I nod and whisper, “The Marduk wanted to meet with me after he hurt Cynthia. He backed off when he realized I was your key.”
Darius hisses, “We had a recent confrontation ourselves. He must have changed his mind about granting you clemency.”
I swallow hard.
“I’m not going to be mad that you and I have been double-crossing each other’s double-crosses. I wanted to be, but I’m struggling to be angry with you in general when you look so fucking pathetic in this hospital bed and when I’m so deeply in love with you.”
I clench up and then bubbles burst through me. “L-love?”
He nods.
I try to smile, though it’s hard to grin against the grim expression he gives me in return. “I love—”
“No. No ... Don’t say it. You can say it after I fix this.”
“After you fix what?”
He rounds the bed, his massive blue body crackling with lightning as his eyes bleed a color I’ve never seen them before—blood red. He grabs the back of my head and then kisses the bandages over my forehead. “Everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Darius
It’s two days more until Monika is cleared to come home. Though her wounds were mostly superficial, the acid was of an inhuman compound the doctors had never encountered. They had Monika stay the extra days to ensure there weren’t any side effects—and for the annoying COE doctor, Emily, to take photos and samples so she can run tests and, more importantly, come up with something to counteract the worst of the side effects, namely the boils. They spread slowly and continue to disintegrate through whatever substance they hit. Emily is fairly certain that if left untreated, they’d chew through skin to the bone. I try and fail not to think about what Monika’s legs would have looked like if I hadn’t found her in time.
Meanwhile, Emily’s excited jabbering in the face of Monika’s—and my own—distress awarded her a couple electrical zaps. Small ones, of course. Nothing to cause permanent damage. After all, if we’re going to get a useful antidote out of her, I’ll need her brain intact.
I shoot a text to Simon from the back of my limo. I sit there, shifting uncomfortably as my tail rubs against the squeaky leather. Why is it so squeaky? I hate it. Monika’s right: All my furniture is uncomfortable. Even in my damn vehicle. At least I already took care of my apartment.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” I lie, squeaking against my seat again as I glance down at Monika’s legs. She’s wearing hideous sweatpants her annoying godsister brought her that are bright orange and tattered at the hem—Cynthia truly could not have chosen a more hideous pair. But not even their hideousness is enough to abate the rage that shoots up my spine at the thought of the bandages that lie beneath the ugly fabric. Like the carcass of a dead animal on the side of the road, too gruesome to look at, too gruesomenotto look at, I can’t stop staring at every one of her wounds down to the littlest scratch. Every one of her stupid fucking bandages affects me.
The limo is huge. Doesn’t matter. I’m sitting so close to her the outsides of our thighs are zippered together. She tries to edge farther away from me, likely unimpressed with my answer. “Don’t,” I snap.
“Are you going to be an asshole forever?”
“Yes.”
I feel the temperature of her body rise, and lean in to plant a kiss to her temple. I like the way she leans back in to me too much. I like it even more when she says, “I’m really okay.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to be an asshole.”
“I’m your asshole, remember?”
She doesn’t rise to the jibe and instead quips, “You don’t have to go on a rampage.”
“I know. But I like violence.”
She grips my knee and I place my hand, three times the size of hers, atop it. “Don’t start a war.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m going to end it.”
She sighs. “Will you at least let me in on your plans?”
“Like you let me in on so many of yours?”
