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“We used to be.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I thought we had a moment.”
I scoffed. “We mended a bridge, but we’re too different to be dropping in on each other.”
“You can’t drop in, you don’t even know where I live.”
“I don’t care.”
“That’s rude.”
“What are you doing here?” I repeated.
“I have a surprise for you.” Standing, he moved into my office, and I followed him, jiggling the door handle as I walked past. The lock had been busted, the handle bent and twisted. I glared at Zaqiel, and he simply smiled at me.
“You know you could have just come and got me?”
“Yeah, but this way is more fun.”
“Since when have you cared about fun?” I muttered, storming past Zaqiel and shoving him with my shoulder. There was still rage pushing its way through my veins. Having and losing Cara had burned a hole in me and released more anger than I thought I was capable of feeling. She was right, I used anger to cover the pain, and now there was so much more, I’d need to release more fury to cover it.
“This is Evie.” Zaqiel indicated to the woman leaning on my desk. Statuesque with long blonde hair that flowed down her back, she was textbook beautiful, but her arms were littered with a crisscross of varying scars. She looked like she had been through Hell and back, and the last thing she needed was the likes of me.
“Please tell me you’re not trying to set me up.” I pushed the words through gritted teeth. If this is what he thought was the best way to make up for Emily and Cara…
Zaqiel growled, and my eyebrows shot up. “You don’ttouchher.” He snarled at me. I held my hands up, my anger dissipating with the shock of Zaqiel actuallygrowlingat me. He straightened his shoulders after shaking the tension out, and Evie smiled at him with such endearment I felt the bubble of rage in me again. “Evie is my…” He looked at her with the same expression she gazed at him. “She’smyEvie, and I got her to talk to Cara.”
“About what?”
“About the truth of what we are and coming to accept that.”
“She’s really sweet, Emrick. You’re a lucky man,” Evie said, but it sounded scripted.
My lip twitched, and I almost laughed. Yep, she’s really sweet, all right. My pussycat who enjoys the mixture of sex and violence and has killed more than one person. She’s a doll.
Something about the way Evie was looking at me was off. Her smile was slightly strained, except for those moments when she looked at Zaqiel, then a light would cross over her face, and her expression would soften, making her already attractive features even more beautiful.
I’m sure she knew exactly the sort of man I was and who I was to this city. Perhaps she hated men like me. I eyed her scars again. Perhaps she had justifiably good reason to hate men like me. She was only here as a favor to Zaqiel, that much was abundantly clear.
“So?” I scoffed out.
“So, she wanted some more time to think, but she’s certainly feeling better about it, now that the shock has worn off.” Evie lifted her shoulder. “And I guess it helps to know she’s not the only one struggling with this. I told her my whole story…” she glanced fondly at Zaqiel, “… about how we met, how I found out the truth, and my process of dealing with that. I continued to need to deal with it even after we decided to be together. It was no small feat.”
“I feared the truth would break Evie more than once, but she’s an incredibly strong woman,” Zaqiel added.
“It may have broken me had it not been for the fact I already loved you before I knew you weren’t human.” Evie turned back to me. “Cara will go through her own journey, as this is a lot to take on. But she’s strong, and she loves you. I think she’ll come out the other side and come back to you.”
My dark eyes shifted out of focus. “She told you she loved me?”
Evie’s smile was understanding, and her eyes kind at the talk of love, even though there was still hardness behind her look when she turned to me. Evie may have been as strong as Zaqiel claimed, but she looked pure enough to be an angel herself, save for the scars. Although we would scar too if we could, given everything our hearts endured. “She didn’t have to,” Evie said simply.
“Why couldn’t you have just called the club and told me this?” I asked.
“I don’t have a phone,” Zaqiel answered.
“Of course you don’t,” I muttered before sighing heavily. He’d been trying to fix things, and I couldn’t blame him for that. But I wasn’t sure if I was relieved about the flicker of hope he had given me or if it only made it worse if Cara ultimately decided not to come back to me.
As the days dragged on, I got worse. I could feel it happening, and I knew my men could see it too. But there was no willpower in me to stop it. I had told Cara to embrace her darkness, and I was embracing mine, letting it fill me up and take me over, allowing it to stamp out that flicker of hope that had foolishly arisen after the visit from Zaqiel and Evie.
