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"Did you rob a florist?" I asked.
Dante gave me a withering look as he handed me the mocha. "Why are you assuming the worst again?"
"Because orchids aren't cheap," I said.
"They were out of crab grass, so I had to settle." He gently placed the vase on my dresser and then freed the bakery bag. "And I beat up some kids for these."
After a long, delicious sip, I set the mocha on my bedside table and took the bag from him. Inside were chocolate croissants-my favorite kind of breakfast pastry.
"All this because I got beat up?" I asked.
He sat on the side of the bed. "I'm worried about you."
"I should get in fights with demons more often," I teased, my last few words getting muffled as I bit into a croissant. Tiny flakes and crumbs fell onto my sheets, but I didn't care.
"Not funny, succubus," he said. And to my surprise, I could see that he meant it. None of his usual sardonic humor showed on his face. There was no bitter twist to his lips. "That's never happening again. And I'm going to make sure you get better, immortal healing or not."
"Never took you for a nursemaid."
"Be quiet," he snapped. "And keep eating. Your body needs calories to heal."
Happy to oblige, I started to take another bite and then froze. "Do you think I might start putting on weight?" Calories were nothing I'd ever had to count before. I'd feared neither weight gain nor health effects from the things I ate.
"I think that's the least of your worries."
I supposed he was right. I kept eating-but with a little less enthusiasm. He still looked so serious and worried that I couldn't shake my warm and fuzzy feelings. "Thank you for all of this. It's really great."
He smiled at me, and his gray eyes were lovely in the morning light. "Not many people in this world I feel deserve my help. You're in an exclusive club."
I started to make a comment about how the rest of the club members must be imaginary, but there had already been too much snark this morning. Nanette's attack had seriously shaken Dante up.
"Thank you," I said again. A thought struck me. "I might have some other way for you to help. Will you grab my purse?"
He retrieved it from the living room and handed it over. Reaching inside, I was relieved to see the photo that I'd swiped from Mary was still there. I studied it for a moment, willing the medallion to yield some sort of revelation. All I saw was a translucent brown disc and runes or symbols that could easily be mistaken for a child's scribbles. With a sigh, I handed it to him.
"Does this mean anything to you?"
His brows knit thoughtfully as he looked it over. "No. Should it?"
"I think it might be part of Jerome's summoning. Remember when I asked you about an artist who carved quartz? This is what I turned up. Supposedly, the stone and marks are clues, but I don't know what they are. I guess that's where I need people like you or Erik."
He gazed at the picture for several more moments, and to my surprise, I saw anger building in his features. Abruptly, he stood up and tossed the picture on the floor.
"Son of a bitch," he growled.
"What's the matter?" I exclaimed.
"This," he said, gesturing at me and the fallen picture. "This is the matter. What good am I, succubus? I'm ten times more powerful than those people I sent you to go see. Aside from Lancaster, there's probably no one else in this f**king town who knows as much about the arcane as I do. And what good is it?" He paced around my room and ran his hand angrily through his hair. "Nothing. That's what it's good for. I can't seem to help you. I can't do a goddamned thing. I couldn't save you from that demoness. And I don't know anything about this medallion thing."
I was stunned by his reaction. "Hey, whoa. It's okay. Sit down. Don't beat yourself up."
"It's not okay." He came to a halt. "I feel...powerless." For someone who'd spent his life doing horrible things in the quest for power, I could recognize what a hard admission that was.
"You're not obligated to do anything here," I said gently. "You help me more than you realize. But this isn't your fight. This isn't your responsibility."
" You're my responsibility," he said. "If I can't look out for you, then why do you need me?"
"I'm not with you for what you can do for me."
"Yeah? You're with me for my winning personality?"
The truth was, I still wasn't sure at times why I was with him. I couldn't help but recall his comments about me keeping him as a bed warmer, but true or not, now wasn't the time to bring that up. Plus, he'd been sweet lately-something I'd never expected when I'd turned to him in my post-Seth rage.
"Dante, I'm serious. Don't worry about any of this. I'll take care of it and talk to my friends."
I saw from the look on his face that that wasn't quite what he'd wanted to hear. Knowing I had other people to go to seemed to make him feel more inadequate.
"You shouldn't be involved in this at all," he said.
"What, in finding Jerome? Of course I have to be."
"There are others, people who are more powerful. I don't want you getting hurt again! Why can't you just lie low and keep yourself safe?" he demanded.
"Because it's not what I do! And no one else is going to do it anyway. They're just letting this go. Letting Jerome go."
"Why don't you let it go?" he asked. "Would it be so bad to work under another demon? You've worked for others."
I turned and gazed out the window. The sky was blue, but something told me it was cold out. It was a quirk of Seattle weather. We often had warmer temperatures when it was cloudy out, colder ones when it was sunny. Dragging my eyes back to Dante, I said, "Yeah, I have. But this is different. This isn't right-it shouldn't have happened. I have to find Jerome."
"Yes. You do. It's written all over you. Why do you have to make everything so difficult and create these problems?"
"If you're unhappy, no one's making you stick around," I said quietly.
"Of course I'm sticking around. And if there's nothing to be done for your impulsivity, I might as well help." He snatched up the photo and glared at it. "Let me take this and ask some questions. I might not know what it is-yet-but there are resources I can tap."
There was a hard set to his face. He was a man with a mission, which I preferred to him being down on himself or ranting at me. I was about to send him off with my blessings, but something held me back. I couldn't let the picture go.
"I want to keep the photo," I told him.
He stared. "You don't think I'll bring it back?"
"No, I'm not worried about that. But I did a lot to get it, and besides, I want to show it to some people too. We'll make a copy of it. You can take that."
"Yeah? You got a copy machine in the bathroom?"
"Can't you just draw it or something?"
"Succubus."
"Well, I don't know! But if you want to do sleuthing, you're going to have to find a workaround. Until I feel like traipsing around the city with you, I want the picture to stay with me."
He glowered, looking very much like his usual bitter self. Finally, realizing I wasn't going to yield, he did a hasty trace of the medallion onto another sheet of paper. He added a few notes off to the side and did his best approximation of the symbols. He seemed miserable the entire time.
"Sorry," I said.
"It's fine," he said.
"You're going now?"
"If you think you'll be okay."
I assured him I would be. My phone was nearby, and I had a feeling if he stayed, he'd just grow more and more upset about how he'd let me down and about how I was putting myself at risk for reasons he didn't understand. At least this gave him a feeling of purpose. I promised to call if something happened and breathed a sigh of relief when he finally left.
I stayed in bed for a while after that, consuming my calorie-laden breakfast and thinking about his extreme reaction. I hoped he'd find something out for me, and in the meantime, I needed to do some investigating of my own. First things first, though. I needed to shower.
It turned out to be harder than I expected-but not impossible. I just had to move slowly when I walked to the bathroom, careful not to get too ambitious. Hugh's bandages still covered my back, and it took a fair bit of dexterity to remove them. They were soaked with blood, but underneath, the cuts showed signs of Mei's healing. They were still there, still uncomfortable, but had all scabbed over and were much smaller. I kept the water lukewarm as I showered and was careful when I toweled off to not break any of the scabs open.
