Page 14 of The Devil

But it also betrays her softness, her vulnerability.

The color is a contrast to the blue-black of her hair, the heavy kohl around eyes more vivid than anything I’ve ever seen.

I first met Amal when she was seventeen. I’m a fucking decade older than her. Even then, though, I’d never have called her naïve. She’s clever and has always had a way of looking at reality with eyes wide open. I know what it takes to do that. It’s a courage most don’t possess.

I flash back to Cassian and Allegra’s wedding. How Amal looked that day. How she kept her eyes locked on mine, unafraid, as she walked down the aisle as Allegra’s one bridesmaid.

She was a woman by then. The war her father started was over. She’d lost everything and yet she stood with her head held high.

Now, four years later, some of her fire has dimmed. Like the darkness has forced its way in and she’s found a way to coexist with it. Fitted herself around a reality she knows she ultimately cannot escape.

The thought of it, of the world stealing any of that light, that fire, turns my hands to fists and I make a silent vow to put that fire back inside her. To show her she shines brighter and more fierce than even the sun.

Amal slips off her heels. The act brings me back to the present. She stands barefoot, losing three inches and suddenly looking too exposed. Like she’s letting me see her.

Like she wants me to see her.

They call me the Devil for my violence. I earned my name, for my particular love of violence. I think it’s why she asked me what she asked. It’s not the role I was meant to play after everything that happened, but it’s come so naturally and I wonder if that outlet is what’s kept me solid, what’s made me stronger.

With her, it’s not that these four years have cut something out of her.

The opposite. They’ve carved something into her.

Something darker.

Something harder.

I recognize it because the same beast lives under my skin.

What happened to her, as shit as it was, it’s forged this woman who is standing before me now. The woman who had the balls to ask me if I like violence.

And that darkness inside her, it doesn’t need fixing. No.

It is, she is, my Achilles Heel. Always has been.

“Can I have another one?” she asks, gesturing to the whiskey.

“We are being reckless so why the fuck not.” I pour her a glass. I walk it over to her, my shoes the only sound in this unearthly silent place. Even Cotton is quietly watching from her corner.

“Reckless, huh?” She sips her whiskey while I watch. She licks her lips.

Her pale skin is a contrast to her dark hair. She takes her lower lip between her teeth as she looks around the room properly, the walls, the ceiling made of the raw curving natural rock of the cliff. It is something to see, my house. Almost as interesting to look at as she is.

It took three years to build and cost a fucking fortune. It is my sanctuary. The only place I call home. And the fact that she’s the only woman I’ve ever brought here is not lost on me.

She finishes her whiskey sets her glass down on the coffee table.

“You know you sip those, right?”

“I don’t feel like this is a night for sipping whiskey by the fire.” She walks toward Cotton whose tail starts thumping as Amal gives her a few cuddles. “No TV?” she asks casually, turning back to me.

“That’s my TV,” I say, gesturing to the windows through which we watch night turn the water a black. “You hungry?”

She shakes her head.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. She hears it because her gaze drops to it. I ignore it. I know who it’ll be. What he’ll want. But Cassian’s not one to drop things so when I don’t respond to his texts, he calls.

“You should probably get that,” she says. She, too, knows who it is.