Page 36 of Eat, Slay, Love

My vision blurs.

“I killed her husband,” I choke out. “I killed her father.” The words hang between us, heavy and irreversible.

“I know now,” I whisper, barely able to breathe around the grief. “My magic wasn’t broken or wrong. It wasn’t failing. It was trying to tell me something. I just… I didn’t listen.” My hands are shaking where they clutch his shirt. “I know the same thing happened to your wife,” I manage, my voice splintering completely. “And I am so sorry, Jonah. I am so, so sorry. I wish I had understood. I wish I had listened.”

Silence settles, thick and viscous.

Jonah doesn’t move, but he doesn’t pull away either. He just holds me there, his heartbeat steady against my back, while I wait to find out whether I’ve finally told him the truth too late.

“I told you, that afternoon in my kitchen, that I was only half,” he finally says. “And you wanted me to clarify… half of what. And I did.” His voice roughens. “Half evil.”

I turn in his arms, searching his face. The ice-blue of his eyes has dimmed, grief threading through the lines of his expression.

“I spent decades feeding on souls,” he continues, the words coming slowly, as if each one cost him something. “I wasn’t selective or careful. I didn’t ask who they were or whether they deserved it. I was hungry, and hunger was enough.”

My chest tightens painfully.

“We can’t go back and change our histories,” he says, his gaze steady on mine, “but we can make amends.”

I swallow.

“What matters now, I think, is what you choose to do after you've accepted what you’ve done. The life you build from there, and who you decide to become. You saved my life, Nightmare,” he says, tracing the side of my face with his thumb. “And what you’re doing here, with me, against Belvedere… it’s only the first few steps on the path towards redemption.”

He takes a deep inhale, exhaling slowly through his nose, parsing through his own thoughts. “It’s not my apology to accept,” he continues gently. “That belongs to them. But know that I hear you. And I understand.” His other hand brushes absently along my arm, grounding me. “If we can’t accept our pasts, how do we move forward towards any future at all?”

I nod, letting the truth of that settle into my bones.

He exhales slowly, something vulnerable flickering across his face. “It’s terribly selfish—dare I say evil—to say this,” he admits, “but… I’m happy your forte is for me.” Because he understands what that means, I realize. That out of every demon in the world, I learned to trust my magic for him. That I chose him over everything I was taught to be.

I rest my forehead against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm beneath it, the warmth that proves he’s here and mine and real and safe. My magic settles around him instinctively, the way water settles into its basin, the way a moon finds its orbit.

I have hunted demons for my entire life. I have never wanted to protect one before. The realization arrives quietly, without ceremony, without warning.

I am falling for him.

And for the first time in my life, the feeling doesn’t frighten me.

It feels like recognition.

“You are my magic,” I whisper.

14

Every ten minutes we invent a new worst-case scenario and draft a contingency for it. Then a contingency for the contingency.

By hour two, the floor looks like the blueprint of a particularly deranged architect.

By hour three, we’re starving.

We order Tito Rad’s, because as it turns out, Batibat has learned how to open the fridge. She has eaten all my cheese. When I accuse her, she blinks slowly at me like, at least I closed it.

It’s during the third hour—while I’m pretending to listen to Jonah explain the structural weaknesses of brownstone stairwells—that I start to feel something else.

Batibat is sprawled across Jonah’s lap like she’s the demon queen of the universe, purring like a small engine. Jonah’s large hands move over her back in slow, absent strokes, smoothing the sleek black fur from shoulders to tail, over and over again. His fingers flex as he scratches behind her ears, then trails down her spine with patient precision.

I glare at her. That is my spot, goddamn it.

And when his thumb hooks lightly at the base of her neck and she arches into him, I can’t help myself—I glance up at his face.