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“They never painted your portrait.”
“I sound petty when you put it that way, Cole Matheson,” Ambri said with a dry smile. He dabbed the cloth to my brow, his eyes darkening. “There were other…circumstances. Salt in the wound, you might say. So yes, having youun-erasemeis enough.”
“You’re not telling the truth. Not all of it,” I said gently, and he stiffened, his gaze darting to me. “What your parents did was shitty, but that wasn’t enough to make you turn to…the dark side. Why did they send you away?”
He stiffened. “You’ve heard enough for one day.”
He dropped the cloth in the water and started to move away, but I grabbed his hand.
“Wait.”
Ambri’s gaze looked to my hand gripping his, then up at me. His blue-green eyes were full of depth and humanity, but earlier that night, they’d been black. Twin abysses filled with fire. Pale, bloodless skin and wings…
“Show me again,” I whispered. “Your true form. Let me see. Right now, while I’m here and not scared and desperate. Show me so I know this is real.”
Ambri hesitated for a moment, and then I watched, my heart pounding a steady, heavy rhythm in my chest as the color drained from his skin. Wings emerged from behind him like shadows, but it was his eyes… His beautiful eyes blackened to nothingness. A chasm of shadow. I kept staring, feeling sucked in. I sensed, in that endless dark, a fire.
Smoke and ash.
Pain and terror.
I couldn’t look away. My hand came up and touched my fingertips to Ambri’s porcelain-white skin and found him hot to the touch instead of cold and lifeless. I cupped his jaw as those black-on-black eyes widened in surprise. His mouth opened slightly, and my thumb brushed over his bottom lip. And still, I fell deeper into his gaze. I could smell the smoke and feel the heat of the flames, licking…
“What is this?”
My own whispery voice sounded far away and mingled with others. Distant shouts of a mob and much closer, the pleading cries of a man. Ambri. And another… Someone—somethingevil. An entity of pure malevolence promising him everything.
Ambri reared back and reverted to his human form. I blinked out of a place of terror and heartache, into now.
“A word of advice: don’t look too long into a demon’s eyes, Cole Matheson. Not if you value your sanity.”
“What did I see?”
He didn’t reply but rose to stand near the fire. “You’ll find the spare room down the hall, first door on the left.”
I got to my feet. “What are you going to do?”
“Sit at your bedside and watch you sleep.” He scoffed at my expression. “I have a job to do. Humans are waiting for me to turn them inside out with desire.” He moved to the window, then turned and arched a brow at me. “Unless you’d like me to stay so that you and I—”
I coughed, a flush of heat washing over my face. “No, no. That’s one of my rules, actually.Themajor rule. You and I are not going to—”
“Have any fun?”
“Yes. I don’t do well with casual hookups, and it would just complicate things. Not to mention the actual fact of you being ademon.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
I shot him a look.
“Fine. But if you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” I said. “And no more working your black magic on me. We’re business partners. That’s it.”
He frowned in what looked like genuine confusion, then nodded. “Well? Are you going to stand there and watch me take my anicorpus?”
“Your what?”
“Anicorpus. The animal form demons take on This Side.”
