"What was he offering you?" Orion prompted eventually.
"Magic.” I snorted. “Or his fucked-up version. I believed him at the time, but God, it seems so fake now. His story was ripped off from a fairytale. An evil wizard stole everything from him, including his name and most of his magic, and only I could help him get everything back. I called him Mr. Wizard.”
Obviously, once I found magic and the supernatural world in my twenties, I wondered if he had some connection. But his story did not fit with the world I discovered. It matched up much better with what an opportunist might tell an impressionable kid.
"Since he was actually an incubus,” Orion commented, “removing your doubts and putting you in a more agreeable state would be a breeze."
Maybe, though it hadn’t been a hard sell to begin with... I deposited rock salt into a pouch, shutting it tight, too tight, almost stretching the strings hard enough to snap. Oops.
How calculated this Lex had been really smacked me in the face as I thought. Our blood was tied together and I never questioned it because it happened accidentally—hemade it seemaccidental. We shook hands and a sharp edge on the cuff he wore scratched me.
This was the tricky part. Not of cleaning up, because collecting some stray papers and lifting them in the air and back onto the desk really couldn’t have been simpler. But when it came to my story, this was the part thathurt.
“Tommy was my cool, older cousin. Man, I worshipped him, even if he never let me get away with shit and always saw right through me. I could lie to my folks but not him, not ever. So when he found me sneaking off at night to meet some strange guy, he went in my place."
The paper sank down to the floor, swaying softly and falling short of the intended place.
“He just wanted to protect me,” I said. “He was probably expecting some doughy, middle-aged loser he could scare off. He had no clue what was waiting for him. It was all my fault."
Orion picked up the paper from the floor and set it in the correct place. "Rob, how old were you?"
"13. I’d just turned 13."
"Though his endgame might have been different than what humans expected, he was still a predator tricking a child. How is that your fault?"
Guess he had a point. God, a teenage jock never stood a chance against a demon. But I’d been 13 at the time. Neither did I. Neither of us stood a chance, not then. What about now?
"Look,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this. But I wanna try. I’ll help you take down Lex.”
I couldn’t help blaming myself sometimes but Lex sure as hell shared that blame. I very much doubted he regretted it all like I did. He needed to pay and he needed to be stopped before he took away anyone else that someone loved.
Orion placed a hand on mine for a second as a supportive gesture. This really wasn’t what I pictured whenever I thought about being touched by an incubus. The world was full of magic and it was still the simple things that were the wildest.
"Thank you for telling me,” Orion said. Whatever he wasn’t saying was much more loaded and complicated. Maybe ‘I’m sorry you lost someone’ or ‘sorry that he stole someone from you.’
Orion’s face usually switched between two standard modes: calm and pissed off. He did those faces really well. I was not prepared to see him so affected by my story, to see the hurt and sympathy. His dark eyes looked less cold, his cheekbones—okay, those babies were still sharp as hell but weren’t about to be used as a weapon against me. He almost seemed understanding and something else I couldn’t put my finger on.
“You should know…” Orion kept looking heartbroken. “I wish there was something I could—Rob… I… I…”
Something finally clicked.
“Oh, it’s personal for you too,” I realized. “He stole somebody from you too?”
“Yes.” Orion nodded tightly, a small shudder passing over him unless I imagined it. “He, his name was Taryn. I-he…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I assured. He didn’t have to tell me if he wasn’t ready. “I get it.”
Orion smiled sadly. “I’m sorry you get it.”
Yeah, me too. But I understood now. We were in this together. It was personal for both of us.
He held out a hand. I grabbed it and we shook hands.
At another time, I might have had comments about the size of his hand and how it dwarfed mine, but I was too drained to make jokes about guys with big hands or enjoy his touch.
Okay, I enjoyed it alittle.Just when I started breathing a little easier—
“Whoa!”
