Abaddon held Rias' hand and led her to her personal bedroom.
She didn't care about the different room and flopped down on the bed after entering the room. She buried her face in the pillow and lay on her stomach.
"It doesn't smell like you…" She mumbled. Her voice was a little muffled because of the pillow.
Abaddon sat beside her and rested his hand on her leg, "Cause neither of us sleep here."
"I know…" She didn't say anything as Abaddon lightly stroked her thigh. A minute or so later she said, "You should go back down. I'll just rest for a while."
"Are you sure?" He asked. He also wanted to go back down since he wanted to get some information out of Sirzechs and Zeoticus.
"Mhm," She nodded with her face still buried in the pillow.
He patted her thigh and stood back up, "I'll bring you back to my room when I go to bed. You can also come down for dinner later if you want."
With those words, he let Rias rest and left the room.
He walked back down the stairs where Zeoticus and Sirzechs were talking amongst themselves with cups of tea in their hands. Akeno was standing at the side since it would be impolite for her to sit in front of them.
'Social Hierarchies…' Abaddon shook his head. The Devil society could be very particular about these things sometimes. And Akeno and Rias were especially stringent when it came to these small nuances.
"You're back, Abaddon-sama," Akeno said respectfully as she bowed in his direction, revealing her ample cleavage through her furisode kimono in the process.
'Seductive minx…' Abaddon thought as he approached them and gave Akeno a little smile.
Sirzechs and Zeoticus also turned to him after hearing Akeno's words.
"Is little Ria okay?" Sirzechs asked.
"Yeah, she's fine." Abaddon said as he took a seat, "She just didn't like how her father sold her to me for a bottle of booze." He said jokingly to lighten the mood, "Nothing to worry about."
Zeoticus smiled wryly and said, "It's undoubted that she resents me to an extent for setting up her marriage under such circumstances."
"True. It was a dumb move." Abaddon nodded as he popped open the bottle that he hadn't 'gifted' to Zeoticus in exchange for his daughter.
He was amused at the twitching of the older devil's eye as the bottle was opened. The only reason Zeoticus didn't snatch the bottle from Abaddon was that he was the oldest in the room and had to maintain some respect for himself. He couldn't go around acting like a thief.
Abaddon poured some into one of the three glasses that he'd summoned previously, "Single malt whiskey from a time when barley wasn't even commonplace in the mortal world."
"Don't pour any for me yet. I want to savor this tea for now." Sirzechs said while sipping Akeno's tea.
"Who said I'm pouring any for you?" Abaddon asked cluelessly as he closed the cap of the bottle.
Sirzechs narrowed his eyes, "You do know that you're sitting in front of the Maou, right?"
"So?" Abaddon raised his brow, "I don't pour drinks for anyone other than myself. It's a principle thing. I thought you knew."
"It's fine, son," Zeoticus said and finished the tea in his cup. He took the bottle with such gentleness that made Abaddon almost snicker, but he held himself back.
The older man poured some into the glass and admired the texture for more than a minute.
Meanwhile, Abaddon turned to Akeno who was still standing respectfully at the side in the presence of the head of the family of her master and Satan Lucifer, "Can you please get me some ice, Akeno?"
"Of course." She left to get some ice. She understood that Abaddon wanted her out of the room for a bit. Otherwise, he could've conjured some for himself without any problem.
"Thanks, Akeno." Abaddon smiled and transmitted another message to her, 'Come back in a few minutes.'
As Akeno left, Zeoticus said, "Are you really going to besmirch this drink with fucking ice?"
Abaddon held the glass and leaned back against the couch, "It's just a drink, Zeoticus." He wasn't as crazy about it as Zeoticus, "Anyway." He said before Zeoticus could derail from asking about Riser's situation, "Can we get back to the conversation that we were having before? What's the exact situation with Riser?"
"Do you really care about him?" Sirzechs asked.
"Of course not. I just want to know how and why the Khaos Brigade even got to him with the Phenex family being such a major pillar of the current regime." He clarified.
"Hmm," Sirzechs thought for a moment, "They needed a large amount of Phoenix Tears and got Riser to help them out. The poor kid was essentially strong-armed into accepting the snake. He easily revealed everything he knew after some threats. He wasn't exactly loyal to them in any way." Sirzechs said.
