“I don’t want that freak nowhere near me,” Epagogia was ice-cold.

Jacob would have preferred if the woman had been a bit angrier, a bit more spirited. Instead, there was only cold rage in her red pupils, no warmth left anywhere in her body. Her tense muscles were a description accurate enough of what she thought of Hektor, the Vermillion Tyrant.

Her claws had were leaking some Qi, and now they had a puplish metallic sheen on them. It would unsettling for any other person.

But Jacob took her right claw in a sweet gesture that he had used many times to assuage her worries and appease her anger.

“Eppy, I’ll keep you two as distant as possible, but there will be times when we have bigger and more important meetings, like the one we have tonight, when you will need to keep your cool around him.”

“Oh, Jaji-boy, I’ll keep my cool, alright? I’m just saying I’m not sure I won’t gut him. But I’ll keep my cool. Is that okay?”

Jacob exhaled, knowing what he was really asking out of the woman.

“I know he killed countless Devils, Epagogia. This is another life, though, and we need to be careful with our allies. If the Vermillion Tyrant is ready to toss himself in our ring, why shouldn’t we let him?”

“Jaji-boy, the bastard didn’t just kill people, he exterminad races! Some creatures went extinct under his Empire! How can you ally with him and say that you ever loved me?”

It was a good argument, Jacob couldn’t really deny it.

But what was he supposed to do? Shun away the guy at the Hound Realm just because of their past?

“Listen, Eppy. Please, do listen. We don’t know what we are up against. The guy is a bit crazy, so what? He is strong and he doesn’t just wear his emotions on his sleeves, he brings them around in a goddamn cape!”

Epagogia cringed at those words. She knew it was true. The Vermillion Tyrant had never been the scheming type. He would rather die than be dishonest.

“This is going to upset the Karma, Jaji-boy! You know it!”

“Fuck Karma if I can have fucking Hektor on my side, Epagogia! If he was against us, Karma or not, we would be dead! And he saved so many people! Imagine how all we could do once we get to your kins too!”

“He didn’t save people, Jacob! He saved humans!”

Well, the Vermillion Tyrant had been a speciesist in his past life, there was no denying that. But Jacob envisioned a future where he could reconcile past and future in a peaceful manner.

“Epagogia, if we take Hektor, we are ten steps closer to having a safe haven for anyone, be human or Devil, and that is all that matters! I’m not allying with a goddamn madman, I’m just taking a person who made a mistake and now wants to make up for it!”

“Ok!” Epagogia erupted, “but you are going to do one thing for me if you want me to live with that piece of crap!”

Jacob nodded immediately.

“Whatever you want.”

“Kiss me, then, Jaji. Prove me you are not just a little bitch for that effeminate eunuch.”

This is going to come and bite me back in the ass so hard. So, so, so hard.

Jacob knew it.

Nonetheless, he surprised Epagogia by putting a hand behind her neck, that had been craned toward him with fury until a second ago. Then, his lips travelled the distance to hers in a second.

It was soft. The lips, obviously, were soft. But also the kiss. It was all soft, all loving, all forgiving.

It was the same of his past life, when he had needed it so bad.

And Jacob smiled mid-kiss. He didn’t smile because it was a very chaste kiss, considering who he had in front of him. No, he smiled because it felt every bit as right as it had felt in his past life.

It lasted less than a minute and they both barely moved, just lost in the sensation.

There was too much to unpack sometimes, therefore sometimes Jacob preferred Hektor’s approach to life. Just don’t unpack. Just do it.

And so he did it.

And when they separated, she had lost all her anger because it had been replace by sadness and melancholia.

“Jaji,” she put her forehead against his.

At the end of the day, below their antics and their cat-and-mouse games, they were two people. It didn’t really matter how strong, how beautiful or talented. They were two people with a lot of personal history, but also a lot of history among them.

“Eppy,” he smiled, a bit teary though.

“I wasn’t expecting that. I really wasn’t.”

“That’s always the best moment,” Jacob said with a smirk.

“And what about your beloved Helena, then?” Epagogia got a bit colder and more distant as she said those words.

“As I said, this is a new life, Eppy,” Jacob took his hand away from her. “Whatever happens here, it’s here. Whatever happened in our past, it’s in our past. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s the same for us too. That was a nice throwback, but we need a new life too. This means that yes, I’ll keep my ‘options open’ but I do consider you. I do consider you a lot.”

“Well, Jaji-boy,” Epagogia turned and went for the door, but not before she gave him a last glance over her shoulder before going out, “be careful, because I’m coming for you.”

“Bring it on,” Jacob smiled.