Page 54

We need something else. A distraction. Something visceral enough to drown out the echoes of the therapist and her boring sister.

I weave through the crowd, ignoring the glares as my eyes scan the urban landscape—filtering out the mundane storefronts and the hidden, lesser demons masquerading as accountants and street merchants—until I spot exactly what my little summoner needs right now.

The gutted, skeletal remains of a building slated for the wrecking ball. It’s a beautiful carcass of a place, fenced off and smelling of wet concrete, rusted iron, and old dust. I smirk, my pace quickening.

This is perfect.

I lean my weight against the metal chain-link fence, the wire groaning and snapping under my touch as I shove my way through the perimeter.

“Malachi, what are you doing?!” Eden squeaks, her panic returning with a fresh, sharp edge. She squirms, her hands pushing against my chest as she tries to find her feet. “Put me down! Look at the sign—it says No Trespassing!”

“Hmm. Does it?” My fingers dig into the soft give of her delicious thigh as I hike her higher, heading inside the bones of the building. “How interesting. I must have missed the 'Mortal Laws Apply to Hellish Entities' fine print.”

“Why are we here?” she demands, her voice echoing off the hollow structure.

“For fun,” I say, finally letting her boots hit the gravel-strewn floor.

“For fun?!” she repeats, looking around the desolate, dark wasteland of rebar and rubble. “Malachi, what the hell does that even mean? What if the police come? We’re going to get arrested!”

“Your moral-high-ground do-gooders won't come here, little summoner.” I reach my boot out and kick a discarded ceramic tile toward her feet, watching as it skitters across the ground. “Smash it.”

She blinks, eyes darting from the tile to my face. “What?!”

“You heard me,” I drawl, crossing my arms over my chest. “Pick it up. Smash it. Obliterate it. Whatever verb satisfies that sensitive little heart of yours.”

“Why?”

“Because,” I say, stepping into her space until the scent of her sweat and those damned peaches fills my senses, “I am sick of you weeping and panicking. Life is built on things that can be broken, Eden. You feel like the world is crushing you? Fine. Crush something back.”

I nudge the tile again with the toe of my boot, closer this time.

“Go on. It’s a piece of ceramic, nothing precious. Unless you’d prefer to go back to the couch and discuss your thoughts and feelings over some tea?”

Eden stares at the tile for a heartbeat longer, her chest heaving with an unsure breath. Then, with a desperate lunge, she snatches it up and hurls it against a half-built wall.

It cracks apart, dropping to the floor in three pathetic pieces.

“That,” I say, my voice dripping with disappointment, “was an embarrassment to the concept of violence. My grandmother could do better, and she’s been ash in the wind for three centuries.”

“I’m not a demon, Malachi!” she snaps, her eyes flashing with the real, hot anger.

“Correct.” I nudge aside a pile of rusted rebar and retrieve a length of discarded iron pipe. I weigh it in my hand before pressing the grit-covered cold metal into her palm. “The porcelain sink over there. Fuck it up.”

She takes the pipe, her fingers trembling as they wrap around the rusted grip. She stalks toward the porcelain basin, hesitates for a second, and then swings.

The sound is delicious. Shards of white ceramic spray into the air like frozen sparks. She swings again, a guttural sound tearing from her throat, and then again, until the sink’s nothing but a stump.

She turns back to me, her hair whipped wild from her swinging, a smudge of grey dust across her cheek.

And she laughs.

A full-blown, startled, genuine peal of amusement that cuts through the gloom of the construction site like a blade. She looks at her hands, then at the carnage, and beams at me—a wide, breathtaking smile that makes her eyes dance.

I’ve seen and felt many things in my lifetime—I’ve made men scream and cry and beg for their sanity, but I’ve never felt the air leave my lungs quite like this. My heart gives a heavy, thudding kick against my ribs.

In this moment, I am so damn glad I clawed my way into this realm.

The heat in my blood shifts, thickening and pooling in a way that is distinctly un-chivalrous. I want to swallow that laugh right out of her throat. I want to see if that giddy joy tastes as sweet as it looks.