"So there wasn't anything more the information that someone from their little rag-tag group was hurt and they wanted to use Riser's connection to his clan to procure a large amount of Phoenix Tears," Abaddon said.
"Pretty much, yeah. That's all Riser knew. They are preparing something big. And the three factions— The Devils, Fallen Angels, and Angels are going to be their most likely targets." Sirzechs said.
"That still doesn't explain their need for Phenex Tears." Abaddon frowned.
"We haven't figured that out either." Sirzechs shrugged, "But we're going to bait them and give them the perfect situation—" Sirzechs abruptly stopped when he realized that Akeno had come out of the kitchen with a dish in her hand.
"It's fine, dude," Abaddon said to Sirzechs with a roll of his eyes considering that they didn't set up a sound isolation barrier meant that this information wasn't that sensitive anyway.
Sirzechs thought for a moment, "We're planning to host a summit between the three factions." He revealed. Abaddon understood that this was the bait that Sirzechs was talking about.
"I see," Abaddon nodded as Akeno reached him.
"I actually need to talk to little Ria about this," Sirzechs said as he saw Akeno put two cubes of ice into Abaddon's glass.
"Come here, Akeno." Abaddon beckoned her closer as she was about to stand beside the couch again after putting the dish on the table. She curiously got closer to him and he grabbed her hand before pulling her down to himself.
With a yelp, she found herself sitting in his lap with his arm wrapped around her waist, "A-kun…" She whispered while blushing.
He made a shushing sound and said, "Just get comfortable and look pretty okay?" He whispered in her ear.
Neither Sirzechs nor Zeoticus minded as they knew the kind of person that Abaddon was. Hell, most Devils acted in a similar manner with a very small minority actually acting decent all the time.
It was usually in the presence of authority figures that they restrained themselves.
Being far older than Abaddon, Zeoticus, and Sirzechs had both dealt with their fair share of devils. So, they didn't mind, but that didn't mean Sirzechs didn't chide him.
"Don't you already have my sister? Stop flirting with her Queen too." He said annoyedly.
"Right." Abaddon rolled his eyes and held Akeno even closer. As for Akeno, although she was embarrassed, she also felt some heat rising inside herself as she felt Abaddon's random caresses with his hand that was wrapped around her waist.
Sirzechs shook his head and gave up, "How's your training going? How about we spar?" He offered. He had been itching to beat Abaddon up for a while.
"Go fuck yourself."
…
They all spent a while talking as Poor Akeno could only serve as eye candy without participating in the conversations. It wasn't that Abaddon didn't want her to talk, she was just too polite to involve herself in a conversation between the higher-ranking devils.
Rias and Akeno had both received extensive etiquette lessons and were very stringent about these things.
After a while, the other residents of the mansion slowly started coming back from their contract commitments. That's why Akeno and Rias were the only ones to return first. They didn't have any contract requirements for the day.
The first ones to arrive were the student council President and Vice-President, Sona and Tsubaki. The latter had also moved here on Sunday at Abaddon and Sona's insistence.
And they brought a guest with them, "My Sona☆~!" Serafall was floating around Sona, whose shoulders were trembling with either rage or embarrassment.
It was now that Abaddon finally let Akeno get up from his lap as he also got up and approached Sona and Tsubaki.
"Hello, beautiful ladies…" He greeted with his eyes on Serafall's floating visage as the girl finally landed on the ground.
"Is this your place, Abaddon?" She asked.
"Mhm…" Abaddon nodded before turning to Sona, "Why don't you and Tsubaki go to your rooms while I welcome our lovely guest here?" Abaddon offered.
Sona's eyes burst out with relief and she wanted to smother Abaddon with a sloppy kiss, but she held herself back, dreading Serafall's reaction to that particular scene, "Thank you, Abaddon."
"I'll be in my room, Abaddon-sama." Tsubaki also bowed to Abaddon before following Sona up the stairs. She had a tiny drop of stressful sweat on the side of her forehead.
Serafall, meanwhile was looking at Abaddon with scrutiny.
"What is it, Serafall?" He asked.
"My baby sister Sona is living with a man. I'm concerned," She said with a scrutinizing tone.
***
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