“I’m not the one doing the clawing,” Darien said quietly as he began flipping through the menu of newly released movies.
Indeed, his neck, face, and arms were covered with faded pink lines from where her nails had torn into his skin. The sight of them sent pain stabbing through her chest; he hadn’t tried to pull away from her that whole time—but had merely held her and took the blows like a punching bag, refusing to allow her to put herself in danger.
Without looking at her, he said in the softest voice she’d ever heard him use, “Pick a show with me.”
Pick a show with me.It was perhaps the most ordinary sentence she’d ever heard this Devil say. It was a sharp contrast to what she’d seen of him in Stone’s End, when he’d come out of Cain’s house with a bloody rag.
She was starting to see that there were two very different sides to his coin.
Loren cleared her throat. “Go to Chick Flicks.”
He snorted a laugh but finally turned to look at her. “Must you always make it your daily goal to be a thorn in my side?” Now that she was becoming more aware, the fog from passing out dissipating, she saw that she’d really done a number on him. He was lucky he was a hellseher, for he would heal without so much as a scar on that stunning face, but…
She was an awful person for doing that to him. Awful.
Loren drew in a deep, rattling breath. “More like every minute of every day.” She tried to make her tone light, but the joke came out strangled.
Darien turned to look at her. “Hey,” he said, dipping his head to catch her eye. When she met his gaze, she wondered if he saw them—the tears that were threatening to spill. Whether he saw them or not, his expression visibly softened. “Don’t worry about it. I deserve every mark that’s on me for speaking to you the way that I did.” The apology—and the sincerity in his gaze—brought a strange fluttering to her stomach. Butterflies, she realized. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such a thing.
Loren felt her face heat up. “Hardly.”
“I said don’t worry about it, Rookie. You hear me? Besides, I like pain.”
At that, she had to laugh, though it was a broken sound. “What kind of a person likes pain?”
Amusement danced in his steel eyes. “The fucked-up kind.” He made to hand her the talisman. “Put this on.” A pause, and then he added, “Please.”
She leaned over far enough to take the talisman from him, her fingers grazing the tattoos on his knuckles. The skin-on-skin contact made her heart lurch into an unsteady rhythm, and her stomach fluttered again. The look of innocent curiosity that washed over Darien’s face suggested his hearing had picked up on the change in her heartrate.
Desperate for a distraction—anydistraction—she gave a pointed glance at the remote in his hand.
Darien sighed softly. “Alright.” He kicked off his boots and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “Chick flicks, it is.”
—
Five hours of chick flicks later, and Darien was more than ready to hand over watch duty to Maximus. The fact that he was somewhat…enjoying…a few of those chick flicks wasn’t a good sign. Not a good sign at all. It was time to resharpen his edge and make some cold, hard cash.
But as he finished tying his combat boots in the entrance hall and made for the doors, he realized he didn’t have his car keys.
He patted the pockets of his black cargo pants, his leather jacket… They weren’t there. He checked the glass table, the curved wooden bowl that was starting to get low on ancient coins…
They were nowhere to be found. Which usually only meant one thing.
Slowly, Darien turned toward the stairs, looked up at the second-floor landing—and found his Familiar standing there with a look of expectance on his face, Darien’s keys in his slobbery mouth.
“Bandit,” Darien reprimanded, a touch of humour in his voice. The dog’s cropped tail twitched. Darien held out a hand. “Give them here, boy.”
Over my incorporeal body,the spirit replied.
“Bandit—”
One step in the direction of the staircase and the Familiar bolted, leaving a trail of black mist in his wake.
Darien took off after Bandit, taking the stairs three at a time, but the dog was fast. Bandit bounded up to the third-floor landing, nails tearing into the carpet, pictures rattling on the walls.
Darien thundered up to the third floor and hurtled down the hallway after the Familiar, not realizing whose suite Bandit was leading him into until he caught himself against the doorframe, boots skidding across the carpet…
It was Loren’s suite.
