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“No.” He set down his empty glass on the table in front of him. “I’ve stepped out of that tedious cycle.”
“How…how did you become a demon?”
There’s something you don’t get to say every day.
Ambri arched a brow. “That’s a very personal question, Cole Matheson. I felt human existence no longer had anything to offer me.”
“So you turned your back on life?”
“It turned its back on me first,”he cried with sudden furor.
A short silence passed where the only sound was my heart thudding in my chest. His anger felt volatile, but underneath was a steady current of pain. Like a livewire running through it, fueling it.
Ambri smoothed his expression and smiled placidly. “The hour is late. You should sleep. I have a guest room. In the morning, we can discuss the particulars, acquire your supplies, and such.”
“I don’t know that I can sleep,” I said. “I have a million questions and…”
“And?”
“There’s a part of me that still doubts any of this is real. I’ve been feeling like absolute shit lately. How do I know I’m not having a mental breakdown? Or that you haven’t drugged me?”
“Things usually seem more surreal or questionable in the dark of night. Sleep, and in the stark light of morning, you’ll discover this is all very real, and that your fortune is about to change for the better.”
“That’s something else we need to talk about,” I said. “Demons typically aren’t into changing someone’s fortune for the better unless they get something in return.”
Ambri rolled his eyes. “Suddenly, he’s an expert.”
“What do you get out of helping me? Besides a portrait.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Before I could answer, Ambri thrust himself off the couch, snatched the cloth from the bowl at the foot of my chair, dabbed it in water, and raised it to my cheek.
I reared back. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t hold a serious conversation with you while you’re covered in bloody filth. Now hold still.”
He took my chin in his hand and swiped the damp cloth across my brow. I was only peripherally aware of these actions; my entire being was suffused with his nearness. His eyes were like gemstones—impossible to imagine them black and full of dread. His face…Jesus Christ,my breath caught at the perfection of it.
“I know what you’re doing,” I croaked. “You’re trying to seduce me. Or use your…powers.”
“My powers,” he purred. “I like that.”
I suppressed a groan, my body aching for him. But I ignored it and dug deeper, studying him, searching for what lay beneath that sexual prowess that wanted to unravel me. Ambri was ungodly handsome. Literally. But there was a softness in the chiseled angles of his jaw and cheekbones. A depth in his eyes and that pain hiding behind his sharp wit and easy smirk.
With effort, I pushed his hand away. “If this is going to happen, I need the truth.”
He sighed. “Your curiosity, Cole Matheson, will be the death of me.”
“Tell me. Why is a portrait enough?”
He hesitated for another moment, then went back to work, gently wiping the dirt and blood from my face, talking as he did.
“In 1736, my father, Timothy, married my mother, Katherine. They had a daughter, Jane. They’re all there, in the history books, every branch in the family tree accounted for, except one. In 1762, when my mother was forty-eight—ancient by the standards of the day—she gave birth to a son.”
Ambri’s breath was sweet with the bite of brandy as he drew the cloth down my cheek and gently touched it to my cut lip.
“I was what they call nowadays, a ‘happy accident,’ though my aged parents didn’t see it that way. To them, I was an afterthought. A nuisance who sapped their energy. As soon as an opportunity arose, they sent me away. Erased me. Pruned the branch, as it were.”
