reality?”
I wished I had a snappy comeback for that, but none leapt to mind. There had been a lot of bumps in the relationship road for Brian and me, and I doubted things would ever be easy. But we loved each other, and though I don’t believe love truly conquers all, it conquers a hell of a lot. Could it conquer Lugh?
“I’m not the enemy,” Lugh reminded me, and I scowled at him.
I tried to remember what it was like in the days before I had Lugh in my life, but they seemed impossibly distant.
I blinked, and suddenly I wasn’t sitting on the love seat anymore. I was sitting on the couch beside Lugh. I hated it when he did that, but there was no point in protesting.
He laid a hand on my shoulder, the touch innocent and yet strangely intimate. “Brian will come around,”he said. “He’s fought too hard to keep you to give up because of me.”
“You can read
my
mind. You can’t read
his.”
Lugh’s mouth quirked into a grin. “I can make an educated guess. And my guess is that he’ll come around eventually. It’s just going to take a little time and … adjustment.”
I regarded him suspiciously. “You think he’ll ‘come around’ to the idea of you trying to seduce me, too?” In Lugh’s mind, there was no competition between himself and Brian, because I never had to choose between the two of them. Lugh could only interact with me as something other than a phantom voice in my head when I was asleep. Brian could only interact with me while I was awake. Therefore, in Lugh’s opinion, no conflict.
“That might be a little harder for him to accept,” Lugh admitted, startling me. This was the first time he’d ever indicated that he thought there might be a problem with his cozy little plan.
Once again, he answered my unspoken thoughts. “After seeing his reaction when he thought you’d had an affair with Adam, I can hardly pretend that I don’t know he’s the jealous type.”
I laughed halfheartedly. “You say that like it’s unusual, like most men would have no objection to their girlfriends having sex with another guy. If that’s what you think, then you don’t understand humans anywhere near as well as you’ve pretended to.”
To my surprise, Lugh leaned back on the couch, cocking his head and seeming to give my words seriousconsideration. “It’s not that I don’t think other men would be jealous. But there is a certain … territoriality to humans that is foreign to the demon experience. Still, perhaps my lack of a separate physical body would lessen the strain on most men. There is no one he can lay his hands on and fight, if that makes sense.”
Perhaps to Lugh, but not to me. “So if demons aren’t ‘territorial,’ as you call it, about their lovers, then that means Adam wouldn’t mind if Dom screwed around on him.” Not that Dom ever would, but I had no doubt that Adam would object vociferously. After all, he was already at least mildly jealous of Saul, who had resided in Dom’s body when he and Adam first became lovers.
“Walking the Mortal Plain changes us. It’s hard to live within our human hosts, knowing their deepest thoughts and feelings, without being influenced by them. That’s part of the reason why my brothers were so eager to develop a less intelligent host. Raphael said it’s because he doesn’t like hearing his host’s opinion of him, but I suspect he’s more concerned with how his host’s opinion might influence him.”
“So Adam has become territorial because his host is territorial?”
“That would be my assumption.”
“And yet you haven’t absorbed any of that territoriality even though I’m not your first human host.”
He shrugged. “Humans aren’t all the same. Surely you don’t think demons are.”
“Whatever. Why are we having this conversation?You already explained your position to me earlier, so why can’t you just let me get a good night’s sleep?”
Yes, I was technically still sleeping, but these dream
I wished I had a snappy comeback for that, but none leapt to mind. There had been a lot of bumps in the relationship road for Brian and me, and I doubted things would ever be easy. But we loved each other, and though I don’t believe love truly conquers all, it conquers a hell of a lot. Could it conquer Lugh?
“I’m not the enemy,” Lugh reminded me, and I scowled at him.
I tried to remember what it was like in the days before I had Lugh in my life, but they seemed impossibly distant.
I blinked, and suddenly I wasn’t sitting on the love seat anymore. I was sitting on the couch beside Lugh. I hated it when he did that, but there was no point in protesting.
He laid a hand on my shoulder, the touch innocent and yet strangely intimate. “Brian will come around,”he said. “He’s fought too hard to keep you to give up because of me.”
“You can read
my
mind. You can’t read
his.”
Lugh’s mouth quirked into a grin. “I can make an educated guess. And my guess is that he’ll come around eventually. It’s just going to take a little time and … adjustment.”
I regarded him suspiciously. “You think he’ll ‘come around’ to the idea of you trying to seduce me, too?” In Lugh’s mind, there was no competition between himself and Brian, because I never had to choose between the two of them. Lugh could only interact with me as something other than a phantom voice in my head when I was asleep. Brian could only interact with me while I was awake. Therefore, in Lugh’s opinion, no conflict.
“That might be a little harder for him to accept,” Lugh admitted, startling me. This was the first time he’d ever indicated that he thought there might be a problem with his cozy little plan.
Once again, he answered my unspoken thoughts. “After seeing his reaction when he thought you’d had an affair with Adam, I can hardly pretend that I don’t know he’s the jealous type.”
I laughed halfheartedly. “You say that like it’s unusual, like most men would have no objection to their girlfriends having sex with another guy. If that’s what you think, then you don’t understand humans anywhere near as well as you’ve pretended to.”
To my surprise, Lugh leaned back on the couch, cocking his head and seeming to give my words seriousconsideration. “It’s not that I don’t think other men would be jealous. But there is a certain … territoriality to humans that is foreign to the demon experience. Still, perhaps my lack of a separate physical body would lessen the strain on most men. There is no one he can lay his hands on and fight, if that makes sense.”
Perhaps to Lugh, but not to me. “So if demons aren’t ‘territorial,’ as you call it, about their lovers, then that means Adam wouldn’t mind if Dom screwed around on him.” Not that Dom ever would, but I had no doubt that Adam would object vociferously. After all, he was already at least mildly jealous of Saul, who had resided in Dom’s body when he and Adam first became lovers.
“Walking the Mortal Plain changes us. It’s hard to live within our human hosts, knowing their deepest thoughts and feelings, without being influenced by them. That’s part of the reason why my brothers were so eager to develop a less intelligent host. Raphael said it’s because he doesn’t like hearing his host’s opinion of him, but I suspect he’s more concerned with how his host’s opinion might influence him.”
“So Adam has become territorial because his host is territorial?”
“That would be my assumption.”
“And yet you haven’t absorbed any of that territoriality even though I’m not your first human host.”
He shrugged. “Humans aren’t all the same. Surely you don’t think demons are.”
“Whatever. Why are we having this conversation?You already explained your position to me earlier, so why can’t you just let me get a good night’s sleep?”
Yes, I was technically still sleeping, but these dream
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