “We heard what happened. You’re bonded, huh? That explains why we sensed Maxwell’s aura when we first saw you.”
“Ah, yes, we are.”
“Cute. Our Maxwell has finally grown up.” Hunter gushed and earned himself a death glare from Maxwell. The sunlight in the living room dimmed ominously.
“Don’t call me that. I told you a hundred times.”
“I’ll need to remember that,” Valerie snickered, and Gareth nodded at her.
“You better call him Maxwell all the time,” he chuckled, not caring about a certain other demon’s growing annoyance.
“You two are just as chaotic as always,” he sighed and shook his head. “What drove you to leave hell?”
“We just needed a little change. Our neighborhood is kind of chaotic right now… Shawn accidentally set Wade’s residence on fire, and they’re at each other’s throats... they’ve been fighting nonstop for days.”
“Again?” Maxwell laughed. “Damn, he doesn’t know when to stop.”
“Liam was there to put the fire out, and Shawn received a looong lecture from him. I think he’s scarred for life,” Hunter snickered.
“I’m sure they want to meet you, Valerie. As soon as they hear that Maxwell bonded without telling them, they’ll be so pissed,” Gareth laughed, but to Valerie, it didn’t sound funny. Angering a bunch of powerful high-class demons wasn’t on her to-do list. She grimaced. “They always teased him about this kind of thing, believing he would never do it, and now he’s the only one of them to do it. It’s hilarious.”
“Don’t tell them, please. I don’t want to die,” Valerie groaned and hid her face in her hands.
“Don’t get me wrong, they wouldn’t kill you,” Gareth reassured her. “But they will be curious about you, so you should expect them to come by for a visit.”
“If you tell them about the bond, I’ll raise hell,” Maxwell threatened. “So don’t even think about it.”
The two demons cackled in a way that told Valerie they couldn’t be stopped so easily.
\---
Valerie stood in the kitchen, about to get the pizza from the oven. “Stop,” Maxwell interfered, and she flinched because she hadn’t even heard him arrive.
“Why?”
“We all know what’s gonna happen when you touch that burning hot pizza pan,” he said and shooed her away. “Let me do it and save us both the trouble.”
“Hey, you’re acting like I’m made of glass and clumsy as hell,” she whined, stepping back and letting him get the pizza. It was huge, covered in salami, tomatoes, and other ingredients they had both put on it earlier.
“That’s because you are,” he taunted with a cocky smirk that never failed to annoy her.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Ugh, getting on my nerves is your only hobby,” she grumbled, watching as he put a few pizza slices on a plate for them to eat. Valerie grabbed two glasses and a bottle of soda and walked into the living room, where the TV was already on.
After Gareth’s and Hunter’s unexpected visit, they had agreed to spend the rest of the evening at home.
Valerie had used reverse psychology to trick Maxwell into helping her make the pizza. Getting the stubborn demon to do what she wanted hadn't been hard. “I thought you were good at cooking, but it seems you suck at it,” she had said. “That’s not true. I’m better at it than you,” he had answered, to which she simply said, “Then prove it.”
And that was how easy it had been to convince him to help her. She smirked, sitting on the sofa and leaning against a pillow. He sat next to her, grabbing a slice of the pizza and trying it.
Valerie found it very amusing how he suddenly found his love for regular human food after refusing to eat it. Initially, she had never seen him eat, but now it happened often.
He was focused on the TV show they were watching and didn’t pay attention to her. It was one of those weird game shows where people made fools of themselves, the kind that Valerie didn’t enjoy too much.
Maxwell, however, laughed his ass off whenever something unfortunate happened to one of the participants, to which she could only roll her eyes.
“Did you see that idiot human fall on his butt? Damn, how stupid are these people?” he snickered in evil joy. Valerie shook her head at him, not finding it funny in the slightest.
While his general dislike of humans was still there, she had noticed a change in his behavior in her presence. Maxwell had been less condescending and mean to her in the past week, making Valerie wonder if he started getting used to her.
They bickered a lot, and he never let an opportunity slide to tease and fluster her; even so, he had become more thoughtful. Meanwhile, Valerie was getting used to the supernatural world. The fact that creatures like demons were real was becoming normal to her, and she no longer lost it when she encountered a ghost hanging out on a street corner.
Valerie wasn’t sure what Maxwell thought of her since he never bothered calling her by her name. There had only been one single instance when he had done it, and she didn’t want to remember this particular moment...
“Will you stop staring at me?”
She was torn from her thoughts, only to realize she had been looking at him this entire time. He sighed dramatically. “I know I’m handsome, but you’re overdoing it a bit,” he added with the smug smirk he usually wore when he said things like that.